Military Review English Edition January-February 2015 | Page 59

BACK TO THE FUTURE

(Photo by Sgt. Melissa Parish, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division PAO)

Capt. Cory Roberts, an instructor at the Captains Career Course-Common Core Proof of Principle, gives guidance to Capt. Kate McCray
on her progress, Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., 1 September 2011.

competency. Not only does the institutional domain
transcend all components and branches of the service, but also soldiers consistently navigate between
the institutional and operational domains for training and education.
Moreover, Brig. Gen. Joseph Martin notes that
TRADOC, including Fort Leavenworth’s School of
Advanced Leader Training, has sought to standardize the education of training management across
the institutional domain.33 Still, based in large part
on ARFORGEN, brigade commanders consistently
identify training management as a shortfall among
recently promoted captains. For captains attending the Maneuver Captains Career Course (Fort
Benning, Ga.) therefore, “a basis of understanding of
training management is now taught in the course.”34
While majors matriculating into the Command and
General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth
are trained and developed to conduct unified land
operations, they also graduate with a thorough understanding of the Army’s military decisionmaking
process.35 Commanders at battalion level or higher
use this process to plan training.36
MILITARY REVIEW  January-February 2015

Based on sequestration and ARFORGEN, however, fewer captains and majors privy to revamped
training approaches are available, sharply mitigating the ability of the institutional domain to instill
such competency any time soon. This situation
exacerbates training management as a lost art.
According to Chris Campbell in a 2014 Stars
and Stripes article, officer separation boards identified nearly 500 majors and 1,200 captains for early
release or retirement.37 As sequestration continues
to compel a winnowing of the force’s end strength
to perhaps as low as 420,000 soldiers, senior leaders
anticipate further cuts.38 Similarly, because of the
prolonged conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, some
4,000 majors in year groups 2003 or earlier have
not attended intermediate-level education.39
Further compounding this diminished population of junior officers formally educated in training management is the so-called optimization of
intermediate-level education. According to Maj. Gen.
Gordon Davis, the optimization policy emplaced a
merit-based selection process for resident attendance
of CGSC that would provide “the right education at
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