Commandant of the Marine Corps General Robert B. Neller speaks to Marines, sailors, and international service members attending the Expeditionary Warfare School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. (U.S. Marine Corps / Gabriella Garcia)
On Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, an old brick building sits tucked away on Geiger Ridge. Not many Navy surface warfare officers (SWOs) know about it, but to the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Warfare School (EWS), it is home.1 EWS, through its ten-month professional military education program, instructs roughly 200 Marine captains each year and has shaped countless young officers and produced more than a few generals. Unlike most Marine Corps training schools, EWS is not exclusionary but is open to other services. Wandering the halls, a visitor is likely to see Army officers, officers from allied and partner nations, and even a handful of commissioned airmen. But it is much rarer to encounter a Navy SWO. In fact, not a single SWO was in the 2018 academic class.
This low attendance may seem inconsequential to current Navy leadership, but it will generate a host of future problems that will compound today’s missed opportunities. Navy SWOs need to be exposed early to how their expeditionary force functions—how Marines plan, think, and fight. But the average SWO knows no more about the in-depth workings of the Corps than the amateur military history buff.
Similarly, Marine officers at EWS get little in the way of naval knowledge. The single Navy instruction block accounts for less than 1 percent of the curriculum. In an era that prioritizes joint education, it is borderline professionally negligent for the Navy and Marine Corps to allow junior SWOs and Marine officers to advance without a better understanding of each other’s service.
Of course, academic instruction on future operations represents just a small part of an officer’s professional development, but on future battlefields, such a knowledge gap will prove dangerous. After all, the Marine Corps and Navy are not like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; you cannot build both sides separately and then hope that by slapping words such as joint and integration on them they will make a war-ready product.
Senior officers know this. Senior service schools are champions of collaboration, and senior field grade officers across the Department of Defense (DoD) are encouraged to seek challenging joint billets and build a “purple” résume. Those same officers preach the importance of effectively integrating and understanding sister services for the future battlefield. Yet there stands EWS, a prime opportunity leveraged by countless others but ignored by its own parent department and its most important non-Marine student, the Navy SWO.
Senior-level integration is certainly important, but EWS presents an opportunity to build Navy-Marine integration at a more operational and tactical level. It allows lieutenant SWOs an opportunity to build a more comprehensive understanding of the Marines they will find on board one of their amphibious ships in a future fight. As cliché as this may sound, EWS also provides SWO and Marine students an opportunity to build lasting professional relationships.
The Navy certainly faces challenges—mostly career path timing—in sending at least a handful of SWOs to Quantico each year, but it is worth trying to mitigate these complications. The Navy already has accelerated warfighter career tracks. Now is the moment for other potential adjustments to get SWOs to EWS. The 13-week Amphibious Warfare program has the potential to improve SWO-Marine integration, but it covers only a quarter of the EWS curriculum. When the Navy assigns one or two mid-grade instructors to EWS, it is a positive gesture, but it comes nowhere near the benefits that would be accrued if a dozen student SWOs were integrated with and learned from their Marine peers.
Sacrifices may have to be endured to get SWOs to EWS, but that is not a unique situation. Most Army students at EWS pass up their own occupation-specific schooling to attend. Like their Air Force counterparts, they likely will never find themselves embarked in an amphibious readiness group. But the chance to build an understanding of joint operations as a young officer is worth the opportunity cost—exponentially for anyone who touches the blue-green team as closely as do SWOs.
There is no reason why at least six SWOs are not attending EWS annually. Even that small a number would significantly enrich the several-month seaborne curriculum block and enable professional relationships that could be called on for decades. So in the name of all warfighters who will be in the next fight, this humble soldier begs Navy leaders: Send your SWOs up Geiger Ridge.
1. Expeditionary Warfare School is a 41-week resident program that provides career-level professional military education and training to company grade Marine officers and selected officers from other services and countries. EWS delivers six core courses: Profession of Arms, Warfighting, Marine Air Ground Task Force Operations Ashore and Afloat, Occupational Field Expansion Course, and Future Operating Environment.