Photo By Chief Petty Officer Kathleen Gorby | U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Nelson Ortiz, assigned to Security Cooperation team...... read more read more
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PUERTO CASTILLA, Honduras – The Marines of Special-Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-Southern Command have been learning a new way to develop their Honduran Marine Corps partners—should-to-shoulder indoctrination.
The Marines of SPMAGTF-SC’s Security Cooperation Team have discovered this during their deployment to Central America as they are training beside their regional partners, the Honduran Marines.
U.S. Marines and sailors assigned to the SPMAGTF-SC are deployed to Puerto Castilla, Honduras to work with the Centro de Adiestramiento Naval to develop a training curriculum for Marines.
“The overall purpose and mission of the CAN training is to indoctrinate, train and graduate Infantes de Marina (Honduran Marines),” said Capt. Juan Diaz, SCT officer in charge. “So we came down here to help the CAN create a program and start the implementation.”
SCT’s first step in Honduras was to create a training plan modeled after the United States Marine Corps Basic Officer School and Marine Combat Training/School of Infantry.
“These schools serve as a great model because we have formalized the process on how to create Marines,” said Diaz. “We just modified them to better fit the capabilities and operational needs of the Honduran Marine.”
The SCT also incorporated aspects of the Colombian Marine Corps into the CAN training.
“This curriculum also follows much of the COLMAR course due to the fact that their operations are similar to those executed in Honduras,” said Diaz. “The COLMAR was created in a similar way; U.S. Marines helped Colombians create a curriculum, trained the trainers and now they help surrounding countries develop their program.”
After the completion of the curriculum proposal package, the CAN leadership was granted an audience at the Naval Headquarters in Tegucigalpa in order to present the curriculum to Honduran Naval Operations.
With the curriculum still in the approval process, the SCT has shifted its focus to training future instructors of the CAN. For the remainder of the SCT’s deployment, they will focus on three segments of the curriculum: Combat Life Savers, Martial Arts Instructors and Marksmanship.
“Right now we are training the trainers,” said Diaz. “We completed the CLS portions and are about to start the Martial Arts segment. We assess their knowledge at every level.”
When the SCT departs for home later this year, another SCT will replace them and continue teaching the new Infantes de Marina curriculum.
In addition to the security cooperation events, Marine engineers with SPMAGTF-SC are conducting community service projects in Gracias a Dios, Honduras. The SPMAGTF-SC is deployed to focus on building and maintaining partnership capacity within each country through shared values, challenges and responsibilities, which begins with maintaining and improving Marine Corps doctrine across the region.
U.S. Southern Command deployed the SPMAGTF comprised of 280 Marines and sailors to Honduras in June of this year to conduct tailored training and security cooperation engagements, in support of the U.S. commitment to improving citizen security in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize.
| Date Taken: | 07.30.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 08.18.2015 14:31 |
| Story ID: | 173435 |
| Location: | PUERTO CASTILLA, HN |
| Web Views: | 324 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, U.S. Marines Deploy to Create Training Program for Honduran Marines, by CPT Aleksandra Sawyer, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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