Navy starting to cut its mandatory General Military Training courses

The Navy is beginning to recognize its Jurassic training program needs a facelift, with some leaders saying General Military Training is impersonal.

The GMT programs require sailors to be annually subjected to hours of training on topics ranging from sexual assault to suicide prevention, and leadership has decided to eliminate many of the courses allowing commands to deliver the information however they choose.

The Navy Times reports the requirement that course completion be documented in the Fleet Management and Planning System database is also going away, though officials recommend commands keep local training records.

The Navy’s goal is to become more personal with its sailors.

“It puts training back in the hands of sailors, eliminates passive, impersonal, and ineffective approaches to training, and enables a powerful and personal focus on integrity, accountability, and character through an interactive learning dialogue,” Vice Adm. Robert Burke, chief of naval personnel, announced Monday in a message to the fleet.

Online courses will still be available to serve as a guide for commands looking to create their own training programs. However leaders will not be required to re-create the online training material, Stars & Stripes reports.

“Bottom line we heard you, we fixed it,” Burke’s message said.

The Navy is looking toward the past to decide how it conducts future training. Leadership’s guidance for how they want to conduct training — face-to-face.

Local commands will conduct face-to-face training in small units on topics such as suicide awareness, sexual-assault prevention and equal-opportunity regulations, according to the new guidance.

“It puts training back in the hands of sailors, eliminates passive, impersonal, and ineffective approaches to training, and enables a powerful and personal focus on integrity, accountability, and character through an interactive learning dialogue,” Burke said.

Top Navy officials are not mandating classrooms, but instead asking individual commands to be creative and pick times such as quarters for muster or all hands calls to have personal discussions with smaller groups of sailors about these topics.

Sailors are welcoming the change. They say it’s been challenging in the past to complete GMT… especially when underway.

“I found training online frustrating as the website was always down or slow,” Petty Officer 3rd Class Tiffani Baker, a quartermaster aboard the USS Benfold told Stars & Stipes. “We only have some many computers on the ship. I would have to go to the USO, [Fleet Recreation Center] or the library.”

Sailors are also showing concern about the procedures saying face-to-face can present its challenges.

“If training is being held and they gather everyone together, but a third of the command is [temporary additional duty] or at school or something, they would have to coordinate to make sure that everyone has the proper training,” Petty Officer 3rd Class Trevor Reese, a fire controlman aboard the Benfold told Stars & Stripes.

© 2017 Bright Mountain Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

The content of this webpage may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of Bright Mountain Media, Inc. which may be contacted at info@brightmountainmedia.com, ticker BMTM.