Navy extending training to improve skills, character
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Navy is adding two weeks to boot camp this year in an overhaul aimed at improving recruits’ fighting and emergency skills, while also focusing on suicide prevention and character issues such as sexual assault, hazing and extremism in the ranks.
Navy officials said Friday that expanding boot camp to 10 weeks will provide more leadership training and ensure that sailors reporting to their jobs in the fleet are better prepared for duty.
The changes come as the Navy grapples with a string of shipboard crises in recent years, such as deadly fires and disastrous collisions, and as the military struggles with spikes in suicides as well as sexual assaults.
Rear Adm. Jennifer Couture, who leads the Naval Service Training Command, told reporters that the first eight weeks of boot camp include a lot of character development for the recruits. The added two weeks, she said, are meant to be a “reinforcing mechanism.”
“We’re telling our recruits … here are all of the things that we expect you to do, and here’s how we expect you to behave and act,” she said. “We believe very strongly that those types of behaviors are directly impacting our fighting readiness and the performance of our sailors.”
The increases in sexual assaults and suicides have prompted congressional criticism of the military and spurred leaders to seek ways to address the problems. More recently, the services have been working to root out extremism after a number of former and current service members were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Couture said much of the added two weeks will involve “life skills” training to address problems such as sexual harassment, sexual assault, hazing and suicide. And the instruction will stress the core Navy values of honor, courage and commitment.
At the same time, she said, the additional weeks will be used to bolster training on how to respond when sailors face life-threatening situations such as fires, collisions and other mishaps.
She said that based on feedback, Navy leaders realized they needed to reinforce basic training to make sure that when sailors graduate and report to a ship, they are already prepared to respond to such emergency situations.
In 2017, Navy leaders recommended changes in sailor training, crew requirements and safety procedures to address systemic problems across the Pacific fleet.