Navy's task force excel revamping sailors' training.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold

The Navy has embarked upon an ambitious program to change the way it trains its sailors. Named Task Force Excel (Excellence through Commitment to Education and Learning), this initiative is intended to make Navy training more adaptable to new technologies and war-fighting tactics.

"You won't recognize the Navy when we're done with this process," the task force's director, Rear Adm. J. Kevin Moran, told National Defense. Moran--a naval aviator whose previous assignment was commander of Amphibious Group Two in Little Creek, Va.--took over Task Force Excel in August.

The task force, headquartered in Norfolk, was launched a year earlier, after completion of an executive review of naval training. The review, entitled "Revolution in Training," declared that major improvements were needed to keep up with technological advances, retain experienced personnel and attract talented recruits. The review, headed by retired Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, found that:

* Training demands are increasing as technology plays an ever more important role in naval warfare.

* Supplies of experienced sailors--especially within enlisted ranks--are declining as those who survived the personnel cuts of the 1990s become eligible to retire.

* Recruiting new sailors is becoming more difficult.

The Navy's current training system, the review concluded, is not set up to produce and maintain the trained force of sailors that the service needs.

Navy training has changed enormously since the service's early clays, when enlisted sailors were taught little more than how to rig sails, tie knots, chip paint, fire cannon and polish brass. Today's training is far more sophisticated, but it relies too much on 30-year-old methods "rooted in the Cold War-era, when crews, their ships and squadrons had fewer missions, and conscription ensured a constant supply of manpower," the document said.

All too often, said the review, sailors still are sent to traditional classrooms and taught basically how to operate and maintain specific types of equipment--such as aircraft engines, computers, radios and radar--rather than prepared to find their way through a lifelong career, both inside and outside of the Navy.

Exceptions to this general rule do exist, the review said. Among the examples cited as offering "effective, responsive and flexible training" were the training programs for combat aircrews, Aegis combat system operators, submariners and nuclear-power technicians.

For the most part, however, "the formal, school-house setting dominates Navy training today," the review said. If the demand for seats in those classrooms meets the forecast through 2007, however, there will be between 7,634 and 9,366 more students than the Navy has funded.

Many of these students...