INDIAN HEAD, Md.
Marines and sailors assigned to the Marine Corps Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, located at Naval Support Facility Indian Head, Md., will now receive college credit for their extensive training in responding to emergencies and disasters.
Wallace Boston, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the American Public University System, and Lt. Col. Michael Rohlfs, commanding officer for CBIRF, signed a memorandum of understanding today to accredit the command's Basic Operations Course.
A few months ago, the course was expanded to a three-week training regimen to teach students emergency life-saving skills, decontamination techniques, and hazardous material awareness and operations.
Every CBIRF member is required to complete the Basic Operations Course, "from private to the CO (commanding officer)," emphasized Lt. Col. Rohlfs. "We run the three-week course nine times a year and have about 24 students per class," he explained.
In addition, personnel from more than 63 state, federal and international agencies have also completed the course.
As a result of the agreement with APU, CBIRF personnel completing the command's Basic Operations Course can receive up to 15 hours of transfer credit toward one of five associate's degree and bachelor's degree programs offered through APU's American Military University. The programs range from include general studies to emergency and disaster management to homeland security and public health.
"This accreditation is especially important to me personally and to the command as a whole," commented Lt. Col. Rohlfs. "We're giving our Marines and sailors an opportunity for professional development and an incentive for higher education."
In his remarks to the CBIRF audience that witnessed the signing, Boston highlighted the fact that the American Military University was founded in 1991 by a Marine to assist military members in obtaining credit for higher education based on their active-duty training.
In particular, Boston explained, "He saw the need for distributed education that would embrace the training offered by the military that could be applied toward earning a degree."
Initially, AMU programs focused on graduate-level work in amphibious and land warfare. More recently, the university has added programs supporting the national security community at the undergraduate level.