 For 72 years, this building has been the home of the Blue Diamond, the First Marine Division. For 31 of those years, our country has been at war. That means that our division has been in the fight. No fight can be won unless we win the squad battle. Early in March, the Cominon approved the squad theater development program as a way to formally educate and develop our infantry non-commissioned officers currently serving in leadership billets. SLDP is a squad leader development program. Pretty much part of the 36th Cominon's Envisionment for Expeditionary Force development. In essence, what it's allowed us to do as an organization is educate our infantry small unit leaders without the distractions of deployments, train exercises, and regular battalion training, get them back in those battalions ready to go for deployments. Squyler is the most important small unit leader. He owns those marines. He's a direct right-hand man of that platoon sergeant, that platoon commander, company commander, and that battalion commander. He has day-to-day contact with those marines. He feeds them. He waters them. He trains them. He heals them. He's the man. He owns them. They have the ability to get an NCO to actually get them formal school trained for his MOS progression and his EPME progression and then get them back in that unit, full up around, educated, trained, maturity, and putting that information and education to work from start to finish without interruption is just an invaluable asset to us. SLDP program has two tracks, one of which allows you to become a combat instructor either in Camp Geiger, North Carolina, or here in Camp Pendleton, California. Either track allows the Marine Corps to have more developed squad leaders that can lead marines in combat. Actually operating force track, very similar to what was around the Marine Corps about eight years ago in regards to retention bonuses for OP4. The intent is to put them at a battalion at D minus 365, about 12 months prior to that unit's deployment to institutionalize and get that total unity of the small leadership at the front of a train cycle and the cohesiveness all the way throughout deployment. If a Marine wants to get more information about the program, they can reach out to their unit's career planner and find out more about the way ahead. We have a sacred obligation to the families of America to ensure that we place not the most available, but the most talented and the most capable squad leaders we have in charge of our units as they leave the wire. The tactical decisions that our squad leaders are making have strategic implications. Reporting from the historic First Marine Division, this is Staff Sergeant Wayne Edmiston.