: Army infantry officers attend The Infantry Officer's Basic Course when they go on active service, which teaches them to be platoon leaders. About two-three years later, they attend The Infantry Officer's Advanced Course to learn to be company commanders. The Marines have their own training program for platoon leaders, but no equivalent to The Advanced Course. To provide at least a smattering of this training, they send 12 infantry officers per year to the Army Infantry Officer's Advanced Course. Considering that there are 2,129 Marine officers assigned to infantry, this seems to be far too few. On the other hand, most Marine artillerymen attend the Army Artillery Officer's Advanced Course at Fort Sill and a fair percentage of Marine armor officers attend the Army Armor Officer's Advanced Course at Fort Knox.--Stephen V Cole

China will form four new military colleges: the Shijiazhuang Army Command College, Information Engineering University, Science and Engineering University, and the Institute of Artillery.--Stephen V Cole

The US Army has given the Sergeant Major of the Army his own "positional flag". Only a handful of US officers (all the rest being generals) have such flags.--Stephen V Cole