Budget shortfall is training windfall for Marine sergeants at air base in Japan

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — The Marine Corps could not afford to send 68 Marines from this air station south of Hiroshima to Sergeants School this year, so Sergeants School came to them.

A $21 million shortfall in the Marine Corps’ Formal Schools Training Support Program meant no travel budget for some forms of professional military training, unless an individual Marine unit pays the cost.

For the next two years, Marine Aircraft Group-12 is paying to bring instructors from Hawaii to conduct the five-week course, MAG-12 Sgt. Maj. Jim Gray told Stars and Stripes by phone Friday.

Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy, Hawaii, Sergeants School Class 5-26 begins the run portion of their entry physical fitness assessment during the first ever in-residence class at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, July 8, 2026. (Janiqua Robinson/Stars and Stripes)

Students at Sergeants School prepare for a debate at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, July 7, 2026. (Janiqua Robinson/Stars and Stripes)

Gunnery Sgt. Zoe Lekakis, an instructor with the Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy, Hawaii, explains drill and ceremony movements to students during Sergeants School at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, July 9, 2026. (Janiqua Robinson/Stars and Stripes)

The course is mandatory professional military education designed to prepare sergeants for promotion to staff sergeant, to lead larger groups of Marines and to push them out of their comfort zones, according to Gunnery Sgt. Adam Hazlett, senior leadership and warfighting instructor.

“The moment I heard that they were doing a residency here in Iwakuni, which has never happened before, I spoke to my staff sergeant, and I kept asking him for updates,” Sgt. Ashley Magana, a maintenance administrator for Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 242, said during an interview Wednesday.

The course began July 6 and ends on Aug. 11. Normally, sergeants from Iwakuni would take the class in Hawaii or Okinawa.

But the Formal Schools Training Support Program came up short for fiscal year 2026, the result of rising costs for travel and lodging on military bases, according to a Marine administrative message published in December.

Gunnery Sgt. Nicholas Pietrowiak, an instructor with Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy, Hawaii, inspects Sgt. Francisco Medrano’s uniform during Sergeants School at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, July 6, 2026. (Janiqua Robinson/Stars and Stripes)

From left, Sgt. Ashley Magana, Sgt. Cornell McClure and Sgt. Johnathan CulcayVeletanga hold a plank for a fitness assessment during the first ever in-residence Sergeants School at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, July 8, 2026. (Janiqua Robinson/Stars and Stripes)

Sergeants School Class 5-26 practices drill and ceremony during the first ever in-residence class at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, July 9, 2026. (Janiqua Robinson/Stars and Stripes)

The training support program is short by nearly a fourth of its $75 million budget, according to email from Gray on July 2.

No courses were canceled, but the Marine Corps prioritized them into three tiers for spending, including those available only if the unit pays the cost, according to the message, MARADMINS 570/25.

“Because there is no residence course here, and travel is required to attend, there are only unit funded options for travel,” Gray said in the email. 

Travel costs to send 60 Marines from MCAS Iwakuni to the course elsewhere came to $240,000, but bringing a mobile training team from Hawaii came to just under $60,000, he said.

Gray said he contacted 1^st Sgt. Matthew Caruso, director of the Staff Noncommissioned Officer Academy, and discovered that another sergeants’ class had only reached 7% enrollment.

They worked to cancel that class and shift the course money instead to Iwakuni.

“I was excited because for these guys, their life changes and it’s more than just [professional military education],” Gray said during an interview Tuesday. “I hope they take away all the resources, and I hope they glean from this experience that it’s an investment in them.”

Caruso arrived with four instructors from the College of Enlisted Military Education who are teaching the course at the air base.

Throughout the course students will compete with one another and brush up on drill and ceremony, Marine Corps history, troop leading and warfighting scenarios. Physical training sessions are scheduled five times a week, according to Hazlett.

“The intent in us coming out here was to be able to deliver the exact same product at the exact same standard and the exact same level in Hawaii as we are here,” Hazlett said during an interview Tuesday. “We weren’t going to come out here and do this if we had to take shortcuts.”