Published May 27, 2026, 3:00 AM EDT
The updated 29-day course adds a week of tactical field training and simulated combat missions to the Army’s foundational NCO school.
The Army National Guard is running its first validation of an overhauled Basic Leader Course at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa., expanding the service’s foundational school for junior noncommissioned officers from 23 days to 29. The Pennsylvania National Guard’s 166th Regiment-Regional Training Institute launched the test course on April 28, which was scheduled to wrap up by May 26. The training occurred shortly after the active-duty Army ran a separate pilot program at Fort Sill, Okla. The National Guard BLC course is expected to help shape the curriculum before the entire service fields the new program later this year. Instructors from five other states’ Regional Training Institutes traveled to Pennsylvania to observe, while reviewing lesson plans, training materials and evaluation methods that their own schools will likely adopt. RTI cadre from Nebraska, Colorado, Ohio, Mississippi and Vermont participated.
Eight Days in the Field
The most significant departure from the previous course is the time spent outside the classroom. The new program puts students in the field for eight days, running leader stakes lanes, land navigation exercises and a multi-day situational training exercise. During leader stakes, soldiers rotate through a series of lanes targeting foundational combat skills, from treating casualties and qualifying on weapons to executing patrol movements and recovering disabled vehicles. Other lanes build on those skills with ambush and indirect-fire reaction drills, casualty evacuation procedures, nine-line medevac calls and patrol base operations. The difficulty increases each day.
