The Marine Corps is looking for enlisted Marines with air-control expertise to tackle a new warrant officer job focused on rapidly exchanging information with other services and foreign forces.
The new primary military occupational specialty ― called the command and control interface control officer ― will be responsible for coordinating the use of networks and ensuring insights derived from battlefield data are shared between commanders no matter the domain, according to a Marine administrative message published Tuesday.
To be eligible for the job, listed as the military occupational specialty 7216, enlisted Marines must have expertise in existing and emerging communication practices and technologies. That includes Link 16 ― a secure, jam-resistant network used by NATO.
The Corps specifically wants Marines who also have a background in managing airspace.
The warrant officer job is open to enlisted Marines who hold the military occupational specialties low altitude air defense gunner (7212), tactical air defense controller (7236), air support operations operator (7242), air traffic controller (7257) or senior air traffic controller (7291).
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The Corps is establishing the job as part of an effort to update command and control amid the sweeping revamp known as Force Design. The service has expressed interest in adapting the aviation community’s command-and-control approach more broadly.
“Our aviation C2 organizations and tactical employment concepts are well-defined and recognized by the joint force,” the service wrote in a 2022 planning document on Force Design. “We are considering new C2-specific formations using our approach to aviation C2 as a model.”
The new role arrives as the Defense Department pursues what’s known as Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control, or CJADC2.
The multibillion-dollar concept envisions an interlinking of land, air, sea, space and cyber forces’ networks, allowing the best-positioned and best-equipped unit to strike first. For now, many of the military’s databases and applications are siloed or service-specific, impeding what defense officials have said are critical exchanges of information.
The proliferation of advanced communications equipment and digital threats prompted the creation of the new warrant officer position, the Marine Corps said.
Once Marines are selected as command and control interface control officers, they must complete the warrant officer basic course and attend the joint interface control officer course, according to the administrative message. More advanced command-and-control and air-operations courses are “recommended” for these warrant officers.
Marines who are interested in the promotion should look out for a future Marine administrative message called “Fiscal Year 2025 Enlisted to Warrant Officer Regular Selection Board MARADMIN,” according to Tuesday’s message.
Irene Loewenson is a staff reporter for Marine Corps Times. She joined Military Times as an editorial fellow in August 2022. She is a graduate of Williams College, where she was the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper.
Colin Demarest was a reporter at C4ISRNET, where he covered military networks, cyber and IT. Colin had previously covered the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration — namely Cold War cleanup and nuclear weapons development — for a daily newspaper in South Carolina. Colin is also an award-winning photographer.
