Military Education: Reference Handbook, A

Professional Military Education (PME) is broader and more rigorous than widely understood in the United States. It occurs at various, set levels of military experience. It increasingly conforms to standards imposed by outside civilian accrediting bodies and is mandated and monitored, to an extent, by Congress. Watson chronicles the evolution of professional military education during the last 60 years. Careful to draw distinctions between training and education, she chronicles briefly the history of PME and examines some of the major personalities involved in shaping it and the evolution of the curriculum stressed in PME programs. She supplements her narrative with key documents, a glossary, and a timeline of important events. When combined with the narrative, they dispel the popular notions of an uneducated military force. Author Biography: CYNTHIA A. WATSON is Professor of Strategy at the National War College.