New intel school named for fallen Marine

New intel school named for fallen Marine
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jul 20, 2007 15:02:24 EDT

A new counterintelligence school building named for a Marine intelligence specialist killed in action was dedicated Friday morning at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center at Dam Neck, in Virginia Beach, Va.

Known as Baum Hall, the facility is named for Gunnery Sgt. Ronald Eric Baum, a Marine counterintelligence/human intelligence specialist. Baum was killed May 3, 2004, near Fallujah, Iraq, according to information provided by the Navy.

The new building will be used for training sailors and Marines as counterintelligence and human intelligence specialists. According to information provided by the Navy, Baum Hall was built because of “the growing need for greater numbers” of such specialists.

Due to current war demands, the Navy provides selected intelligence specialists an eight-week “ground intelligence” course that had previously been reserved for sailors in the naval special warfare community. The course covers terrain analysis, land navigation, tactics and other subjects.

Graduates of the course get assignments with Navy forces operating ashore or close to shore, such as the new riverine squadrons, Seabees, explosive ordnance disposal units, maritime interdiction teams and coastal warfare squadrons, as well as special warfare units.

Baum joined the Marine Corps with his younger brother in 1986 and began his career as an anti-tank assaultman, according to his official biography. In 1992, he began training to change his military occupational specialty and become an interrogator-translator.

He attended the Interrogation of Prisoner of War Course at Dam Neck. He was subsequently assigned to several Marine intelligence units and also served as an instructor at the Navy’s survival, evasion, resistance and escape school in Brunswick, Maine.

Ellie