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to the "POINTER VIEW"May 10, 2002
Return
to the "POINTER VIEW"
May
10, 2002
Guard opening 2nd 'fast-track' officer school
WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- Army National Guard soldiers in the eastern United States wanting to become officers as quickly as possible will learn a great deal about "The Gap" beginning this summer.
Fort Indiantown Gap in southeasten Pennsylvania, near Harrisburg, will become home to the second "fast-track" eight-week officer candidate school run by the Army National Guard.
The first school of its kind, accredited by the Army, has been based for the past three years at Fort Meade north of Rapid City, S.D.
As many as 275 officer candidates, including some from the Army Reserve, will be able to earn reserve commissions as second lieutenants during two months of intense training that will begin June 8, explained Pennsylvania Army Guard Maj. Jonathan Scott.
The men and women enrolled in the Guard’s eastern OCS Accelerated Course 501 will report to The Gap for four weeks of leadership training on June 22 after completing their first two weeks at Camp Fretterd, Md. They will spend their two final weeks, beginning July 20, at Fort McClellan, Ala., before graduating in early August, said Scott.
Scott is the operations officer for the Pennsylvania Army Guard’s 166th Regiment, commanded by Col. Steven Ward, that is based in a compact, $27 million campus of modern brick buildings at the sprawling National Guard Training Center which the Army first opened in 1931.
"There is a significant shortage of second lieutenants and other junior officers in the Guard," said Scott. "This is one way to help fill those ranks."
There were 2,038 vacancies for 1st and 2nd lieutenants and 4,220 vacancies for captains throughout the Army Guard at the end of March, said Lt. Col. Cindy Dwyer at the National Guard Bureau. That amounts to a 27 percent shortage for company-grade officers, she explained.
The men and women fast-trackers will spend their first two weeks in Maryland with other officer candidates who will be starting a traditional 16-month commissioning program. They will spend their final two weeks in Alabama with other candidates who are concluding the traditional Guard course.
The Army Guard conducts its traditional OCS programs at seven regional sites. That OCS includes two weeks of training at the start of the program, one weekend every month for a year, and two full weeks of training before commissioning. The four weeks at The Gap, however, will be exclusively for the fast-track candidates. Most will come from east of the Mississippi River, said Scott, while most fast-track candidates from the western United States will train in South Dakota.
The programs are similar in scope to the six-week officers training school that the Air National Guard’s Academy of Military Science has run near Knoxville, Tenn., for more than 30 years.
The Pennsylvania program is intended to handle the number of Army Guard soldiers who want to earn commissions before their 40th birthdays, who do not want to endure the 16-month traditional process or spend 14 weeks of Army OCS at Fort Benning, Ga., and who can devote eight straight weeks to the effort, Guard officials explained.
Last year, Scott recounted, 60 Pennsylvania citizen-soldiers applied for the fast-track program in South Dakota, but far fewer were accepted by that school which trained 174 candidates from 25 states.
"The National Guard Bureau said we could begin a program here at Fort Indiantown Gap if we could attract the numbers. We are confident we can do that," said Scott whose staff had received 206 applications by mid-April.
The cross section includes young people who enlisted with the idea of earning a commission, former active-duty soldiers, and senior sergeants who have already attended The Gap’s NCO Academy. One applicant is a lawyer, said Staff Sgt. Raymond Reeder.
The program is open to all citizen-soldiers who meet the requirements to be commissioned. They include:
n A score of at least 110 on their military entrance test.
n A bachelor’s degree, or 90 college credit hours with a combined Scholastic Aptitude Test score of 850 or an ACT score of 19.
n A secret or top secret security clearance.
n Passing a Chapter 2 physical exam.
Completing the program before their 40th birthday so they can put in 20 years as an officer before the mandatory retirement age of 60. Candidates between 30-35 need an age waiver from their state adjutant general, and candidates over 35 need a waiver from the National Guard Bureau, Scott said. Those under 30 do not need a waiver.
The new fast-track program is not being stressed just for those who are pushing the age limits, he added.
The fast-trackers will be part of a busy training community at Fort Indiantown Gap that is one of the Army Guard’s long-standing educational centers. More than 500 students in all, including 170 attending noncommissioned officer courses, will be enrolled in the 166th Regiment during that month.
The total staff will exceed 100 people, and the dining hall will feed about 650 people each meal, Scott projected.