Towards a U.S. Army Officer Corps Strategy for Success

[ODB]

The report states the OCS-IS is the most costly because it robs peter to pay paul, taking usually senior NCOs out of units, and directing them to officer corps. It also takes them out of the Warrant pool, which pulls from senior NCO's. The report claims that OCS takes a NCO with 5-10+ years experience, takes him away from Soldiers, platoons, companies, etc... and puts him/her into OCS. After completion, they will serve as a 2LT, but then have to go to degree completion. Once back, many will be close to 20 year retirement, and many are eligible to retire before they make MAJ, which does not fill the mid-career officer shortage.

Years of service + OCS + branch training + degree = most costly. That's their metric.

But that is where I see no reason it cannot be streamlined. If I stay in the same branch, say Infantry to Infantry, what branch qualification would I need? I guess to put this into perspective one would have to talk about at what rank of soldier we are talking about. Do we not always rob Peter to pay Paul? The bottomline is, which in the end would have the bigger overall impact? Soldier staying NCO or Soldier becoming an Officer? Ultimately what is the biggest bang for our buck?

I can't buy the losing NCO bit. That is always the arguement when it comes to OCS, SF, Ranger BN, etc...... If that was the case the only NCOs left in units would be the ones who didn't make the cut or undesireables if you want to say.

I understand the system, just not one to fall into the system is always right. I tend to look at how the system could be improved and question the system a lot.