Officer Candidate School (United States Army)

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US Army Officer Candidate School
The original Officer Candidate School logo, "the OCS road wheel"
Active	1941 – 19/20 December 1949 1951 – present
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army
Type	Training
Role	Train and commission U.S. Army Officers
Part of	Training and Doctrine Command U.S. Army Infantry School
Garrison/HQ	Fort Moore, Georgia
Motto(s)	"Standards, No Compromise"
March	OCS Alma Mater
Commanders
Current commander	Lieutenant Colonel Wilford Garvin III

The United States Army's Officer Candidate School (OCS) is an officer training program that trains, assesses, and evaluates potential Commissioned Officers of the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and Army National Guard. Officer Candidates are former enlisted members (E-4 to E-8), Warrant Officers, inter-service transfers,^[1] or civilian college graduates who have enlisted as an "09S" to attend OCS after they have completed Basic Combat Training (BCT).

While the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School has a garrison at Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning), Georgia, there are other OCS programs for members of the Army Reserve and National Guard. One of such is conducted at Fort McClellan Army National Guard Training Site in Anniston, AL by the Alabama Military Academy.^[2]

OCS is generally a 12-week course designed to train, assess, evaluate, and develop Second Lieutenants for the U.S. Army.^[3] It is the only commissioning source that can be responsive to the U.S. Army's changing personnel requirements due to its short length, compared to other commissioning programs and their requirements. Completing OCS is one of several ways of becoming a U.S. Army Commissioned Officer. The other methods are:

• Graduation from the United States Military Academy (USMA) or any of the other U.S. federal service academies.^[4]
• Completing Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) offered at many civilian universities throughout the United States
• Completing Officer Candidate School programs of the Army National Guard at Regional Training Institutes (RTI).
• Direct Commissioning: This is normally reserved for accessions of chaplains, medical professionals, and Judge Advocate General (JAG) lawyers.
• Inter-service transfer as a Commissioned Officer of another United States military branch.^[5]
• Battlefield commissions, or meritorious commissions, though technically still provided for, have not been used by the U.S. Army since the Vietnam War.

The U.S. Army Officer Candidate School is organizationally designated as 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, 199th Infantry Brigade.^[6] It was redesignated from the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment in June 2007. It is a subordinate unit of the Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE) also headquartered at Fort Moore. As of July 2014, the battalion has five training companies and a Headquarters Company in operation, designated as HHC, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo; each of which can conduct one class at a time, with a maximum of 160 candidates being trained in each class.^[7] Alpha through Delta are used for OCS. Echo Company is reserved for the six-week Direct Commission Course, which is the initial entry training for direct commission officers such as Judge Advocates. HHC serves as the "holding" company for brand new candidates going thru their in-processing or for injured candidates who are recuperating from their injuries. Those who recuperate from injury are often "recycled" into the next class. Every three weeks, a class graduates and another one is started.

The commander of the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment (OCS), 199th Infantry Brigade is Lieutenant Colonel Wilford Garvin III,^[8] and the Command Sergeant Major is Command Sergeant Major Gilmer.^[8]