Quote:
Originally Posted by Cactus
What is the typical duration of contract for officers who join from civilian universities through short-term programs that offer a path to commissioning (like the summer-long US Marines' PLC)?
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ROTC Scholarship commissionees incur a 4 year commitment, and non-scholarship ROTC and OCS graduates incur a 3 year commitment.
For Army officers, the big stay/get out decisions come at the end of the initial commitment and at around the 8 year mark, at which point you've finished company/battery/troop command, know whether or not you will be competitive for battalion/squadron command or not, and know what your alternatives to your basic branch are.
If the Army had been smart, they would have implemented an expanded civilian graduate school program sooner than last year, and they would have made officers eligible to attend before company command instead of only after. This would provide an opportunity for those that like the Army, don't mind deploying, but need a break in the short-term to have an option that would allow them to stay-in. The Army would retain another officer and have an officer with graduate schooling and additional maturity prior to company command. Unfortunately, I think that some myopia has prevented us from making smarter choices. For example, sending a junior captain to grad school would be seen and robbing the operational force of a body to fill a slot.
However, if the program meant that a quality officer would stay in (2 years of grad school equals a 6 year commitment following grad school) instead of get out, it would be a decision that had no impact in the short-term (because the officer would have gotten out anyway) while gaining six more officer-years in the long-term. A draw-win situation, which is better than a lose-lose situation.