A friend of mine is writing a novel. One of her characters* is from what you might call old money. Guy went to Harvard and graduated in 2003. Did not want to go then to Wall Street.He goes into the US Army, and ended up serving 10 years (leaving as a Major). No military background whatsoever before leaving college.
Serves as an infantry officer in 2004 Iraq.
How could a young college grad in 2003 serve as an infantry officer in Iraq a year later? Would he need to enlist like anyone else and then apply after completing basic> Can he go directly?
Can the US Army Infantry officers go direct, I thought not, unless from Academies or with someother other reserve commission and would’nt newly minted recruits need some time in service before applying for commission.
Many old money types in the modern US Army? (The upper classes have a long tradition of armed forces service in Europe, is it similar in the US)
(The guy is has the same biography as her brother, with the exception the brother was British, she has made this character American for some reason).
Officer Candidate School is only 12 weeks, and he would be eligible for deployment (assuming the right demand for combat personnel, which I don’t think existed yet in 2004) pretty soon afterwards.
College graduates can apply to OCS directly, as RNATB says, but I believe they do have to go through basic training first. Lots of old-money WASP types (especially in the northeast) have family traditions of military service, especially as officers.
In addition to OCS, there is IBOLC which is two months long, Ranger school (not really optional for an infantry officer) which is 1.5 months, and airborne school which is one month. Still, if he graduated in June 2003, I don’t see an issue with him being in Iraq near the end of 2004.
If you’re interested, I will look up actual class dates from 2003 and 2004 so your friend has an accurate timeline. I will also look to see what units were in Iraq around the time he was supposedly there. Is there a specific unit your friend wanted this person to have served in? That may change the timeline a little.
The student at Harvard could have done the following:
[ol]
[li]Do ROTC thing and gone to MIT for the ROTC classes (Last I knew Harvard not allow ROTC on campus)[/li][li]Endured his / her ridicule at Harvard[/li][li]Gone to ROTC summer OTC the summer between Junior and Senior years[/li][li]Be commissioned as an officer upon graduation.[/li][/ol]
Bear_Nenno, just the person I was hoping to see. Would be grateful if I
The story as she has show me, is based in the present day, and this character is one of the POV ones, in which he provides occasional flashbacks to his service (although flashbacks are not in chronological orders).
The real guy, served in Armoured Infantry (Warriors IFV I think) and something similar for a our American (if not what about Strykers, was it there then?). He went in the Army a bit earlier then her character, she wants her character to decide to join abruptly when the war begins (which is around when he graduates March 2003 v June 2003). So the timeline can be adjusted slightly.
My own question, how would a person from such an old money background stand out in the US Army of that time? In the British Army, upper class was and still is well represented amongst the officers in certain regiments, I do wonder if his background might make him the odd man out?
[QUOTE=davida03801]
The student at Harvard could have done the following:
Do ROTC thing and gone to MIT for the ROTC classes (Last I knew Harvard not allow ROTC on campus)
Endured his / her ridicule at Harvard
Gone to ROTC summer OTC the summer between Junior and Senior years
Be commissioned as an officer upon graduation.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks, but looking up ROTC, she has said that she wants his decision to be abrupt, caused by the start of the war, no prior desire or obligation.
I can’t pull class dates for most of these things before 2011, but it shouldn’t matter. I think I can give your friend a pretty good timeline.
After graduation, this character would have had to complete the following:
Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Ft. Benning, GA – 12 Weeks
Infantry Officer Basic Course (IBOLC) at Ft. Benning, GA – This is a 17 week course, but in 2003 it was a 13 week course.
Ranger School at Ft. Benning, GA – 61 days
Airborne School at Ft. Benning, GA – 21 days
There are a couple other things to consider as well. If he graduated in March, he is going to need a little time to see the recruiter and complete the recruiting process, not to mention wait until 19 March for the Iraq Invasion to motivate him into joining up. So let’s say he starts his training in Mid-April 2003. He would finish OCS around the end of July. Then he would go to IBOLC and begin Ranger school. The dates are not always seamless, so there is often a week or two of waiting for the next class to start. Looking at Ranger School dates in 2003, the best fit for him would be Class 2-04 which graduated December 19, 2003.
After Ranger School, he would have to go to Airborne School. Like Ranger School, this is a requirement for all infantry officers, so it has to be in his timeline. There would be no training at all on Ft. Benning from December 19th until the first week of January. So his Airborne School could not start until January 9, 2004. That puts his graduation date for Airborne School on January 30, 2004.
After that, he would ship off to his unit and then be ready for deployment to Iraq. You want him to be in a similar unit as the UK Warrior IFV. That means he has to be in a Mechanized Infantry unit. They use the M2 Bradley IFV.
There is only one Mechanized Infantry unit that fits his timeline. The others were either already deployed, or would deploy too late in the year. The unit that fits best is 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment. This is part of the Second Infantry Division, 2nd Brigade Combat Team.
This unit deployed from South Korea, though. So, hopefully that isn’t an issue for the story.
The character would have reported to Camp Casey sometime in February of 2004. By late Spring, he would have received word that the unit was deploying to Iraq. They would have began extensive training and preparation immediately. They deployed to Iraq in August 2004. This unit saw a lot of combat around Ramadi. Around July-August 2005 the unit left Iraq but did not go back to Korea. Instead, they went to Ft Carson as part of the restructuring of the Army.
Does that work?
Shouldn’t be an issue at all. A buddy of mine had a 6-figure education from Vanderbilt, and he wasn’t even an officer. Another guy I knew around that time had a quarter-million a year salary before his company was destroyed when the WTC fell. A lot of people around that time were joining up strictly for patriotic reasons.
My involvement with Army infantry officers was back in the early 1980s as a FAC/ALO. I understand that nowadays my old job is called JTAC and is done by USAF enlisted.
IIRC, Airborne and Ranger qualifications were far from universal amongst Army infantry officers. In fact, in non-Airborne units they were downright rare.
Do you know when and why it changed? Or was I confused? As much time as I spent living & working with the Army, many aspects of it were still quite foreign to me.
What about other similar combat arms branches such as armor or cav? How does Airborne or Ranger figure into their training mix?
I’m not sure when it changed, or even if it ever did. Keep in mind that compulsory attendance and mandatory graduation are two different things. Plenty of them do not even make it past the first week. Others may get hurt in later phases. Regardless of their reason for not passing, they need to keep trying to go back throughout the early part of their career or they will not be competitive at all in their year-group.
It’s pretty rare among Armor Officers. Though, I think its presence in Armor units is growing since the Army is trying to consolidate everything into an all-encompassing “Maneuver Branch”. Cavalry isn’t really a branch at all. There are Cavalry units, but that mainly just comes down to lineage and heraldry. A Cavalry unit can be either Armor or Infantry, and sometimes it’s a combination of both. It gets confusing because there is a “Cavalry Scout” MOS, but they are 19 series (19K vs 19D) and part of Armor branch. Tank officers and Cavalry Scout officers are both 19A and can lead a platoon of either tanks or scouts. But this really has nothing to do with a unit bearing cavalry guidons. Infantry guys often hate being in a unit designated as Cavalry because of this. But Ranger qualified Armor Officers are rare, and airborne qualified ones rarer still! For them it is a bonus. An infantry officer, on the other hand, is expected to have completed Ranger School and Airborne School.
On active duty in that time period, it’s possible. During the war, with the Army expanding a due course major was pinning rank at about 9 1/2 years instead of at about 11 before it. The character might have be starting a touch early to benefit from all of the speed up. Things jiggered around with the promotion targets for officers a couple times in that window. Assuming they were good they might have picked up a below the zone promotion a year earlier to Major. It’s still a touch tight for them to have been promoted, submitted their resignation, and gotten off active duty at 10 years but it’s possible. They shouldn’t have a lot of experience at major level positions unless they were performing the duties of one as a Captain before their promotion.
Are you saying that promotions come with an automatic re-upping requirement (presumably, you could decline the promotion and not sign on for another tour)?
I did misspeak on saying pinned at those times. That’s selection for promotion with the actual order cut sometime afterwards. IN the 2012 to 2013 selection window that difference becomes important.
I was in both of the Reserve Components but had some exposure to AC officer career management dealing with subordinates in a multi component unit. All three components have differences. I am decidedly an amateur on a lot of the AC details but have some painful on the job learning.
Officers have a minimum service obligation (MSO) that can be met through either active or reserve service. Active duty officers also have ADSOs (Active Duty Service Obligations). For chunks of time, after completing the initial obligations, officers serve without an obligation and can choose to separate. In other chunks they have to wait for the ADSO clock to run. Promotion to Major doesn’t incur either MSO or ADSO in and of itself. Associated schools and possible permanent changes of station DO come with ADSO for AC officers. That’s where things get tricky around the time of the promotion.
There were some changes to schooling for the top half of new Majors in that window. There could also be some pressure, depending on the individual branch manager, to move the new Major to a key development position early in their Major time. Both of those come with ADSO unless the officer in question is planning to get out and declines. That makes the window right around the promotion less likely to be when they’d separate unless it was preplanned to get out at 10 years shortly after making Major.
It’s all possible. That’s likely good enough for the story.
Officers typically come fresh out of OCS as a ‘butterbar,’ or 2LT and their first position (given their MOS) is typically a Platoon leader. IMHO, I don’t think someone fresh out of school should be leading combat patrols, but that’s how it works. At least Army Military police, I’m not sure about other branches/MOS
For all branches it has become important for those who are ambitious. They all believe that if they get all the right merit badges it will help with promotions down the road. And it probably does. When I went through ABOLC there were quite a few Armor officers who were trying to go to Ranger school. I have no idea if they did or if they graduated. I do know that while we were at Knox they were doing all the extra PT and training to get ready for the school.
In ROTC or at the academy cadets are given the opportunity to go to Airborne or Air Assault during one of their summer camps. A lot of 2LTs of all branches show up at their first unit with at least one of those badges. For ring knockers I’m not sure if it is highly recommended or mandatory which comes down to the same thing really. Getting into either of those schools right out of OCS would be much more difficult unless they are going into an Airborne or Air Assault unit.
Well not straight out of OCS. After OCS they have to go to their branch qualification course. The different branches have different length schools.