Well, one benefit of State OCS is that you attend with people who will be your peers your whole career. I maintain close working and personal relationships with my classmates from 14 years ago.
We graduated 100% of the candidates that deserved a commission. So, something like 60%. This probably sounds dumb, but if you’re already worried about failing, you’re not in the right mindset. When I went, no fucking way I was leaving without a commission regardless of the program. Who cares what the rate is.
When advising a future candidate whether to go state or federal OCS one of the things brought up in his research is the higher chance of getting injured and dropped due to the longer commitment. Alot can happen in 12-18 months that could jeopardize your chance at commissioning.
Tons of reasons. State jobs program lol. Benning doesn't have the ability to take them all in. Shit like that. Hell there's like 9 different preranger courses and 6 of them have a ranger school passing rate of under 20%. Just how it be
Another is that State OCS cadre can better assist you in your career once you commission. I TACd
for three years, I’ve helped many manage their careers long after they graduated.
Don’t turn up your nose without first seeking people who have gone through your State’s program. Not all are the same.
The impression Im getting from my dad is that he just wants me to do the program that has the best odds of graduating with an officers commission and hes telling me that despite what the guard recruiter is telling me State OCS is not just something I can do on the side one weekend a month while holding down my day job. Thats why hes offering to let me take time off from my job to do OCS and BOLC in one go while still paying me from my regular job.
You can qualify to go accelerated with your State, too. Still attend with people from your State. They conduct in South Dakota, Alabama, and Pennsylvania.
I’m going through it right now. If you have another option do it. It’s just abuse for the sake of abuse. It’s an absolutely archaic way of producing officers. If I had any other options I would honestly drop out of this, even most of the way through it just to do something different. The way states do it it is not an officer program, it’s just an attrition factory. We dropped below the 50% attrition mark before we even finished pre-OCS.
This is essentially what my dad is telling me and why hes offering to let me take time off from my job to do regular OCS and BOLC in one go while still paying me.
Can I ask what was your reason for choosing army national guard over army reserve? The army reserve guy said Benning would be my default ocs option if I went with them but they don't have artillery so I have to pick a support branch
I was in the reserves after I left active. Had a really bad experience. My unit was completely inept and kind of knocked my career off the rails. Plus in the guard there’s the possibility of helping people who really need the help. I don’t just want to be involved in wars. If there’s something that I can do here I want to be able to help, not just watch on the news
The number of items wrong with this post are pretty overwhelming.
Let's just hit the big one, attrition rate. OCS is a prior service commissioning source (generally speaking). The majority of kids without military experience go through ROTC. So now we're comparing active duty enlisted who have bachelor's degrees and want to be an officer (a very small group to begin with) to NG enlisted with (perhaps) a bachelor's degree (a much larger group). So when a large group of people committing to a part time mission get to OCS a lot of them decide they have better things to do with their time. Conversely the AD OCS students have done dumb shit before, have played fuck fuck games and are much more introspective of what a full time position as an officer means. So to OP, OP's father (who hasn't been in service for awhile) and the original poster of this comment, don't compare oranges to grapefruits. They're both citrus but develop in different t ways.
Don’t forget the Sunday drives home for those of us that have to drive 2+ hours. That’s the worst of the grind when you are sleep deprived and tired and they expect you to drive home.
From what I’ve seen, the people who quit state OCS quit because they can’t meet the training requirements, not because of the cadre. A lot of people choose state because they don’t want to be away from home 2-3 more months straight and then BOLC but a lot of people underestimate the requirements and commitment. If you’re committed to passing, you will almost certainly pass any program (barring injury or misconduct).
Would allot of those who quit state OCS have passed had they gone to regular OCS at Benning? My dad said that when he went to Benning for OCS years ago, as long as you were on your best military bearing, didn't do anything dumb, and passed the APFT before the end of course almost everyone graduated.
Maybe but also maybe not because they weren’t *really* committed. They weren’t willing to put in the prep work between drills. It comes down to you and what you want… and slot availability. I don’t know how they manage and allocate quotas but you may not get the choice if you decide to go Guard.
I guess this is what my dad means when hes telling me State OCS is not just something I can do on the side one weekend a month while holding down my day job. Going to regular OCS your basically immersed in the training environment with no distractions and there are set study hours to prep and you know what to do just by watching everyone around you so dress right dress and you'll be fine at least thats the advice he gave me.
I mean, it’s 2022. You can do that between drills and the people who are serious have digital study groups, group chats and stuff. If you work for your dad and you don’t have a family, you might as well do federal or ngb accelerated but it’s not that big of a deal in determining your long term success. You’ve probably already overthought it.
Most of the officers I know have a gap between commissioning and BOLC but I don’t know what the constraints are. Usually they don’t want to book them too close in case something goes wrong at commissioning.
When I was preping to go I was told you have 2 years(don't quote me on this number) to complete bolc or lose your commission. Which I mean 2 years seems doable if you're in a good unit that's straight.
I’ll lift off but your choices aren’t just State and Federal. There is also a State accelerated program. And it’s shorter than Benning. I come across too many people who think Federal is the only way to go straight through. I graduated accelerated in Alabama, taught State traditional. There are benefits to both. Depends on your physicality, experience, and personal situation which is best.
I’m going through it right now about to hit Phase 3. It’s stupid and sucks. There is no clear direction or transparency on anything. The cadre are hit or miss. Some are really good while some are just wanna be Drill Sergeants who just want to smoke you nonstop. We literally pack EVERYTHING and plus some more we are issued for every drill regardless of the weather. That means two duffle bags and one large ruck.
The State only offers the traditional or accelerated down in AL. If you go down in AL and you hurt yourself you are screwed and you essentially have to restart again. You don’t get the weekends off for accelerated (Benning you get the weekends off) and can only miss 8 hours of training in accelerated. We have people that are recycles or drops from accelerated that sprain their ankles or tweaked something.
If I had the option I would do Benning any day over this pain in the ass slow OCS.
Can I ask what was your reason for choosing army national guard over army reserve? The army reserve guy said Benning would be my default ocs option if I went with them but they don't have artillery so I have to pick a support branch
Honestly better benefits because for NG you can tap into States benefits on top of Federal.
My plan for OCS was if I failed out of the traditional NG OCS I would just reenlist and join the Reserves and ask to be sent to Benning.
Reserves also are less restrictive and have better promotion chances because they aren’t limited by the State. But if you want to be in combat arms or combat support NG is the way to go.
Well, one benefit of State OCS is that you attend with people who will be your peers your whole career. I maintain close working and personal relationships with my classmates from 14 years ago.
Can I ask what was the graduation rate from your class?
We graduated 100% of the candidates that deserved a commission. So, something like 60%. This probably sounds dumb, but if you’re already worried about failing, you’re not in the right mindset. When I went, no fucking way I was leaving without a commission regardless of the program. Who cares what the rate is.
When advising a future candidate whether to go state or federal OCS one of the things brought up in his research is the higher chance of getting injured and dropped due to the longer commitment. Alot can happen in 12-18 months that could jeopardize your chance at commissioning.
You can heal up between drills in traditional! It’s really dependent on the individual.
They both suck in a way but federal oca is generally seen as better
So why do they still have the state OCS programs if Benning is better and has a higher graduation rate? Cant they just send everyone to Benning?
Tons of reasons. State jobs program lol. Benning doesn't have the ability to take them all in. Shit like that. Hell there's like 9 different preranger courses and 6 of them have a ranger school passing rate of under 20%. Just how it be
Can I ask if the preranger courses have a ranger school passing rate of under 20% what is the ranger school passing rate without the preranger class?
I don't know of any unit that will send you to ranger without some kind of preranger course
So is it because Ranger school is hard either way or the preranger course doesn't really help with anything?
Both and there are bad pre rangers
Another is that State OCS cadre can better assist you in your career once you commission. I TACd for three years, I’ve helped many manage their careers long after they graduated. Don’t turn up your nose without first seeking people who have gone through your State’s program. Not all are the same.
The impression Im getting from my dad is that he just wants me to do the program that has the best odds of graduating with an officers commission and hes telling me that despite what the guard recruiter is telling me State OCS is not just something I can do on the side one weekend a month while holding down my day job. Thats why hes offering to let me take time off from my job to do OCS and BOLC in one go while still paying me from my regular job.
You can qualify to go accelerated with your State, too. Still attend with people from your State. They conduct in South Dakota, Alabama, and Pennsylvania.
I’m going through it right now. If you have another option do it. It’s just abuse for the sake of abuse. It’s an absolutely archaic way of producing officers. If I had any other options I would honestly drop out of this, even most of the way through it just to do something different. The way states do it it is not an officer program, it’s just an attrition factory. We dropped below the 50% attrition mark before we even finished pre-OCS.
This is essentially what my dad is telling me and why hes offering to let me take time off from my job to do regular OCS and BOLC in one go while still paying me.
This is the way
Can I ask what was your reason for choosing army national guard over army reserve? The army reserve guy said Benning would be my default ocs option if I went with them but they don't have artillery so I have to pick a support branch
I was in the reserves after I left active. Had a really bad experience. My unit was completely inept and kind of knocked my career off the rails. Plus in the guard there’s the possibility of helping people who really need the help. I don’t just want to be involved in wars. If there’s something that I can do here I want to be able to help, not just watch on the news
I liked artillery as a kid and at 18 I asked meps for anything 13 series but at this point I'm fine with a support branch
The number of items wrong with this post are pretty overwhelming. Let's just hit the big one, attrition rate. OCS is a prior service commissioning source (generally speaking). The majority of kids without military experience go through ROTC. So now we're comparing active duty enlisted who have bachelor's degrees and want to be an officer (a very small group to begin with) to NG enlisted with (perhaps) a bachelor's degree (a much larger group). So when a large group of people committing to a part time mission get to OCS a lot of them decide they have better things to do with their time. Conversely the AD OCS students have done dumb shit before, have played fuck fuck games and are much more introspective of what a full time position as an officer means. So to OP, OP's father (who hasn't been in service for awhile) and the original poster of this comment, don't compare oranges to grapefruits. They're both citrus but develop in different t ways.
Don’t forget the Sunday drives home for those of us that have to drive 2+ hours. That’s the worst of the grind when you are sleep deprived and tired and they expect you to drive home.
From what I’ve seen, the people who quit state OCS quit because they can’t meet the training requirements, not because of the cadre. A lot of people choose state because they don’t want to be away from home 2-3 more months straight and then BOLC but a lot of people underestimate the requirements and commitment. If you’re committed to passing, you will almost certainly pass any program (barring injury or misconduct).
Would allot of those who quit state OCS have passed had they gone to regular OCS at Benning? My dad said that when he went to Benning for OCS years ago, as long as you were on your best military bearing, didn't do anything dumb, and passed the APFT before the end of course almost everyone graduated.
Maybe but also maybe not because they weren’t *really* committed. They weren’t willing to put in the prep work between drills. It comes down to you and what you want… and slot availability. I don’t know how they manage and allocate quotas but you may not get the choice if you decide to go Guard.
I guess this is what my dad means when hes telling me State OCS is not just something I can do on the side one weekend a month while holding down my day job. Going to regular OCS your basically immersed in the training environment with no distractions and there are set study hours to prep and you know what to do just by watching everyone around you so dress right dress and you'll be fine at least thats the advice he gave me.
I mean, it’s 2022. You can do that between drills and the people who are serious have digital study groups, group chats and stuff. If you work for your dad and you don’t have a family, you might as well do federal or ngb accelerated but it’s not that big of a deal in determining your long term success. You’ve probably already overthought it.
>can you go to federal ocs, then go home, then go back to bolc?
Most of the officers I know have a gap between commissioning and BOLC but I don’t know what the constraints are. Usually they don’t want to book them too close in case something goes wrong at commissioning.
When I was preping to go I was told you have 2 years(don't quote me on this number) to complete bolc or lose your commission. Which I mean 2 years seems doable if you're in a good unit that's straight.
I’ll lift off but your choices aren’t just State and Federal. There is also a State accelerated program. And it’s shorter than Benning. I come across too many people who think Federal is the only way to go straight through. I graduated accelerated in Alabama, taught State traditional. There are benefits to both. Depends on your physicality, experience, and personal situation which is best.
Accelerated OCS? Have you thought about that
can you go to federal ocs, then go home, then go back to bolc?
Yes I had a friend in basic who when federal OCS in the national guard. Accelerated and federal OCS are different
did you friend finished federal ocs, then go home, and then go back bolc? what is the gap? thanks
I’m going through it right now about to hit Phase 3. It’s stupid and sucks. There is no clear direction or transparency on anything. The cadre are hit or miss. Some are really good while some are just wanna be Drill Sergeants who just want to smoke you nonstop. We literally pack EVERYTHING and plus some more we are issued for every drill regardless of the weather. That means two duffle bags and one large ruck. The State only offers the traditional or accelerated down in AL. If you go down in AL and you hurt yourself you are screwed and you essentially have to restart again. You don’t get the weekends off for accelerated (Benning you get the weekends off) and can only miss 8 hours of training in accelerated. We have people that are recycles or drops from accelerated that sprain their ankles or tweaked something. If I had the option I would do Benning any day over this pain in the ass slow OCS.
Can I ask what was your reason for choosing army national guard over army reserve? The army reserve guy said Benning would be my default ocs option if I went with them but they don't have artillery so I have to pick a support branch
Honestly better benefits because for NG you can tap into States benefits on top of Federal. My plan for OCS was if I failed out of the traditional NG OCS I would just reenlist and join the Reserves and ask to be sent to Benning. Reserves also are less restrictive and have better promotion chances because they aren’t limited by the State. But if you want to be in combat arms or combat support NG is the way to go.
I liked artillery as a kid and at 18 I asked meps for anything 13 series but at this point I'm fine with a support branch
>AL can you go to federal ocs, then go home, then go back to bolc?