The Air
Force Officer Training School here has removed all service component
distinctions from its line officer commissioning courses.
Regular Air
Force and Reserve cadets no longer receive their commissions through Basic
Officer Training or Air National Guard cadets through the Academy of Military
Science.
With the start of OTS Class 15-03 in early January, all line
officer cadets receive the same training at the same time in the same
classrooms. Instead of saying they graduated from either BOT or AMS, the newly
commissioned officers will simply say that they received their commissions from
OTS.
"Neither of those acronyms--BOT and AMS--is necessary any more as we
now have 'one furnace, one metal,'" said OTS Commandant Col. Scott Lockwood. "We
have one program, which is just OTS."
The current class of 78 Guard, 15
regular Air Force and 13 Reserve cadets will graduate together March
13.
The move to one program started in late 2014.
In October, the
school celebrated its first-ever simultaneous graduation of regular Air Force,
Reserve and Guard cadets. Though they graduated together, the cadets attended
either BOT or AMS classes, which ran in parallel over eight weeks.
The
graduation was heralded as a true 'total force' milestone.
However, just
as OTS has removed service distinctions in the classrooms, Lockwood said he
would like to avoid the 'total force' label altogether at the
school.
"It is no longer needed, much like the caveat from the chief of
staff when he said when we quit calling things 'total force,' we will know we
are there," he said.
In this go-around, Lockwood said he's aware that the
percentage of students heavily favors the Guard. In future classes, he sees a
more-balanced mix of students.
"We will attempt to offer up the
traditional number of seats to each component, but we also would ideally have a
percentage mix that better reflects the overall populations being trained
throughout the year," he said. "However, we will simply fill seats as needed,
and that can alter the mix from one class to the next."
The average size
of future classes will be between 150 to 200 cadets, he said. He anticipates
commissioning about 800 regular Air Force, 500 Guard and 200 Reserve line
officers this fiscal year.
Tweaking the mix of students here and there is
not nearly as important as the benefits the cadets will realize from sharing the
same instructional environment from the start.
"They will not feel as if
there is a difference in quality and professionalism," said Lockwood. "They
will all have faced the same crucible and belong to the same fraternity as a
whole. This will better perpetuate a trust, loyalty and commitment to the
service, to include all components."
The colonel said the Air Force as
a whole will also benefit by enmeshing cadets from the three components together
from day one in the service.
"Not only will they make important
relationships that will benefit them throughout their careers, but it will
greatly increase the education of our regular Air Force and Reserve cadets on
the Guard and who they are," he said. "It is simply too late in their careers to
end up commanding a total force wing and then have to start from scratch in
finding out about how the Air National Guard operates."
In fiscal 2014,
OTS commissioned 748 second lieutenants and trained more than 1,300 officers
through its Commissioned Officer Training and Reserve COT programs. AMS
commissioned 511 Guard officers during that same time period.
Officer
Training School is part of Air University's Jeanne M. Holm Center for Officer
Accessions and Citizen Development. The center also includes Air Force ROTC, Air
Force JROTC and Civil Air Patrol-U.S. Air
Force. |