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, In this case, Inter-Service Transfer refers to enlisted members of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, or U.S. Marine Corps transferring to the U.S. Army to attend OCS. or civilian college graduates who have enlisted as an "09S" to attend OCS after they have completed Basic Combat Training (BCT). Graduates have been historically called "90-day wonders".

While the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School is located at 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.

OCS is generally a 12-week course designed to train, assess, evaluate, and develop Second Lieutenants for the U.S. Army. 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. 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.Army Regulation 614–120 Interservice Transfer of Army Commissioned Officers on the Active Duty List para 2–5 Application of officers of other uniformed services 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.199th Infantry Brigade 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 Benning. 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.ATRRS Course Catalog 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 through 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 Jonathan D. Kingsley, and the Command Sergeant Major is Command Sergeant Major Axel Nieves-Lopez.

History

Historically, OCS has provided the means by which the U.S. Army could generate large numbers of junior officers during periods of increasing personnel requirements, typically during wars. Prior to 1973, OCS was branch-specific, at one time there being eight separate schools; by 1968, the Army had consolidated OCS. Candidates being commissioned in the combat support branches were sent to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and would be trained as Combat Engineer Officers. Upon graduation, graduates other than Engineers would be commissioned in their assigned branch and sent to an officer's basic course. Candidates being commissioned in the combat arms branches would be sent to Infantry OCS at Fort Benning, Georgia or possibly Artillery OCS at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. At that time, OCS consisted of twenty-three weeks of classroom and field training. The Vietnam war brought a significant expansion of the program. In 1973, OCS was made branch immaterial and was consolidated into two courses taught at Fort Benning, and another at Fort McClellan, Alabama for female officer candidates; the course length was reduced to 14-weeks. In 1976, the OCS at Fort Benning integrated female candidates and became the only OCS left in the active Army, with the closure of the WAC School. The term "90-day wonders", both as a pejorative and term of affection, has been intermittently applied to junior officers commissioned through OCS since World War II.

World War II era Officer Candidate School was first proposed in June 1938, as the Army began expanding in anticipation of hostilities when a plan for an officer-training program was submitted to the Chief of Infantry by Brigadier General Asa L. Singleton, Commandant of the Infantry School. No action was taken until July 1940, however, when Brigadier General Courtney Hodges, Assistant Commandant of the Infantry School, presented a revised plan to (then) Brigadier General Omar Bradley, Commandant of the Infantry School. In July 1941, the OCS stood up as the Infantry, Field Artillery, and Coastal Artillery Officer Candidate Schools, each respectively located at Fort Benning, Fort Sill, and Fort Monroe, Virginia. In addition to the aforementioned programs, there were Officer Candidate Schools stood up for other branches, in particular, the Signal Corps at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Due to the rapid creation of these programs because of wartime necessity, and then the rapid closures or restructuring soon after the end of the war, historical records were not always created or adequately maintained and little is known about some of these branch specific commissioning courses. The Signal Corps however has a full list of records going back to its very first class, which graduated 336 Officers on 30 September 1941. The records are maintained by the U.S. Army Signal Corps OCS Association, which is actively collecting and archiving the personal history of many of the over 27,000 Signal Corps OCS graduates that went through its WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam War programs. The Signal Corps website includes a list of every U.S. Army Signal Corps OCS graduate, the date of their graduation, as well as all TAC Officers, training school CO's, and most enlisted men who served the Signal Corps' OCS training programs. In addition to the Signal Corps, several other units have alumni organizations that have maintained informal records and preserved documentation of the courses.

On 27 September 1941, the first Infantry OCS class graduated 171 second lieutenants; 204 men started the 17-week course in July.OCS History Testament to the ability of OCS to produce new second lieutenants quickly can be found in War Department decision that ROTC could not fulfill the national demand for officers; so in May 1943, the advanced course in ROTC was suspended and basic course graduates were immediately sent to OCS so they could be commissioned sooner.Hoya Battalion History

During the war, the Army's policy of racial segregation continued among enlisted members; Army training policy, however, provided that blacks and whites would train together in officer candidate schools (beginning in 1942).Women's Army Corps Chapter I "The Women's Army Corps, 1942–1945" Integration of the Armed Forces: 1940–1965 Chapter 2 "World War II: The Army" Officer Candidate School was the Army's first formal experiment with integration. Black and white candidates shared officer's quarters, with bunkmates assigned alphabetically, regardless of their race, and all of the candidates trained together. Despite this integrated training, in most instances, the graduates would go on to join racially segregated units.

General Bradley is credited with establishing the format, discipline, and code of honor still used in OCS today. Bradley emphasized rigorous training, strict discipline and efficient organization. These tenets remain the base values of today's Officer Candidate School. Between July 1941 and May 1947, over 100,000 candidates were enrolled in 448 Infantry OCS classes, of these approximately 67 percent completed the course to earn commissions. After World War II, Infantry OCS was transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas, as part of the Ground General School. Due to the post-war downsizing of the Army and the declining need for new Officers, all but Infantry OCS was closed. Finally, on 1 November 1947, it was deactivated. The final class graduated only 52 second lieutenants.

The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) was created by an act of Congress on 14 May 1942, permitting them to serve, but not as Soldiers. At that time, women did not have military status and were not integrated into the Army. Their ranks, pay, and benefits were different from the Army, along with all administration. But, being a military organization that was modeled after, and parallel, to the Army, it required a way to train Officers; therefore it created its own WAAC OCS, which stood up on 20 July 1942 at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. The course was six-weeks long, its first-class consisting of 440 candidates. Upon graduation, the women were commissioned as third officers (equivalent to a second lieutenant). It is worth noting, that among the first candidates were 40 black women. Initially, black women were segregated, but in keeping with Army policies, integrating officer training, and with pressure from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), by November 1942, they were being trained in integrated units.

Cold War

With the outbreak of the Korean War, and the Army's rapid expansion in response, the shortage of on-hand officers, and projected commissions, caused the Department of the Army to re-open Infantry OCS at Fort Benning on 18 February 1951. The course was lengthened from 17 to 22 weeks, as a result of lessons learned from WWII; thus permitting more instruction in Infantry tactics. The Infantry Officer Candidate School became the 1st Officer Candidate Battalion, 2nd Student Regiment. The strength of OCS rapidly increased. As one of eight branch programs, Infantry OCS included as many as 29 companies with a class graduating every week. During the Korean War, OCS commissioned approximately 7,000 Infantry officers.

In April 1949, the U.S. Army established the Women's Army Corps Officer Candidate School at Fort Lee, Virginia. The WAC, an active component of the regular Army, a descendant of the WAAC, operated this OCS for female candidates seeking to enter the WAC Officer Corps. The "wash-out" rate was nearly identical to the men's programs, at roughly 37%, during its first four years; an alarming statistic to observers of both programs."Chapter V: Officer Procurement and Career Development" Women's Army Corps By 1954 WAC OCS had been closed and merged with a commissioning program for female direct commissions, due to the low numbers of women attending the WAC OCS course, due in part to tightened standards for selection – in response to investigations of the washout rates.