Photo By Staff Sgt. Avery Cunningham | A U.S. Army officer candidate provides security for soldiers clearing the opposing...... read more read more
Soldiers from throughout the Northeast United States participated in the Officer Candidate School Field Leadership Exercise at New Hampshire National Guard Training Site in Center Strafford, New Hampshire, May 18 to May 21 in preparation for their final OCS phase.
“This weekend is a lead-in to our final phase,” said Officer Candidate Kyle Guinan, assigned to Hotel Company, 2nd Modular Training Battalion, 124th Regiment [Regional Training Institute], Vermont National Guard. “It’s a lot of squad tactics and leadership, getting an [operations] order, planning a mission, then executing that mission.”
The candidates were from throughout Region One, including Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont, participated in training to simulate different battle scenarios.
“What we’re doing right now are called [situational training exercise] lanes and each officer candidate will get a chance to participate in some kind of battle drill,” said Officer Candidate James Fox, also with Hotel Company. “The commander will brief the squad leader a task, and it’s the squad leader’s job to produce a squad-level [operational] order and then to execute that mission.”
The OCS cadre use these tasks to evaluate Soldiers’ abilities.
“They want to test your ability to use the troop leading procedures and then you get graded based off of your ability to follow those procedures,” said Fox.
“OCS is a challenge, I think the program itself is developed around how you can realize your potential. Officers are leaders of Soldiers and there are a lot of expectations,” said Officer Candidate Connor LaClair also with Hotel Company. “For me, it’s a challenge because I don’t have a lot of prior military experience.”
The training itself isn’t the only challenge for candidates. High temperatures beat down on the Soldiers and it was a long weekend packed with training.
“It’s hot, the bugs are out, and everybody’s tired,” said LaClair. “We got like two hours of sleep last night, probably less tonight, but everybody is going through it together. That experience in this environment really makes it worthwhile, something you’ll never forget for sure.”
Officer Candidates battled through this phase of training following their personal aspirations to serve.
“The desire to serve is tied into why I joined the military, especially the National Guard. I’m a fifth generation Vermonter and really proud of Vermont’s heritage,” said LaClair. “The [National Guard] of Vermont is really celebrated, has a rich history and I’m proud to be part of that officially. More, for myself, it was more about realizing my potential and this is a great way to do that.”
Others have different aspirations to serve.
“I wanted to put my mark on making decisions that I think will benefit people,” said Fox. “I wanted more leadership, more responsibility.”
Officer training is one of the first steps of becoming an officer, but it is not the end of training.
“OCS has taught me a lot about what the Army has to offer, and I just hope that it’ll give me the skill set and that I have the right mentality to be successful and give back to my soldiers,” said Guinan.
| Date Taken: | 05.21.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.24.2017 12:51 |
| Story ID: | 234795 |
| Location: | CENTER STRAFFORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE, US |
| Web Views: | 227 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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