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For officer candidates hoping to commission as U.S. Army National Guard officers, phase three of Officer Candidate School is critical, especially the week-long squad size situational training exercise. This is when the candidates will be evaluated on their abilities to receive a mission, create a plan and execute the mission all within 90 minutes.
“My role here is to be the lane walker. As various candidates move through the lanes, a squad will show up and conduct an operation,” said Maj. Nick Stuart, Joint Force Headquarters – Washington National Guard.
Stuart, a graduate of the OCS program in 2008, volunteered to be an observer-controller, or “lane walker” in support of the 2nd Battalion, 205th Regimental Training Institute evaluation phase.
“When they arrive, their training, advising, and counseling officers or “TAC Officer” will identify one of them as the squad leader. I will brief them an operation orders and then they will have 45 minutes to develop their own operations order, with their missions and their tasks, and brief that to their squad,” said Stuart.
Observer controllers provide the mission to the officer candidate, while also observing and evaluating them on their ability to lead.
“They will develop a sand table and will run through the scenario to complete the mission,” said Stuart.
The observer controller shadows the squad on the lane, mirroring the squad leader to see if have any needs, view their successes and failures and provide the feedback during the after actions review on the mission.
“This is really evaluating their ability to take a higher-level operations order and bring it to their squad,” said Stuart. “They have been tested on this before so they should be able to do it and be evaluated on it.”
During their classroom portion of OCS, candidates run through the process and learn how to write operations orders and briefs. This is their final evaluation in a field environment to ensure they understand the concepts and how to complete the mission.
“If they hit enough of the components of the plan, they will pass and be able to graduate OCS,” said Stuart. “From what I have seen, they all have the ability to pass and commission as officers.”
| Date Taken: | 07.27.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 07.27.2023 17:15 |
| Story ID: | 450153 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 167 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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