a history of the u.s. army officer corps, 1900-1990

8/20/2019 A History of the U.S. Army Officer Corps, 1900-1990

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Arthur T. Coumbe

A HISTORY OF THE U.S. ARMY

OFFICER CORPS, 1900-1990

Carlisle Barracks, PA and

UNITED STATES

ARMY WAR COLLEGE

PRESS


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The United States Army War College

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

CENTER for

STRATEGIC

LEADERSHIPand

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STRATEGICSTUDIES

INSTITUTE

The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) is part of the U.S. Army WarCollege and is the strategic-level study agent for issues relatedto national security and military strategy with emphasis ongeostrategic analysis.

The mission of SSI is to use independent analysis to conduct strategicstudies that develop policy recommendations on:

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Strategic Studies Instituteand

U.S. Army War College Press

A HISTORY OF THE U.S. ARMY OFFICER CORPS,1900-1990

Arthur T. Coumbe

September 2014

The views expressed in this report are those of the author anddo not necessarily reect the ofcial policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) andU.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press publications enjoy fullacademic freedom, provided they do not disclose classiedinformation, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresent

ofcial U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them tooffer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the inter-est of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared forpublic release; distribution is unlimited.

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ISBN 1-58487-637-9


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CONTENTS

Foreword ..................................................................vii

About the Author .....................................................ix

Summary ....................................................................xi

1. Overview .................................................................1

2. Ofcer Talent ........................................................35

3. Retaining Ofcer Talent ......................................55

4. Accessing Ofcer Talent .....................................87

5. Developing Ofcer Talent .................................121

6. Employing Ofcer Talent ..................................159

7. Evaluating Ofcer Talent ..................................181


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FOREWORD

The Army’s Ofce of Economic and ManpowerAnalysis published a series of monographs that wereintended to provide a theoretical and conceptualframework for the development of an Army OfcerCorps Strategy. These monographs consider the cre-ation and maintenance of a highly skilled Ofcer Corpsin the context of the nation’s continuing commitmentto an all-volunteer military, its far ung internationalinterests, and ongoing changes in its domestic labormarket. The authors contend that the conuence ofthese factors demands a comprehensive Ofcer Corpsstrategy recognizing the interdependency of access-ing, developing, retaining, and employing talent. Intheir view, building a talent-focused strategy aroundthis four-activity human capital model would best

posture the Army to match individual ofcer compe-tencies to specic competency requirements.

To provide historical context to these monographs,Dr. Arthur Coumbe of the Ofce of Economic andManpower Analysis has prepared a monograph thatprovides a historical overview of the Army OfcerCorps and its management in the modern era. Like theearlier monographs, this volume is organized aroundwhat the Ofce of Economic and Manpower Analysissees as the functionally interdependent concepts of ac-cessing, developing, retaining, and employing talent.


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The chapters in this book will take the reader upto the point where the earlier monographs begin their

story in the late-1980s.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR. Director Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press

viii


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ARTHUR T. COUMBE is a historian with the Army’sOfce of Economic and Manpower Analysis and anadjunct faculty member at American Military Uni-versity. A retired Army ofcer, he has authored anumber of articles and books on Army ROTC historyand the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Dr. Coumbereceived a B.S from the U.S. Military Academy and aPh.D. from Duke University.


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SUMMARY

With the assistance of the Strategic Studies Insti-tute of the U.S. Army War College, the Army’s Ofceof Economic and Manpower Analysis published aseries of monographs that were intended to providea theoretical and conceptual framework for the de-velopment of an Army Ofcer Corps Strategy. Thesemonographs consider the creation and maintenanceof a highly skilled Ofcer Corps in the context of thenation’s continuing commitment to an all-volunteermilitary, its far ung international interests, and ongo-ing changes in its domestic labor market. The authorsof the various monographs believe that the conuenceof these factors demands a comprehensive OfcerCorps strategy that recognizes the interdependency ofaccessing, developing, retaining, and employing tal-

ent. In their view, building a talent-focused strategyaround this four-activity human capital model wouldbest enable the Army to match individual ofcer com-petencies to specic competency requirements.

Dr. Arthur Coumbe of the Ofce of Economic andManpower Analysis has prepared a monograph thatprovides a historical overview of the Army OfcerCorps and its management in the modern era. Like theearlier monographs, this volume is organized aroundwhat the Ofce of Economic and Manpower analysissee as the functionally interdependent concepts of ac-cessing, developing, retaining, and employing talent.This book is a prologue to the earlier monographs thatbegin their story in the late-1980s.


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CHAPTER 1

OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION

The Army has never had an overarching and inte-grative plan to access, develop, retain, and employ itsofcers through a career of service. In the past, it hasaddressed one or another of these facets of an ofcerstrategy but always in a desultory and piecemeal fash-ion. Recently, the Army’s senior leaders have begunto formulate such a strategy based on the principleof talent management, although this effort is still inits infancy and still has not gained the assent of allconcerned parties. Indeed, many senior leaders doubtboth its feasibility and its desirability.

The basic outline of this talent-based ofcer strat-egy was adumbrated in a series of monographs au-thored by Casey Wardynski, David Lyle, and MikeColarusso of the G-1’s Ofce of Economic and Man-power Analysis (OEMA) and published by the Strate-gic Studies Institute in 2009 and 2010.1

The purpose of the present volume is to supple-ment these OEMA monographs by providing a histor-ical context for their discussion of an ofcer strategy.First is offered an overview of some key developmentsand assumptions that have guided and shaped the Of-cer Corps and the way it has been managed over thelast century. It is meant as a companion piece for To-ward an Ofcer Corps Strategy: A Talent Focused HumanCapital Model. By design, I have sacriced nuance for

clarity as I attempt to highlight general trends.


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THE ROOT REFORMS

The U.S. Army Ofcer Corps, along with the poli-cies and assumptions that underpin its management,has passed through several watersheds since the turnof the 20th century. The rst began during the tenureof corporation lawyer, Elihu Root, as Secretary of War(1899-1903).

Root’s stint in the War Department took place inan era when industry was eclipsing agriculture asthe nation’s predominant economic sector, when therailroad and modern means of communication werelacing the country together economically, and whenan assertive progressivism was conditioning the pub-lic to expect more out of their government. Perhapsthis socioeconomic setting partially explains why the

transformation effected under Root was very differ-ent than previous ones experienced by the Army. Thelatter were largely unplanned affairs, driven by theforce of circumstances and individual initiative, whilethe former was centrally directed and institutionallydriven.2

Under Root’s tutelage, the Army began its trans-formation from a constabulary force focused on polic-ing the frontier to an “Army for Empire,” concernedwith hemispheric defense and burdened with wide-ranging imperial responsibilities. The key event forRoot and his supporters within the War Departmentwas the Spanish American War. That conict and itsconsequences precipitated a substantial increase introop strength. The Army grew from a force of about

27,000 men with 2,000 ofcers in the 1890s to a force of90,000 men and 4,000 ofcers by 1913.3


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The conict with Spain also inspired an extensivemilitary reorganization. In the aftermath of the war,

Root and his allies in the War Department recognizedthe need for the Army to remold itself into an institu-tion capable of managing its newly acquired global re-sponsibilities. Those new responsibilities entailed theoverseas stationing of units and leaders. Over the nextdecade, the Army established and garrisoned a seriesof outposts and bases stretching from the Caribbeanto the Far East.

Its extended global and functional reach requiredthe Army to shed the antiquated bureau system, whichhad guided military administration since the late-18thcentury, and adopt of a system of integrated manage-ment. Accordingly, Root moved to displace the quasi-independent and powerful bureau chiefs with a Chiefof Staff who answered to the Secretary of War. It was a

long, tough, and rancorous ght, but the power of thebureau chiefs was greatly reduced, albeit not extin-guished, by the time the United States emerged fromWorld War I.4

A consolidation of units at fewer locations and theelimination of small, uneconomical posts was anotheraspect of Root’s reform agenda. So was his attempt togather a dispersed frontier constabulary into largertactical units, a task continued by his successors, whoeventually designed nominal divisional organizationsto link these units together in an inchoate force struc-ture. His effort to transform the Organized Militia, orwhat is now known as the National Guard (NG), intoa tiered reserve and thereby realize John Calhoun’sconcept of an expansible Army was yet another part of

his reform program. This latter task was accomplishedprincipally through the Dick Act of 1903, which es-tablished a new and closer relationship between the


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Regular Army (RA) and the NG. In a move that wasto transform the way the Army developed its leaders,

Root introduced a progressive and sequential systemof professional military education designed to prepareofcers for specic stages in their careers. The systemencompassed garrison schools, branch schools, thestaff college at Ft. Leavenworth, KS, and the newlycreated U.S. Army War College (USAWC).

The new arrangements sparked dramatic changesin ofcer management. In the place of the old system,in which promotions, assignments, and virtually ev-erything else in an ofcer’s career were regulated bythe regiment, arose the prototype of the modern of-cer management system that featured a career patterncharacterized by a rotation between staff and line as-signments and was punctuated with periodic profes-sional training. Root’s was essentially an industrial age

blueprint inspired by the Prussian military paradigmand reinforced by the corporate production modelwhich, by Root’s time, had become a prevalent formof business organization. Together, the organizationaland educational overhaul of the Army under Root sig-naled the ultimate demise of the frontier Army andthe regimental system that sustained it.

A milestone of sorts occurred in 1907 when theWar Department replaced the policy of unit rotationwith a policy of individual replacements to sustain theArmy overseas. This change was signicant and sym-bolic. It reected not only the weakening of the regi-mental system but the Army’s expanding size and re-sponsibilities and its new and increasing emphasis onmodern management practices and the commitment

to industrial efciency that they necessarily entailed.5


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WORLD WAR I

The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 occasioneda renement of Root’s paradigm. On the eve of thatconict, the Army was capable of fullling its impe-rial responsibilities, prosecuting conicts on the scaleof the Spanish American War and orchestrating de-ployments on the volatile Mexican border. It was not,however, equipped or congured for a mass mobi-lization. Root had been impressed with the ideas ofEmory Upton and his like-minded contemporarieswho were chary of growth beyond the organizationalbounds of established units. Controllable numbers ofraw recruits could be trained to a high standard byprofessional ofcers and noncommissioned ofcers(NCOs) in such units while routine operations contin-ued under veteran troops. Such an expansible force

could double in size in a relatively short period with-out sacricing its quality. Adherence to the concept ofan expansible Army was therefore a commitment tomodest and measured growth.

Given the geographical isolation of the UnitedStates, the insular character of its overseas territories,and the relative weakness of its neighbors to the northand south, this seemed adequate, even with an RA offewer than 100,000 men. Many American profession-al Soldiers admired the elaborate mass mobilizationmodels of the major European powers but consideredthese models inappropriate for or irrelevant to theirown military.6

But in 1914, conditions began to change. As theEuropean War dragged on, public concern about pre-

paredness mounted. The United States took its rstrather tentative steps toward the ideal of the Nation inArms when the Congress passed the National Defense


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Act of 1916, which substantially augmented both theRA and the NG and rendered both further expansible

along essentially Uptonian lines. The act introducedmeasures for industrial and economic mobilizationand recognized the universal military obligation ofthe “unorganized Militia” under federal auspices.This latter measure laid the groundwork for mass con-scription, followed by the organization and training ofnew divisions under the supervision of small cadres ofprofessional soldiers. When America entered the warin April 1917, the system described in the NationalDefense Act of 1916 appeared as the only practicableway to eld forces large enough and quickly enoughto render meaningful assistance to the allies before itwas too late. For the emergency, later known as WorldWar I, the new “National Army” raised 18 divisions, joining eight constructed from the RA and 17 from the

NG to defeat the Germans in Europe. In the process oforganizing the American Expeditionary Force (AEF),divisions became solidied, and corps and armieswere added to control them.7

World War I necessitated adjustments to the Ar-my’s ofcer accessions and management practices.Before that conict, the Army obtained its ofcersfrom West Point, civil life, and, to a very limited de-gree, the enlisted ranks. Due to the immense scale ofthe war, the Army turned to Ofcer Training Schools(OTS), the progenitors of the modern Ofcer Candi-date School (OCS) system, for the vast majority of its junior leaders for the combat arms while it used directappointments from civil life to ll out the specialtybranches (an arrangement which rendered mixed re-

sults). Although the rst OTS classes (following thepre-war “Plattsburgh” formula) admitted substantialnumbers of so-called social elites, the War Depart-


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ment soon evidenced a preference for enlisted men asofcer aspirants for the arms. In this clash of massive,

industrial era armies, the Army’s most pressing needwas for technically procient platoon leaders, notfor broadly educated junior ofcers adept at sophis-ticated abstract reasoning and prepared for a careerof military service.

The Army’s rst foray into large scale ofcer man-agement took place during this time. It was necessitat-ed by the Ofcer Corps’ rapid expansion from about6,000 ofcers in April 1917 to over 200,000 ofcers byAugust 1918 and the War Department’s imperative to“simplify the procedure of discovering [ofcer] tal-ent and assigning it where most needed.” Before thewar, combat arms ofcers had been under the controlof the Adjutant General, while permanent membersof the specialist branches were under the control of

their branch chiefs. However, during World War I, as-signments and promotions for all ofcers were shiftedto the General Staff. At the conclusion of the war, theChief of Staff expressed the hope that the General Staffwould eventually be empowered to:

control the entering into the service of ofcers, theirassignments, promotion, and separation from the ser-

vice in such a way as to place and reward individualsmore impartially to the best interests of the service,and to meet any emergency requiring an expansion ofour military forces, in a manner that has not heretoforebeen possible.8

This hope was not fullled.To better match its needs for talent with the avail-

able manpower, the War Department developed theOfcer Qualication Card and the CommissionedOfcers Rating Scale. Both devices were intended tomatch skills and attributes with leadership require-


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ments.9 Given the tremendous scope of the task,the vast needs of the AEF, and the suddenness with

which the war was thrust on the Army, the system ofmatching talent to position did not function very ef-ciently, of course. Still, a start had been made, and theArmy learned much that it would later use in the nextworld war.

INTERWAR YEARS

After the war, the U.S. Army shrank from its war-time high of almost 2.5 million men to about 140,000while its ofcer strength declined from 130,000 to12,000. In the demobilization, it abandoned wartimeofcer accessions and management systems and re-turned to its traditional methods. During the inter-war years, one of the Army’s main purposes was to

provide training and leadership for a temporary masscitizen Army should the need for such a force arise.This mobilization-based mass Army was predicatedon the notion that small cadres could train large unitsto appropriate standards within reasonable periods oftime. Proponents of the citizen soldier military ideal,such as John McAuley Palmer, took the AEF as theirmodel when the Army was reconstructed after the ar-mistice. These observers viewed the RA not as an ex-pansible core à la John Calhoun, but as a force capableof deploying on short notice. The NG, they reasoned,would take longer to mobilize but was a readily ac-cessible reserve. Behind this glacis of early deployingunits, a great mass of new divisions under small cad-res of experienced ofcers and NCOs could organize,

train, and deploy. This approach was solidied in theNational Defense Act of 1920, although interwar fru-gality much diminished the preparedness of the RAand NG.10


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The system of ofcer development schools in-troduced by Secretary Root remained in place, but

it was gradually expanded and rened. The branchschools retained their vitality although, due to bud-getary restrictions, the time that junior ofcers spentin them was slightly reduced. The U.S. Army Com-mand and General Staff College (CGSC) at Ft. Leav-enworth thrived, and attendance there became a markof professional distinction and a virtual prerequisitefor high rank. The USAWC retained an active role,both as an educational institution and as an agencyto guide and sort through good ideas. In all schools,adjustments were made in curricula to incorporatethe lessons learned in the war and the perceived de-mands of a new and somewhat uncertain internationalenvironment.11

Although vestiges of the bureau system remained,

responsibility for long-range planning increasinglyfell to the General Staff, which saw its scope expandedand its role become more specialized and rened. In1921, the Army recognized the enhanced importanceof the personnel management function by creating aPersonnel Division of the General Staff. This move ra-tionalized personnel management to a degree but didnot break the power of the branch chiefs, whose con-trol over their respective efdoms remained as strongas ever.

The chiefs of services, or branches as they arecalled today, retained their power throughout the in-terwar period. In fact, they had an importance rivalingthat of the Chief of Staff himself. They were, accord-ing to General Bruce Palmer, “the Mama, Papa, [and]

Mecca” for the RA ofcer, controlling virtually everyaspect of his professional life.12


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In the 1920s and 1930s, the Army’s regular Of-cer Corps busied itself with planning for war, training

troops, working with the reserve components, gar-risoning overseas possessions, and providing for thesupport and sustenance of the force. The focus of mostofcers was on internal troop training and administra-tion. The professional code that governed their livesemphasized ritual and rectitude, a faultless techniquewith weapons, and the maintenance of high standardsof appearance. Less than 5 percent of the Ofcer Corpswas engaged in any type of activity that took themaway from daily troop problems.13

The insular character of the ofcer’s existence be-gan to erode in the mid-1930s as a result of an increas-ingly threatening international situation. At the veryapex of the Army, senior ofcers became more con-cerned with international affairs, and a few began to

turn their attention, along with that of their subordi-nates, to strategic matters. Lower down on the Army’sfunctional pyramid, ofcers sought to broaden theirtechnical training and professional education in thegrowing eld of support functions—services of sup-ply, nance, weapons technology, research and devel-opment, public relations, personnel management, andindustrial mobilization. Still, it would take the shock ofWorld War II to expand the focus of the Ofcer Corpsas a whole beyond unit training and administration.14

The promotion prospects for ofcers were quitebleak throughout most of the interwar period. Fol-lowing the armistice, the Army reduced many ofcersto their permanent RA grade and introduced a singlepromotion list to replace the old branch promotion

system. Under this new system, there was no oppor-tunity for the most capable ofcers to “jump les” andget promoted ahead of their less capable compatriots.Everything depended on seniority.


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The famous “hump” was another impediment topromotion. After the war, thousands of ofcers com-

missioned during the emergency were retained to leadthe interwar Army, which, despite its diminutive size,was still much larger that the pre-war force. By 1926,after several rather small adjustments were made inofcer strength, there remained in an Ofcer Corps of12,000, a total of 5,800 ofcers who had been commis-sioned between 1916 and 1918. Consequently, manyofcers spent most of their career in the same grade.It was not at all uncommon for an ofcer to remaina lieutenant for 17 years.15 Only with the outbreakof World War II would promotion opportunities forregulars open up once again.16

By design, West Point, NY, was the principalsource of regular ofcers during this era. Senior mili-tary colleges and, to a lesser extent, civilian univer-

sities, supplemented the output of the U.S. MilitaryAcademy (USMA), while the enlisted ranks were aninsignicant source of new lieutenants. In peacetime,the War Department was not looking for immediatelyemployable platoon leaders but for junior ofcerswith a broad inventory of intellectual skills andabilities that would make them valuable senior lead-ers in the Army of the future.17

WORLD WAR II

The War Department entered the war with a num-ber of RA and NG divisions in various states of readi-ness. To this core was, in the fashion of World WarI, added new Army of the United States (AUS) divi-

sions, with a ratio of only one regular Soldier for eachconscript. These AUS divisions completed a 1-yeartraining cycle before entering the deployment queue.


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By the end of the war, conscripts composed the bulkof all divisions—RA, NG, and AUS—and meaningful

distinctions between them evaporated. To the corpsand army structure adopted in World War I, the WarDepartment added the army group in World War II.The mobilization-based Army of the latter war neededa greatly expanded command hierarchy to direct it.18

World War II saw the Ofcer Corps grow from14,000 to 835,000. To effect this expansion, the War De-partment decentralized ofcer management in 1942.It created three major commands—the Army GroundForces (AGF), the Army Service Forces (ASF), and theArmy Air Forces (AAF)—to control and administerthe training and assignment of ofcers who fell withintheir functional purview. Many critics attributed theArmy’s ofcer management problems during the warto this decentralized system.

One of the most troubling issues with this systemwas the severe distributional imbalance that existedamong the various branches. Throughout most of thewar, there were far too many anti-aircraft and eld ar-tillery ofcers and too few infantry, armor, and engi-neer ofcers. This system was also blamed for ofcer“pooling.” In 1943, the Army’s Inspector General re-ported that about half of all ASF ofcers had been sit-ting in replacement pools for extended periods, wherethey attended “makeshift” training, intended primar-ily to keep them busy. It seemed that ofcers wholacked desired skills and ability were being shuntedinto these pools because they were not wanted inunits. Reclassication of these marginal performerswas not a viable option because of extremely cumber-

some administrative procedures it involved.19The vast majority of ofcers who led the Army of

8,300,000 men came from one of three sources: 1) from


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those who had received training in peacetime militaryagencies—the NG, the Ofcers’ Reserve Corps (ORC),

the Reserve Ofcers’ Training Corps (ROTC), and theCitizens’ Military Training Camps (CMTC); 2) from abody of civilians with special skills (who were award-ed direct commissions); and 3) from OCS. OCS was byfar the largest source of new ofcers. In its selectionof OCS candidates, the Army favored enlisted men,since they were thought to make the best platoon lead-ers—superior to ROTC and even USMA graduates.

During the war, the existing educational facilitiesof the Army focused upon immediate requirements—i.e., training large numbers of men for specic dutiesin an emergency situation. In this environment, edu-cation was greatly curtailed. At West Point, courseswere compressed and accelerated as they had beenin World War I, albeit less drastically. Beginning in

1942, cadets were commissioned in 3 rather than 4years. Army service schools saw their courses short-ened or suspended. The USAWC was completelyclosed down.20

FROM WORLD WAR TO COLD WAR

After the war, the dynamics of national defensechanged drastically as the United States graduallygrew into its role as leader of the non-communistworld. To fulll the responsibilities that its new roleentailed, it engineered the erection of a network ofalliances whose collective reach stretched across theglobe. At the same time, the nation effected a majorreorganization of its defense establishment. The Na-

tional Defense Act of 1947 restructured the nation’smilitary forces into three services presided over by adepartment of defense. Strategy underwent a revolu-


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tion, as nuclear weapons and the new internationalsystem that these weapons helped fashion began to

drive both planning and force structure.21

In terms of its troop units, the trend was for the

Army to morph into a constabulary force overseaswhile maintaining a large mobilization base in thecontinental United States (CONUS) in case it wascalled upon to ght a reprise of World War II. Therewere large variations in troop strength during thisperiod. After shrinking from over 8,000,000 troopsin August 1945 to less than 600,000 by June 1950, theArmy expanded to more than 1.6 million men to ghtthe Korean war. After that war, it contracted moder-ately but remained large enough to fulll the nation’scontainment strategy, elaborated in National SecurityCouncil (NSC)-68 and other documents. Except fora brief time in the late-1940s when it conducted an

experiment with a volunteer force, the Army reliedon conscription and individual replacements to manthe force.

An elaborate and expandable mobilization struc-ture emerged in the post-war era. After the active forc-es, the most readily and quickly deployable units weremaintained in the NG and the Army Reserve (AR). Inaddition to its troop units, the AR maintained trainingdivisions capable of raising completely new units onthe order of the AUS divisions used in World War II.

The conscription-based Army of the early-ColdWar featured high attrition rates, a condition thatArmy planners integrated into their policies andestimates. Careerists in that Army rapidly rotatedthrough a variety of assignments; all were expected to

take their fair share of “hardship” tours, accompaniedoverseas tours, tours in CONUS, and school assign-ments. Homesteading, i.e., staying at one post and in


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one unit for an extended period, was an unforgivableprofessional sin. A complex bureaucracy, focused

more on plugging “faces into spaces” rather than ontting the “right person to the right job,” arose to con-trol all these moves.

In this mobilization-centered Army, personnelmanagers developed sophisticated tools to induct,classify, distribute, and discharge the hundreds ofthousands of short-term Soldiers who passed throughthe ranks. Standardized testing, which had been usedintermittently since World War I, now became a stapleof personnel management. Mental categories such asCAT IV assumed great symbolic as well as practicalsignicance. Units and agencies found themselvesstruggling with one another for Soldiers with the pre-ferred skills, knowledge, and attributes while person-nelists classied, managed, and tracked the military

workforce more closely than ever before.World War II ended what one historian has re-

ferred to as the “golden age” of the branch chiefs. Af-ter the war, a “semi-centralized” career managementdivision was set up to oversee ofcer assignments.Still, continuity was more evident than change. Thebranches remained powerful entities and continued toregulate career patterns.22

The old, interwar Army had been relatively uncom-plicated, small, close-knit, and somewhat insular. TheArmy that emerged after World War II, however, waslarge, multifarious, somewhat disjointed, egalitarian,and more integrated into society as a whole. Whereasthe interwar Ofcer Corps was intended to providethe nucleus for a temporary mass Army, the new one

was called upon to lead a permanent standing Armycapable of dealing with the global threat posed by theSoviet Union, while at the same time maintaining itscapability for mass mobilization.23


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The Army sought to achieve a wider distributionof talented ofcers to deal with the more complex

and wide-ranging threat it faced in the post-war era.National security now entailed diplomacy, science,foreign aid, and industrial and technological develop-ment as much as it did traditional military training.Once again, the Army’s system of ofcer developmentwas rened and enlarged to incorporate the lessons ofthe last war and to meet the challenges posed by thenew international order.24

After dominating the peacetime Ofcer Corps fora century and a half, West Point lost its quantitativepreeminence as a commissioning source. The vast sizeof the U.S. Cold War defense establishment led to thisloss of ascendancy. ROTC, which produced junior of-cers with a wide range of academic skills, becamethe engine of the Army’s Ofcer Corps. By the mid-

1950s, in fact, ROTC was producing twice as manyregular ofcers as West Point and nearly 80 percentof the short-term Reserve ofcers who lled out the junior ofcer ranks. OCS was retained but drasticallyreduced in scope.25

Ofcer management was placed on a new footingwith the passage of the Ofcer Personnel Act of 1947,which allowed for greater exibility in the handling ofofcers. Prior to the passage of this legislation, it hadbeen practically impossible to eliminate poor perform-ers, which resulted in the Army being lled with hun-dreds, perhaps thousands, of colonels and lieutenantcolonels it did not want. The Army published its rsttechnical manual for ofcer career management in re-sponse to this legislation. In this manual, career man-

agement objectives were crafted to channel an ofcer’scareer into different types of jobs within the connesof his assigned branch. Extended or repetitive duty in


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any single capacity was to be avoided at all costs; likehomesteading, specialization was a professional sin.26

The basic objective of ofcer management remained“to develop a highly competent Ofcer Corps to servein positions of progressively higher responsibility inthe event of a national emergency.” The end result ofthe process was to be a broadly trained ofcer, capableof grasping the wide sweep of the Army’s missionsand responsibilities.27

Many of the assumptions and policies that under-pinned ofcer career management at this time wereshared in the corporate world. Like the Army, corpo-rations in the post-World War II era aimed to developgeneral management skills in prospective executivesby encouraging lateral career moves across functionsand departments. The end result, it was hoped, wouldbe a leader capable of grasping the entirety of the

corporation’s operations.28

THE TURBULENT 1960s AND EARLY-1970s

The period encompassing the 1960s and the early-1970s witnessed the transformation of the conscriptArmy of the early-Cold War to the volunteer Armyof the late-Cold War. It also saw the weakening, albeitnot the extinction, of the mobilization model as a pil-lar of national defense. The notion of ghting a repriseof World War II was still considered within the realmof the possible.

The gradual abandonment of conscription by theDepartment of Defense (DoD) coincided with a majorshift in the strategic landscape. China and the Soviet

Union became embroiled in a rancorous quarrel, whilethe United States was engaged in Vietnam. Nixontook advantage of this rift and made overtures to both


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Peking and Moscow in the early-1970s. The result wasa diplomatic revolution. In the new international envi-

ronment, the threat of nuclear war subsided, while theidea of a monolithic communism bent on expansionlost much of its force.

The Richard Nixon administration revised thenational military strategy in light of the new devel-opments. In the place of the old 2 1/2 war strategy,Nixon substituted the 1 1/2 war strategy, focused onEurope and the Persian Gulf. While he cut the sizeof the Army almost in half in the 4 years after 1969,he planned to use alliances and Allied manpower tocompensate for these troop reductions.

The Arab-Israeli War of 1973 greatly affected bothU.S. strategy and operational doctrine. The war il-lustrated the devastating effectiveness of anti-tankand anti-aircraft missiles, which, in combination with

other technological innovations, seemed to suggestthe superiority of the tactical defense over the of-fense in conventional operations. Quite possibly, U.S.strategists concluded, the West could blunt a Sovietor North Korean offensive without employing nuclearweapons.

A third watershed in the evolution of the OfcerCorps began in the early-1960s and would end withthe advent of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF).29 Whilethe rst watershed (the Root Reforms) determinedthat the professional ofcer should be broadly trainedand versatile and the second (the post-World War IIreforms) determined that the Ofcer Corps would belarge, varied, and broadly based, the third suggestedthat in addition to their other skills, Army ofcers

should be analytical, lucid, and capable of defend-ing their positions in words and in writing . If ofcersdid not possess these capabilities and attributes, some


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feared, they would be overwhelmed and marginalizedin a DoD dominated by Secretary of Defense Robert

McNamara and his army of systems analysts.30

In fact, one of McNamara’s rst moves as defense

chief was to order a review of the Army’s system of of-cer management. The group that conducted that re-view found a system in disarray; responsibility withinthe Department of the Army for ofcer personnelquestions was diffused; personnel priorities had notbeen established; and career managers pursued manyseparate and short-range objectives. No single agencygave ofcer management coherence and direction. Toremedy these defects, the group called for the elimina-tion of the Ofce of the Chief of Technical Services andthe transfer of ofcer personnel management to a neworganization called the Ofce of Personnel Operations(OPO). McNamara promptly approved these recom-

mendations. The concentration of all personnel func-tions in one special staff agency imparted a degree ofunity to the management of ofcers and, some wereconvinced, to the Army as an institution.

Despite this organizational overhaul, the branch-centered management system remained essentiallyunchanged. The adjustments changed “who” con-trolled ofcer career planning and assignments ratherthan “how” they would be managed and employed.In short, the basic assumptions that had guided theassignment and career progression of ofcers sinceRoot’s time continued to guide personnel policy.31


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THE ADVENT OF THE AVF

The volunteer Army that emerged from the tumultof the Vietnam era was smaller, more disciplined, moreexpensive, more inward-looking, and more tied to theuctuations of the marketplace than its conscription-based predecessor had been. It came into being at thedawn of what many observers now refer to as theinformation age. The microchip or integrated circuit,used commercially for the rst time in the early-1960s,was, by the late-1970s, beginning to make an impres-sion, albeit a rather weak one, on the economy andbusiness practices.

It took some time for Army leaders as a group toaccept and adjust to the idea of an AVF. Many of theseleaders regarded the improved living conditions, the

relaxed disciplinary standards, and the pay raises thatwere introduced to attract and retain Soldiers as dys-functional. Some even saw them as inimical to unitcohesion and the warrior ethos.

General William Dupuy and his followers in thenewly formed U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Com-mand (TRADOC) shaped operational doctrine in the1970s. Dupuy’s doctrine of “active defense” envisageda highly trained professional force blunting a WarsawPact offensive in Central Europe through a combina-tion of maneuver and expertly coordinated repower.“AirLand Battle” replaced the active defense in theearly-1980s. This doctrinal construct took the empha-sis off the defensive and placed it on the offensive. Italso advanced the idea of a “deep battle” as a means

of offsetting Warsaw Pact numerical superiority andof disrupting the coherence of its attack. Equipmentmodernization accompanied these doctrinal initia-


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tives. The “Big Five,” consisting of the Abrams tank,the Bradley ghting vehicle, the Apache attack heli-

copter, the Black Hawk utility helicopter, and the Pa-triot air defense missile gave the Army what appearedto be a reasonable chance for its doctrine to work.

The Army became much smaller after Vietnam. Itwent from a force of about 1,500,000 men with 172,000ofcers in 1969 to an Army numbering 785,000 menand approximately 90,000 ofcers in 1975. These re-ductions were partially offset by increased relianceupon the reserve components. The Total Force Policy,announced by General Creighton Abrams in 1973, em-bodied this new reliance on the reserves. Under thispolicy, more than two-thirds of the Army’s servicesupport capabilities moved to the AR or NG, makingit impractical to engage in extended operations with-out them. A trimmed back but still robust mobilization

infrastructure and a conscription apparatus remainedin place to raise vast citizen armies, should the activeforces and the reserve components prove insufcientto handle an emergency.

Personnel management in the era of the AVF wasvery different than it had been in the early-Cold War.After 1973, the Army instituted longer tours, placedgreater emphasis on retention, and experienced lessturnover than had been the case when it relied onconscripts to ll out its ranks. Moreover, new orga-nizations arose to more efciently manage recruitingand retention. District Recruiting Commands (laterbattalions) and ROTC Regions (later brigades) spreadcadre across the country in an attempt to keep in con-tact with the public. Media offensives supplemented

these efforts.


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With the end of conscription, the Army created anumber of commands and agencies to guide its future

evolution. TRADOC and the Army Materiel Com-mand (AMC) were two of the more prominent ofthese organizations. Both TRADOC and AMC coop-erated and clashed with their functional counterpartson the Army Staff (the G-3 and G-4, respectively), the jurisdictional boundaries between the two sides beingrather vague. An increasing sophistication in testing,analysis, and “consumer” evaluation accompaniedthe rise of these organizations. Pressure to measureand document output rapidly became an integral partof organizational life.32

After the war, and with the example of My Lai andLieutenant William Calley before it, the Army waswary of relying heavily upon ofcers without degrees.Consequently, OCS was scaled back, and the ROTC

re-emerged as the Army’s principal commissioningsource. The ROTC came out of the Vietnam war witha reduced prole among the nation’s most competi-tive colleges. Some Army ofcials worried about themilitary and social ramications of this retreat fromthe nation’s centers of intellectual excellence.

The ofcer management system that emerged afterthe war had its origins in a study on military profes-sionalism conducted by the USAWC in 1971. The MyLai incident had moved Army Chief of Staff WilliamWestmoreland to launch a complete review of thestate of the Ofcer Corps. Out of this effort came acentralized promotion and command selection pro-cess, designated command tours, and primary andsecondary specialties for ofcers. Collectively, these

new practices were referred to as the Ofcer Person-nel Management System (OPMS). While it improvedthe career planning process, OPMS had little effect on


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the Army’s fundamental approach to the employmentand development of junior ofcers.33

Approximately 2 years after the introduction ofOPMS I (as it was subsequently called), the Armyconvened yet another board to examine ofcer educa-tion and training needs. The resultant study, A Reviewof Education and Training for Ofcers (RETO), laid thephilosophical foundation for a comprehensive sys-tem of career development from pre-commissioningthrough retirement. The board saw many of its recom-mendations eventually adopted, although its propos-al to institute rigorous intellectual, physical, and psy-chological screening mechanisms for entry into ROTCproved too difcult and controversial to institute, atleast in manner envisioned by the RETO Board.34

The Defense Ofcer Personnel Management Act(DOPMA) of 1980, which replaced the Ofcer Person-

nel Act of 1947 as the legislative basis for ofcer pro-motions and assignments, was the next major mile-stone in the history of ofcer management. Throughthis legislation, Congress hoped, among other things,to retain ofcers with scientic and technological tal-ent and afford reasonably uniform career opportuni-ties among the services. Like the OPMS introduced inthe 1970s, however, DOPMA represented evolution-ary rather than revolutionary change. Built upon leg-islation from the 1940s and 1950s, some of its key pro-visions incorporated ideas and policies that had beenaround since before the turn of the century. DOPMA’srestrictiveness bothered many observers. Its provi-sions relative to assignments, promotions, and retire-ments were based on time in service and were applied

somewhat rigidly across the defense establishment.35


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In the early-1980s, Army Chief of Staff Edward C.Meyer ordered an assessment of DOPMA’s effect on

the Ofcer Corps. The resultant Professional Develop-ment of Ofcers Study (PDOS) led to a second itera-tion of OPMS and more incremental changes to theway the Army managed its ofcers, i.e., the singlebranch track, new functional areas, and a revised of-cer classication system. This study, like those thathad preceded it, took aim at pressing contemporaryproblems.36 In 1987, General Carl E. Vuono orderedan appraisal of leader development to reconcile thechanges in policy and law that had occurred since theintroduction of OPMS II with existing ofcer manage-ment practices. This resulted in the Leader Development Action Plan (LDAP), which contained over 50 recom-mendations that were eventually incorporated intoOPMS II. With the LDAP, as with similar initiatives

in the past, the existing system was rened but notfundamentally altered.37

THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

The demise of the Soviet Union and the end of theCold War created a new international order and great-ly altered the strategic situation of the nation. Theseevents occurred at a time when the socioeconomic sig-nicance of the transition from the industrial age tothe information age was only beginning to be realized.In the Army, only gradually did the full meaning ofthe information age and the military potential of themicrochip dawn on senior leaders.

Shortly after the LDAP was introduced, the Army

embarked upon a momentous transformation occa-sioned by the end of the Cold War. The dissolutionof the Soviet Union enabled a dramatic reduction in


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the size of the Army and its Ofcer Corps. The Armyshrank from about 770,000 troops and 107,000 ofcers

in 1990 to 480,000 troops and 76,000 ofcers by theend of the century. While these reductions were be-ing effected, certain key pieces of legislation, passedin the late-1980s and early-1990s to address urgentissues that the services were then facing, began toconstrain the exibility of personnel managers. TheGoldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 (designed to promoteinteroperability) and amendments to Titles VIII andXI of the U.S. Code (aimed at closer active and reservecomponent cooperation) had the effect of narrowingthe range of assignment opportunities available toofcers.38

The post-Cold War draw-down created signicantofcer management challenges for the Army. A forcestructure and inventory mismatch, dysfunctional as-

signment practices, an inated rating system, a perva-sive “zero-defects” mentality, tensions generated byan elevated operational tempo, an erosion of ofcerwarghting skills, and truncated command tours sug-gested that something was seriously awry in the waythe Army managed and developed its leaders. Criticscomplained that the Army had a “Cold War” mental-ity and that its human capital management practiceswere still rooted in the industrial age. They urged theArmy to adapt its outlook and business practices tothe requirements of the information age, a term thatcame into general use in the late-1980s and early-1990sto describe the changes that were transforming theglobal economy.39

To deal with these Ofcer Corps challenges, then-

Chief of Staff Dennis J. Reimer chartered a review ofOPMS II. In 1996, he asked Major General David H.Ohle and a team of eld grade ofcers to assess that


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system’s effectiveness in the context of the Army’s ex-isting and projected needs. In mid-1997, General Re-

imer approved a system developed by Ohle’s team.Called OPMS III, it was predicated upon developingcompetency in the Ofcer Corps. While it left juniorofcer development virtually untouched, it had amajor impact on mid-career ofcers by grouping in-terrelated branches and functional areas into fourcareer elds: Operations, Information Operations,Institutional Support, and Operational Support. Un-der OPMS III, ofcers competed for promotion onlywithin the same career eld, effectively ending the“dual tracking” promotion system which had provedso professionally stultifying in the past.40

Some heralded OPMS III as a step in the right di-rection—it provided alternative career choices and in-creased the chances for promotion and battalion com-

mand for a larger number of ofcers. Others were lessenthusiastic. Some felt that it allowed “operators” tomaintain their “stranglehold on ag-level positions,”ensuring that specialists and experts remained on themargins of the profession.41

In 2000, critics of OPMS III had some of their opin-ions conrmed when Chief of Staff of the Army Gen-eral Eric Shinseki entrusted the TRADOC commanderwith the task of examining how the Army was pre-paring ofcers for the challenges of the next century.The Army Training and Leader Development Panel(ATLDP), which performed this task, found that thepersonnel management system was too focused onmeeting “gates”—or in the words of (then) MajorGeneral William M. Steele, “placing faces in spaces”—

than on quality leader development. The panel alsofound the Ofcer Education System (OES) needed re-vamping. That system, judged as too attuned to Cold


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War methods and assumptions, was deemed out ofsynch with the Army’s expanded set of missions and

responsibilities.42

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

Since the launch of Operation IRAQI FREEDOMin 2003, the Army has revised its OES in an attemptto align it with the requirements of an extended con-ict. Army training and education programs frompre-commissioning to the senior service college levelhave incorporated lessons learned from SouthwestAsia into their curricula. A three-phased Basic Of-cer Leader Course (BOLC), since revised, was in-troduced in an attempt to ensure that lieutenantsarrived at their rst unit of assignment competentin leadership skills, small unit tactics, and branch

fundamentals.43

As in previous periods of extended conict, theArmy’s “mix” of commissioning sources has depart-ed from peacetime patterns. Even before OperationIRAQI FREEDOM, the Army was increasingly relyingupon OCS for its junior leaders due to declining of-cer continuation rates and reduced funding for ROTC.As a result, by 2007, and for the rst time since theadvent of the AVF, ROTC furnished less than half ofthe Army’s Active-Duty commissioning cohort. BothCongress and senior Army leaders have expressedconcern about what this might portend for both theOfcer and NCO Corps.

There has been growing recognition in many quar-ters that the Army needs both a deep and broad dis-

tribution of talent in its Ofcer Corps to meet the de-mands of the future. At the beginning of this century,the emphasis was on accessing and developing “tech-


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nologically savvy” ofcers capable of understand-ing and managing complex weapons systems. More

recently, the call for technologically educated ofcershas been joined by a demand for culturally sensitiveleaders. Consequently, the study of foreign languagesand cultures has gained a new salience.

Renements have continued to be made to theOPMS. Introduced in September 2006, the latest ver-sion replaced the four career elds of OPMS III withthree new functional categories: Maneuver, Firesand Effects; Operations Support; and Force Sustain-ment. As in past revisions of the OPMS, however,the changes effected were essentially incremental innature. The task force that accomplished the revisiontook what it collectively considered to be a “provensystem” and tweaked it so that it could better addresscurrent needs.44

Over the last decade, calls have been made with in-creasing frequency to replace the old personnel man-agement system, rooted as it is in the methods and as-sumptions of the industrial age, with one focused onofcer intellectual abilities, bringing the Army on linewith the best practices in human capital and enter-prise management. It took several centuries for armiesto adjust to the new socioeconomic arrangements thatreplaced the feudal system, and decades for armies toadjust to the demands of the industrial age. How longit will take for armies to adjust to the requirementsof the information age is currently a matter of currentspeculation.45

CONCLUSIONS

There is a strong strand of continuity runningthrough the way the Army has managed its OfcerCorps over the last century. The Army’s ofcer man-


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agement policies have undergone frequent revisionsince 1900, primarily to address issues of contem-

porary importance. In effecting these revisions, theArmy, and in some cases Congress, have taken theexisting system as their base and tweaked it to achieveimmediately desired outcomes. As a consequence,the current system of ofcer management has an ad-ministrative superstructure consisting of disparatepolicies and procedures that have accumulated overdecades to address specic problems. This patchworkrests upon a foundation built by Root and is rmlyrooted in the industrial age. Such an incrementally ar-rived at ofcer management system is the antithesisof a coherent strategy. It relies upon a collection oflegacy practices when it should instead ow from aconscious and thoughtful planning process designedto meet strategic requirements.

Among other potential causes, the frequent rota-tion of senior Army ofcials has disrupted the conti-nuity of leadership needed to formulate and executesuch strategic planning. It has also prevented theemergence of a consensus among key leaders aboutthe most fundamental issues affecting the OfcerCorps, the absence of which seems particularly debili-tating. Key leaders cannot agree: 1) if there is a needfor such a strategy; 2) if needed, what elements mustbe included in that strategy; and 3) if needed, whatadjustments are necessary to bring that strategy in linewith the information age as the Army looks to the fu-ture. In regard to this latter point, some conceive ofthe information age almost exclusively in technologi-cal terms. In their opinion, the Army merely needs to

streamline and update a proven system. Others viewthe information age in the context of a broader social,technological, and economic transformation that de-


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mands fundamental changes in the way the Armyaccesses, develops, retains, and employs talented

ofcers.Which way the Army eventually decides to go is

not at this time clear. Certainly, evolutionary changein its ofcer management practices has rarely wroughtrevolutionary results. While the latter has occurred, ithas usually taken a military catastrophe or a manifestand dramatic change in external circumstances to in-duce it. Regardless of which policies emerge from thecurrent debate, one thing is clear—they will shape theOfcer Corps for better or worse, throughout much ofthe ensuing century.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 1

1. Casey Wardynski, David S. Lyle, and Michael J. Colarus-so, Accessing Talent: The Foundation of a U.S. Army Ofcer CorpsStrategy, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army WarCollege, 2010; Casey Wardynski, David S. Lyle, and Michael J.Colarusso, Towards a U.S. Army Ofcer Corps Strategy for Success:Developing Talent, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S.Army War College, 2010; Casey Wardynski, David S. Lyle, andMichael J. Colarusso, Towards a U.S. Army Ofcer Corps Strategy forSuccess: Employing Talent, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,U.S. Army War College, 2010; Casey Wardynski, David S. Lyle,

and Michael J. Colarusso, Towards a U.S. Army Ofcer Corps Strat-egy for Success: Retaining Talent, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies In-stitute, U.S. Army War College, 2010; Casey Wardynski, David S.Lyle, and Michael J. Colarusso, Talent: Implications for a U.S. ArmyOfcer Corps Strategy, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute,U.S. Army War College, 2009; and Casey Wardynski, David S.Lyle, and Michael J. Colarusso, Towards a U.S. Army Ofcer CorpsStrategy for Success: A Proposed Human Capital Model Focused UponTalent, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War

College, 2009.

2. Russell F. Weigley, “The Elihu Root Reforms and the Pro-gressive Era,” William Geffen, ed., Command and Commanders


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in Modern Warfare: The Proceedings of the Second Military HistorySymposium, U.S. Air Force Academy, May 2-3, 1968, Washington,DC: U.S. Government Printing Ofce (GPO), 1968, pp. 11-27; JohnSloan Brown, Kevlar Legions: Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989-2005, Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2011, p. 10.

3. J. P. Wade et al., Essay 1: Historical Perspective on the Army Of - cer Profession, Washington, DC: Defense Group, Inc., 2008, p. 11.

4. Otto L. Nelson, Jr., National Security and the General Staff ,Washington, DC: Infantry Journal Press, 1946, pp. 274-276.

5. Brown, p. 8.

6. Ibid., p. 10.

7. Ibid., p. 11.

8. As quoted in James H. Reeves, Jr., An Army Career Devel-opment Plan, Student Individual Study Project, Carlisle, PA; U.S.Army War College, March 26, 1956, p. 4.

9. Edward M. Coffman and Peter F. Herrly, “The AmericanRegular Army Ofcer Corps Between the World Wars: A Collec-tive Biography,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 4, November 1,1977, p. 57.

10. Brown, p. 23.

11. Interview conducted by the author with Mr. William Epleyand Dr. Ed Raines, August 19, 2009; Coffman and Herrly, pp. 55-73; John W. Masland and Laurence I. Radway, Soldiers and Schol-ars: Military Education and National Policy, Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1957, p. 86.

12. Donald P. Snow, The Golden Age, Vignettes of Military His-tory, No. 92, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army Military History Institute,March 6, 1978, p. 3.

13. Memorandum, Ofce of the Chief of Military History(OCMH), Brigadier General Hal C. Pattison, for Director of Mili-tary Personnel, Subject: Quality of the Ofcer Corps, Washington,


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DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History Archives, September21, 1964.

14. Annual Report of the Chief of Staff, General DouglasMacArthur, For Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1934, Washington,DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History.

15. Charles E. Kirkpatrick, “Filling the Gaps: Reevaluating Of-cer Professional Education in the Inter-War Army, 1920-1940,”paper presented at the 1989 American Military Institute AnnualConference, April 14-15, 1989, p. 2.

16. George R. Iverson, Ofcer Personnel Management: A Histori-cal Perspective, Strategy Research Project, Carlisle PA: U.S. ArmyWar College, May 1978, p. 10.

17. Coffman and Herrly, pp. 55-73.

18. Brown, p. 22.

19. R. R. Palmer, The Procurement and Training of Ground Com-bat Troops, Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military His-tory, 2003, pp. 87-88; Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 20-211,The Personnel System in the United States Army, Washington, DC:GPO, August 1954, p. 234.

20. Palmer, pp. 100-101.

21. Brown, p. 27.

22. Department of the Army Pamphlet No. 600-3, Career Planning for Army Ofcers, Washington, DC: GPO, October 15, 1956, p. 7;Snow, p. 4.

23. Thaddeus Holt, The Army Ofcer Corps and the Pentagonin 1965-1967: Miscellaneous Observations, Thaddeus Holt, Papers, 1Box, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center Ar-chives, p. 7.

24. Masland and Radway, p. 20.

25. Ibid., p. 23.


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26. Ofcer Personnel Act of 1947, Hearing on H.R. 3830, 80thCong., 1st Sess., Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Washing-ton, DC, July 16, 1947, pp. 1-3.

27. Iverson, p. 26.

28. Peter Cappelli, Talent on Demand: Managing Talent inan Age of Uncertainty, Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press,2008, p. 34.

29. The rst watershed occurred after the Spanish-AmericanWar, while the second occurred after World War II.

30. Holt, p. 14.

31. Iverson, pp. 29, 34.

32. Brown, p. 32.

33. David D. Haught, Ofcer Personnel Management in the Army: Past, Present, and Future, Carlisle PA: U.S. Army War Col-lege, April 2003, p. 1.

34. Robert J. Keivit, U.S. Army Executive Development, Carlisle,PA: U.S. Army War College, May 1984, p. 1.

35. Peter Schirmer, Harry J. Thie, Margaret C. Harrell, andMichael S. Tseng, Challenging Time in DOPMA: Flexible and Con-temporary Military Ofcer Management, Santa Monica, CA: RANDCorporation, 2006, p. xiv.

36. James J. McLeskey III, The U.S. Army Professional Develop-ment Of Ofcers Study: A Critique, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army WarCollege, March 1986, p. 21.

37. Haught, p. 2.

38. Ibid.

39. Mary French, “OPMS XXI—An Integrated Strategy,” Army, Vol. 47, February 1997.


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40. Ibid. 41. Lloyd Matthews, “The Uniformed Intellectual and his

Place in American Arms,” Army, August 2002, p. 40.

42. William Steele, “Training and Developing Leaders in aTransforming Army,” Military Review, September-October 2001,p. 3, Haught, p. 17.

43. David C. Hill, Junior Ofcer Institutional Leadership Educa-tion: Is the Basic Ofcer Leader Course, (BOLC) Meeting the Challenge? Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, July 2008, p. 17.

44. Robert P. Stavnes, Is the Army’s Current Force ManagementSystem Working? Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, March2008, p. 3.

45. Anthony G. Wallace, “Future Directions In Leadership—Implications For The Selection And Development Of Senior Lead-ers,” Master’s Thesis, Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School,March 2003, p. 67.


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CHAPTER 2

OFFICER TALENT

INTRODUCTION

The Army has never dened ofcer “talent” ina formal sense. In its ofcial publications and pro-nouncements over the years, it has instead adduceda laundry list of skills, knowledge, and aptitudesconsidered critical to mission success. These havechanged with shifts in the Army’s operating environ-ment and have not been particularly useful as prac-tical guides for ofcer management. Nevertheless,beginning in the 20th century, there arose within theArmy a general concept of talent that, at its core, hasremained relatively stable over time and mirrors that

found in much of the private sector—that broadly“talented” ofcers are a small percentage of the forcewho must be groomed for leadership at the Army’shighest levels. In the next several pages, I will attemptto briey sketch the evolution of the Army’s conceptof talent (and talent management) since World WarI. This chapter was originally intended to accompanythe U.S. Military Academy (USMA) Ofce of Econom-ic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA) monograph en-titled Talent: Implications for a U.S. Army Ofcer CorpsStrategy, which explores the differences between com-petent and talented leaders, discusses what talents theU.S. Army should seek in its ofcers, and lays out apath for the Army to follow to become a truly talent-based organization.1


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THE INTERWAR PERIOD

The basic blueprint for the system of ofcer man-agement used by the Army in the interwar periodhad taken shape under Secretary of War Elihu Rootin the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Thatsystem, based upon the Prussian military and cor-porate production models, entailed rotation betweenstaff and line assignments and periodic professionaleducation and training. The assumption was that of-cers with the desired characteristics and attributescould be “grown” by putting them through a seriesof varied developmental experiences. In the decadesafter World War I, those desired characteristics andattributes were derived from the principal purpose ofthe ofcer management system—to prepare ofcers

to assume positions of responsibility in the event ofa mass mobilization. Accordingly, the Army’s deni-tion of talent encompassed the attributes of intellec-tual versatility, adaptability, and what might be calledgeneral leadership and management ability. Therewas little room in this scheme for the specialist. Theemphasis was on developing a breadth rather than adepth of skills, knowledge, and behaviors. Ofcerswho would occupy key command or staff positions atthe division level and above upon mobilization, afterall, would have to be at least passably conversant withthe wide range of functions necessary for managingand directing operational units in wartime.2

Conditions during the interwar years did not com-pel the Army to undertake a deeper consideration

of ofcer talent, at least not in the very overt way itwould after World War II. Due largely to scal con-straints imposed by a cost-conscious Congress, the


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Ofcer Corps remained relatively small until 1940,its strength hovering between 12,000 and 14,000 of-

cers. Almost all of this rather diminutive force, asit was recognized, would be needed in the event ofa national emergency. Consequently, the Army hadlittle occasion to cull poor performers from its ranks.Only egregiously bad ofcers were cashiered. Neitherthe promotion system, based primarily on seniority,nor the assignment system, in which personal con-tacts and general reputation played a huge role, of-fered clear-cut clues about prevailing military ideasregarding talent.3

Some slight insight into the Army’s notions abouttalent, perhaps, can be inferred from a considerationof the so-called plucking boards conducted in 1922and 1941. The rst of these boards was convened totrim the Ofcer Corps down to a strength level set

by Congress. It resulted in the separation of approxi-mately 2,150 ofcers, from the ranks of lieutenantthrough colonel. Among the selection criteria used bythe board was something called special qualications,which included, among other things, operational ex-pertise in critical operational or technological elds.Physical tness and age were other criteria. Ofcerswho no longer possessed the vigor to lead troops incombat or perform arduous peacetime duties weregenerally the rst to be selected for separation fromthe active ranks. The plucking board held in 1941 alsoheavily weighted physical vitality. General GeorgeMarshall, anticipating the nation’s imminent involve-ment in World War II, wanted to rid the Army of su-perannuated ofcers who were not up to the test of

combat. He used the plucking board as a winnowingdevice. In both 1922 and 1941, “talented” ofcers wereviewed as those who would make a spirited, ener-


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getic, battle-ready leader.4 Of note, these boards werenot part of a strategic ofcer management process,

but rather reactions to immediate scal or nationalsecurity imperatives.

POST-WORLD WAR II

After the war, the Ofcer Corps became too largeto control in the informal fashion of the interwar years,and more methodical procedures were instituted forthe evaluation and promotion of ofcers. The OfcerPersonnel Act of 1947 outlawed the practice of blan-ket promotions based on seniority exclusively and re-placed it with a promotion system based on merit (al-though time in grade restrictions still existed). It alsoprovided for the regularization of the way the Armyevaluated ofcers by introducing a centralized selec-

tion board for promotions.5

The basic philosophy behind ofcer management,however, remained the same. To be sure, the Army’sideas about talent took on a more egalitarian aspect,as the interwar ideal of the “ofcer and gentleman,”which had class implications, began to erode. Never-theless, the Army continued to regard ofcer quali-ties and potential as highly malleable and to remainfocused on “growing” a particular type of ofcer.The typical lieutenant entered the Army in his early20s—at an age when he supposedly had much growthand development ahead of him. The underlying as-sumption was that through appropriate training,schooling, and mentoring, as well as a variety of de-velopmental assignments, any reasonably intelligent

and healthy individual of requisite character could beshaped into a good ofcer. Indeed, a mythology grewup around historical gures like George Patton, Mar-


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shall, and Dwight Eisenhower—ofcers who did notexcel as undergraduates but who went on to careers of

extraordinary achievement.6

The Army’s method for growing ofcers was verysimilar to the “company man” system used in corpo-rate America throughout much of the 20th century.This system, which emerged in its fully articulatedform in the immediate aftermath of World War II, builtmanagerial talent through a progression of develop-mental assignments interspersed with training andeducational experiences. Mentorship was also oftenpart of the developmental equation. The system wasdesigned to produce versatile and exible generalistsfamiliar with the entire range of the rm’s operationsand devoted to a career with that same rm.7

Large rms in this era generally eschewed lateralentry, understanding that it created turmoil in the

managerial pipeline and placed the rm’s corporateculture in peril by inserting the unsocialized into posi-tions of authority. By promoting from within, rmsminimized turnover and cultivated an ethos of corpo-rate loyalty and seless service within their workforce.“Succession planning” for the rm’s top executive po-sitions was an important component of that system. Insome companies, as Wharton’s Peter Cappelli notes,this planning was extremely deep, extending backthree generations. It entailed both selection and cull-ing, since fewer and fewer executives were needed asone approached the very top of the career ladder.8

The Army’s “company man” ofcer managementsystem functioned reasonably well through the early-1960s. It had critics who complained about its lack

of exibility and precision, but few questioned itsessential utility or the philosophical building blocksupon which it rested. The assumption was that the


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country would rely on a mass citizen Army raised byconscription in the event of a national emergency. It

was the job of the personnel system to prepare ofcersfor positions of authority in a defense establishmentexpanded by mobilization. The emphasis was upondeveloping broadly knowledgeable and experiencedgeneralists capable of overseeing all aspects of a largemilitary organization.9

In practice, the Army’s system, like the civilianone it resembled, performed a type of professionaltriage. The most gifted ofcers were identied earlyand groomed for assuming positions of the highestresponsibility in wartime. A second group of compe-tent but less talented career ofcers was prepared forpositions of lesser responsibility. A third group, theclearly incompetent, was culled from the service. Thissystem was congured not to align the talent sets of

individuals with the requirements of specic posi-tions and to thus raise the level of performance acrossthe Ofcer Corps, but to identify and develop capableleaders with a breadth of knowledge and experiencewho could be “plugged into” staff and commandbillets in wartime.10

One contemporary observer has applied the term“cookie cutter” to describe the way the system func-tioned (and in his opinion, continues to function). Theemphasis was on efciency, simplicity, and the elimi-nation of variables. One personnel manager in thelate-1950s likened the Army’s personnel managementsystem to a mathematic equation—the fewer variablesyou have, the easier the equation is to solve. The sameindividual referred to the ofcer as a “commodity.”

When a unit supply ofcer requisitions jeep tires, henoted, he is not concerned with which tires are placedon which jeeps. He orders and receives a standardized


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product that can be used on any jeep assigned to theunit. Although he admitted that the personnel man-

ager could not function as a unit supply ofcer, it wasclearly this kind of efciency that he held up as theideal. The closer the Army could come to managingofcers like interchangeable parts, the more efcientthe system would be.11

THE TURBULENT 1960s AND EARLY-1970s

The issues confronting personnel managers be-came progressively more complex in the 1960s andearly-1970s. Defense strategy changed, the roles andmissions of the Army expanded, and the nation experi-enced a series of social, economic, and political shockswhich reverberated throughout the Armed Forces. Inthe view of some observers, the Army did not possess

the depth of expertise necessary to address adequate-ly the growing array of tasks that it was being calledupon to perform. In this environment, the Army wasforced to reconsider its ideas about talent and the wayit managed its leaders.

It is perhaps more than mere coincidence that themilitary services began to use the word “talent” in aquasi-systematic way in the early-1960s. Project Tal-ent, a federal program initiated in the late-1950s toinventory and encourage the development of variousaptitudes among the young, helped popularize theterm in government circles. That project was givena boost by the successful Soviet launch of Sputnik in1958—an event that excited widespread consternationand sparked a host of educational reform initiatives.

Psychologist John Flanagan of the American Institutefor Research was a force behind Project Talent. Con-vinced that thousands of Americans were “miscast in


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the wrong career,” he wanted to “pinpoint” the abili-ties of individual students so that their full potential

could be unleashed.12

Talent became a part of the U.S. Army War Col-

lege (USAWC) lexicon in the mid-1960s when, for rea-sons that will be discussed presently, Army leadersbecame increasingly sensitive to the need for expertknowledge within the Ofcer Corps. Some talked ofa “talent gap.” By this, they meant that the Army didnot possess the intellectual capital needed to manageand direct the full range of roles and missions that thenation expected it to. Within segments of the Armyschool system at least, talent began to be discussed interms that extended beyond broadly capable leadersto intellectually or technically gifted specialists.13

Perhaps the more frequent use of the term amongmilitary professionals was related in some way to

their growing sense of intellectual inadequacy. Promi-nent political personages in the 1960s such as Johnand Robert Kennedy and William Fulbright expressedreservations about the quality of opinion and advicethey received from military leaders. In the Pentagon,Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had changedthe terms in which defense questions were framed.During this era, the uniformed services were often ata disadvantage when doing battle with the small armyof civilian systems analysts that the secretary hadbrought to Washington to place defense planning ona more rational basis. Ofcers often came away fromencounters with McNamara’s “whiz kids” with a pro-found sense of their own intellectual inferiority.14

The expansion of its responsibilities in the interna-

tional realm in the late-1960s and early-1970s was onefactor behind the Army’s new focus on talent. In 1965,Chief of Staff General Harold K. Johnson announcedthat the Army had a new mission in addition to its tra-


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ditional ones of defending the nation against externalthreats and ensuring domestic order. That third mis-

sion was nation-building. Confronted with insurgen-cies and political instability that threatened to alter theinternational balance of power, political leaders calledupon the military services to help friendly govern-ments in the underdeveloped world quell internal dis-order and build a foundation for economic and socialprogress. To fulll its nation-building mandate, theArmy needed ofcers procient in foreign languages,conversant with foreign cultures, and capable of per-forming the many duties and responsibilities encom-passed under the rubric of civil affairs.15

New domestic missions also affected the Army’sview of talent. With the formation of the Departmentof Defense (DoD) Domestic Action Council (DAC) inApril 1969, the services were formally tasked with the

mission of assisting other government agencies andprivate institutions in solving some of the nation’s se-rious domestic problems. Riots, crime, juvenile delin-quency, poverty, unemployment, an underperform-ing educational system, and a host of other societalmaladies were, as ofcials in the Richard Nixon ad-ministration pointed out, tearing apart the social fab-ric of the nation and undermining national security.The Army was called upon to provide ofcers withthe special skills, abilities, and knowledge necessaryto assist federal, state, and municipal agencies to ad-minister and develop social programs that could at-tack these ills.16

In 1971, one landmark Army study argued thatthe sociological and technological revolutions of the

late-1960s and early-1970s had major implicationsfor the Ofcer Corps. The Army faced thorny “socio-psychological” issues that added a new dimension ofdifculty and complexity to its search for talent. Of


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even greater signicance for the Ofcer Corps was theaccelerating pace of technological progress, especially

progress in the area of computer and information pro-cessing technology. The technological advances madeduring the era were, as various commentators pointedout, fostering the rise of technical economies, alteringthe external environment in which the services had tooperate, and pushing the Army and the rest of societytoward increasing specialization. An emerging viewwas that ofcers collectively would have to possess awider and deeper set of skills, aptitudes, and special-ized knowledge to deal with these developments.17

Army leaders were divided about whether seekingbreadth or depth of ofcer talents was the best wayto address the institution’s expanded mandate. Somewanted to produce ofcers who were what a later gen-eration would call “pentathletes”—i.e., ofcers with

both broad and deep talen

a history of the u.s. army officer corps, 1900-1990

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