Photo By Maj. William Carraway | Brigadier General Tom Carden, commander of the Georgia Army National Guard presents...... read more read more
Subscribe
The Georgia National Guard welcomed eleven new second lieutenants following the graduation ceremony of the Marietta-based Georgia Military Institute’s Officer Candidate School Class 55. The ceremony marks the culmination of 18 months of training by the officer candidates who will assume leadership positions throughout the State.
“This is something I have devoted the last 18 months of my life to,” said 2nd Lt. Patrick Crowley. “It has been a lifetime dream and aspiration to become a military officer and I could not be any happier right now.” Crowley, who previously served as a sergeant in the Georgia Air National Guard, will now lead a platoon in Company D, 148th Brigade Support Battalion.
The Georgia Military Institute, part of the Georgia National Guard’s 122nd Regional Training Institute serves as the officer candidate school for the Georgia Army National Guard. Initially established in Marietta in 1851, GMI provided military instruction until 1864 when it was burned during the advance of the Federal armies of Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. In 1961, GMI was reestablished by the Georgia Army National Guard in Macon. In 2008 the institute returned to Marietta as part of the 122nd RTI.
The traditional state National Guard OCS class commits to 18 months of training during drill weekends and two summer annual training events. Of the eleven new officers, ten completed the traditional National Guard OCS while the eleventh completed an accelerated OCS program over the course of three months.
Once accepted into the Georgia National Guard OCS program, candidates are subjected to a series of academic challenges and arduous tasks to test them both physically and mentally. They train in the academics of leadership in a classroom setting and take to the field to learn small unit tactics and unit leadership. The rigorous program is designed to push officer candidates to their limit.
“The course is physically and mentally demanding,” said Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Sala, course manager for the OCS program. “We have to learn our officer candidates’ strengths and weaknesses inside and outside the program in order to maximize training effectiveness.”
The officers of OCS Class 55 come from a diverse leadership background. While some entered the Georgia Guard as officer candidates directly from the civilian world, half of the new officers, like Crowley, have prior enlisted experience. Others, like 2nd Lt. Luis Morales, a Ranger-qualified infantryman from the Georgia Army National Guard’s 121st Infantry Regiment, are combat veterans of overseas deployments. The new officers will follow careers in Army branches such as infantry, quartermaster, military intelligence and finance. The next phase of their training will take them to U.S. Army installations where they will train side by side with U.S. Army active and reserve officers as well as National Guard officers from other states.
Major Davis Varner, OCS company commander, praised the OCS graduates and instructors for the success of the program.
“We had the students who were willing to learn combined with the heat provided by the instructors and staff and I think both students and cadre did an outstanding job.”
| Date Taken: | 08.13.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 08.14.2016 10:58 |
| Story ID: | 207056 |
| Location: | MARIETTA, GA, US |
| Web Views: | 313 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, GMI Commissions 11 Georgia National Guard Officers, by MAJ William Carraway, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT