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Training new officers lags behind enlisted pace

MARINE BASE QUANTICO, Va. — Adding more enlisted Marines means adding more officers to lead them, but growing them as fast as the Corps would like remains a struggle.

By the time a new Marine second lieutenant hits the fleet, the junior officer has spent more than a year in officer training and specialty schooling. And while the Corps has adjusted to make the growth to 202,000 Marines happen quickly, the officer portion can’t match the enlisted side step for step and will take until fiscal 2011 to reach steady state.

“There are only so many folks we can fit through the belly of the snake,” said Lt. Col. Scott Casey, head of officer programs with Marine Corps Recruiting Command. “All of our programs, they were planned four or five years ago (before the 202K), and it takes time for that seed corn to grow.”

The Basic School, where newly commissioned officers spend six months before going to their Military Occupational Specialty schools, added a seventh company of about 300 Marines in fiscal 2008, an influx that meant as many as five companies were on hand for one portion of the year, said Col. George Smith, TBS commander. Overall, about 2,000 Marines graduated TBS in fiscal 2008 as the companies came through on a rolling basis. In a typical year, the school sees about 1,600 lieutenants.

“Week in and week out, the institution is busier, based just on through-put,” Smith said during an interview in his TBS office, found west of Quantico’s main side aboard Camp Barrett.

The changes at TBS stand as just one example of how the Corps has adjusted its operations to train additional officers, who in most cases must go through Officer Candidate School, TBS and training for their military occupational specialties. Combined, the training can take more than a year to complete, and is one of the main reasons that it will take until fiscal 2011 to recruit and train enough officers to meet the demands of the expansion to 202,000 active-duty Marines.

Overall, the Corps will continue to increase officer accessions during the next two years, taking on 2,050 officer candidates in fiscal 2009 and 2,108 in ’10, Recruiting Command officials said. That’s in addition to the 1,844 in fiscal 2007 and 1,900 in ’08 who signed contracts.

TBS changes

The mission of TBS remains the same: teach new lieutenants the basics of weapons, tactics and squad-level leadership.

But more Marines at Camp Barrett have meant changes. TBS grew its staff from 128 officers in fiscal 2008 to 151 for fiscal 2009, Smith said. It also increasingly has relied on captain instructors and the 1,000-strong Instructor Battalion, a mix of Marines, sailors and civilians who run much of the day-to-day operations at the school.

“Before, we may have had two to four companies on deck at any one time,” Smith said. “Now, we’re pretty much steady state at four companies at any one point in time, and at certain times — albeit just for a few weeks — we may have five companies on deck.”

Smith said the NCOs, mostly sergeants, are used heavily for more than half of a new lieutenant’s TBS training, primarily to teach individual and squad-level basics such as weapons handling and patrolling.

“Within the battalion, we have just over 760 non-commissioned officers, and fully 80 percent of them have multiple combat tours,” Smith said. “We’re not only leveraging the strength of all of our captain instructors to deal with this increased through-put, but … unlike at any point in our history, [we’re really] leveraging these great non-commissioned officers, these sergeants, in an instructor capacity.”

In terms of space, TBS may see some relief next August in the form of a new student officer quarters, planned in 2003 as part of a scheduled overhaul of Camp Barrett that was unrelated to the 202K plan. The building is scheduled to eventually replace an existing quarters, which will be demolished, but Smith said it could offer some relief in the short term.

Overall, eight new student officer quarters buildings are expected to be constructed in coming years, gradually replacing housing at TBS that dates back to the 1950s.

OCS changes

At OCS, the flood of additional officer candidates was mitigated by more than $14.7 million in construction completed in six months beginning in January 2007, ahead of the school adding two additional companies for its annual summer push, said Col. Richard Mancini, the school’s commander. The construction included a chow hall annex, classroom annex and modular housing, all of which can be removed in the future if they are not needed.

That helped to alleviate space constraints as OCS added two companies of officer recruits during the summers of 2007 and 2008, Mancini said.

Overall, 2,701 candidates were inducted in fiscal 2007 and 2,190 graduated to TBS, an 81.1 percent retention rate. In fiscal 2008, 3,228 candidates were inducted and 2,481 graduated to TBS, a 76.9 percent rate. The numbers are important, because while two of every 10 candidates wash out of OCS, less than one-half percent fail in TBS, officials said.

OCS’s 76.9 percent retention rate in fiscal 2008 was the lowest number in at least five years. Mancini said that occurred, in part, because with the growth plan in place, OCS and Officer Selection Officers now ask candidates to try OCS and stay four weeks, even if they aren’t sure they want to join the Corps. The Corps understands that it can be difficult for officer recruits to assess whether or not going Marine is right for an individual, especially when they have started a career and may have a spouse or family who is not supportive, Mancini said.

Mancini said he anticipates that the new classroom, housing and chow hall will be scrapped after fiscal 2010, when the Corps is expected to have reached its 202K officer goal. A new, permanent 29,600 square-foot mess hall and a new 13,250 square-foot headquarters building are also in the works, with a combined $19.5 million set aside in the 2009 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Bill.

Officer recruiting adjusted

Officer recruiting also continues to change, beginning with the 74 Officer Selection Offices nationwide that serve as an initial point of contact for interested candidates.

Casey said recruiting officers is difficult, in part, because such a large percentage of their recruits come from the “direct market” — recruiting-speak for the population of eligible candidates who are neither in high school nor college, and not on any easy-to-work list.

A full 64 percent of the 1,900 officers recruited in fiscal 2008, or 1,225 candidates, came from the Officer Candidate Course and the Platoon Leaders Class, two of the four ways to become a Marine officer. One hundred eighty-five candidates (about 10 percent) went officer through enlisted-to-officer commission programs, 235 came from the Naval Academy (12 percent) and 250 came through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (13 percentage).

Those percentages will remain about the same this year, because while the number of officers to recruit has increased, the Corps will get more officers from the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (275, up 25 from fiscal 2008) and the Naval Academy (270, up 45 from last year).

For 202K, the Corps added 600 Marines, including 500 recruiters, to recruiting duty to help meet enlisted recruiting goals. That didn’t happen with officer recruiting, and Casey said there is no plan for that to change.

To help OSOs succeed, however, the Corps is adopting the systematic plan it has used for years to recruit enlisted Marines, Casey said. The plan calls for recruiters to develop organizational skills, track phone calls and keep track of their past successes and failures.

“It’s a good business model,” Casey said. “The workload has gone up, but this training piece should help fill in some of the holes and help with time management. It takes that average guy [working as an OSO] and helps him find [candidates], prepare them and get them ready for OCS.”

The Corps also will keep in place bonus programs it has adopted to attract new officers, Casey said. They include the Selected Marine Corps Reserve Officer Education Loan Repayment Program and Active Component Officer College Loan Repayment Program, in which $30,000 is offered to new officers to pay off student loans, and the Officer Accession Incentive, in which a new lieutenant receives $4,000 when they report to TBS if they agreed before arriving at OCS to remain on active duty for an extra six months.