Officer Candidate School (United States Army)

Officer Candidate School
The original Officer Candidate School logo. Known today as "the OCS roadwheel" and still in wide use throughout the OCS.
Active	1941 – 19/20 December 1949, 1951 – present
Country	United States
Branch	United States Army
Type	Training
Role	Train and commission U.S. Army Officers
Part of	Training and Doctrine Command U.S. Army Infantry School
Garrison/HQ	Fort Benning, Georgia
Motto(s)	OCS- "Standards, No Compromise"
March	OCS Alma Mater
Commanders
Current commander	Lt. Col. Mark C. Andres

The United States Army's Officer Candidate School (OCS), located at Fort Benning, Georgia, trains, assesses, and evaluates potential commissioned officers in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and some Army National Guard. Officer candidates are former enlisted members (E-4 to E9), warrant officers, inter-service transfers, or civilian college graduates who enlist for the "OCS Option" after they complete Basic Combat Training (BCT). The latter are often referred to as "college ops".

OCS is a rigorous 12-week course designed to train, assess, evaluate, and develop second lieutenants for the U.S. Army's sixteen basic branches. It is the only commissioning source that can be responsive to the U.S. Army's changing personnel requirements due to its short length, compared to other commissioning programs and their requirements. Completing OCS is one of several ways of becoming a U.S. Army commissioned officer. The other methods are:

The U.S. Army Officer Candidate School is organizationally designated as 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, 199th Infantry Brigade. It was redesignated from the 3rd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment in June 2007. It is a subordinate unit of the Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE) also headquartered at Fort Benning. As of July 2014 the battalion has five training companies and a Headquarters Company in operation, designated HHC, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and Echo, each of which can conduct one class at a time, with a maximum of 160 candidates being trained in each class. Generally, only Alpha thru Delta are used, but if there are sufficient numbers of students, Echo company will be opened-up as well. HHC serves as the "holding" company for brand new candidates going thru their in-processing or for injured candidates who are recuperating from their injuries. Those who recuperate from injury are often "recycled" into the next class (like the Army's Ranger School). Every three weeks a class graduates and another one is started.