USAF OCS Class 62-A
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History of OCS

 


With Congress debating an end to the Selective Service System in the summer of 1970, Headquarters USAF asked the Air Training Command to develop a strategy to overcome an expected decline in officer training applicants when the draft threat disappeared. After considering various incentive plans, ATC leaders accepted the position of Maj. Gen. Charles W. Carson, Jr., deputy chief of staff for technical training (under which initial officer training fell) and soon to be LMTC commander. He insisted that the Air Force need only make the OTS "training environment ... [reflect] the emphasis and priority afforded OTS as a commissioning source." General Carson argued that affording OTS the status, dignity, and facilities commensurate with its actual importance and comparable to the Air Force Academy and the Reserve Officer Training Corps would make it sufficiently attractive for applicants of quality.

Facility improvements began almost immediately. Lackland Military Training Center officials dusted off a 1966 OTS upgrade plan, which had languished at Headquarters ATC and USAF. Three new construction projects--430-bed dormitory, dining hall, training building addition--began in late 1970. The training center proposed additional facilities in an April 1971 "Upgrade Study of Officer Training School."

Status improvements followed. In May, Headquarters, United States Air Force, approved the Air Training Command's request to declare the Officer Training School a wing-equivalent establishment (effective I July 1971). In February 1972, the General Officer Manning and Review Board approved an ATC request that the school be headed by a brigadier general (effective I June 1972). Meanwhile in November 1971, the Air Staff had launched an extensive curriculum review that later produced a core curriculum common to the Air Force Academy, AFROTC, and OTS. .

Then on 27 April 1972, Lt. Gen. George B. Simler, Commander, Air Training Command, announced his decision to realign the Officer Training School directly under his command. An 18 May Special Order G-140 by ATC made the transfer effective I June, placing OTS on a more nearly equal plane with AFROTC and USAFA in the Air Force chain of command. To add further prestige and support, General Simler created an Officer Training School Academic Review Board, consisting of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower, two retired generals, two university presidents, two business leaders, and two OTS graduates of senior rank.

Shortly after becoming a tenant organization on the Lackland Training Annex, OTS received a new designation as part of a general renaming of ATC training missions. On I August 1972, it became the School of Military Science, Officer (SMSO). This ATC experiment in naming ended on I April 1974, when the school at Lackland recovered its familiar designation as Officer Training School, United States Air Force.

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