U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

With the threat of imminent budget cuts looming on the horizon, the Army
addressed the problem in 1953 by developing a new set of decision making
criteria for school closures. The methodology was summed up in the slogan
“100 in—25 out.” In other words, a unit was considered viable if it could
enroll 100 freshmen each year and commission 25 graduates. The first year a
unit failed to attain the prescribed standard, it was to be placed on a one-year
probationary status. At the end of this one-year probation, it was to be closed
if it did not attain the prescribed production and enrollment levels. In School
Year 1953-1954, almost 10 percent of participating schools did not meet the
viability criteria.’*

In trying to effect ROTC unit closures based on this methodology, the
Army met stiff resistance. Some schools, it was pointed out, had better reten-
tion rates than others. They did not enroll 100 freshmen but they produced 25
or more second lieutenants annually. Some also complained that this method-
ology tended to rob the Army of graduates of the most distinguished colleges
and universities, many of which did not meet the minimum production or en-
rollment standards. Distinguished schools, the argument ran, made up in quality
what they lacked in quantity. Moreover, a majority of colleges and universi-
ties wanted to retain their programs and protested vigorously when threatened
with closure. As a result of this resistance, the requirement for enrolling 100
freshmen was dropped, or at least ignored, although the minimum commis-
sioning standard of 25 was retained, at least in principle.”®

Some doubted the usefulness of the new closure methodology. Lyons
and Masland, the authors of a 1959 study of the ROTC program, concluded it
was ineffective. The new viability standard, they wrote, “has not offered the
Army a very effective means of paring its program down to the strong viable
basis called for by its impending manpower demands.”"* They offered no
statistical data to support their conclusion, but the available evidence sup-
ports them. The records of the Adjutant General’s Office indicate that 17
percent of ROTC units in 1957 did not graduate 25 commissionees.'* This
would suggest that the problem actually grew worse between 1953, the year
the new criteria were introduced, and 1957.

The Vietnam Build-Up

When the Army attempted to boost ROTC production in the early 1960s,
the issue of non-productive units intruded yet another time. Colonel Robert
Evans, chief of the ROTC Division in the Office of Reserve Components,

220



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

we find our PMS and APMS engaged in obtaining degrees.”

Richardson’s intent was clearly to redirect the focus of the ROTC along
more military lines. He implored the Army's personnel managers to "stop
pushing graduate studies on prospective...Assistant Professors of Military
Science". ROTC cadre, he told them, work hard and "do not have time for
graduate work."

Another reason for the opposition to Richardson's drive to raise cadre
quality was that it often involved the replacement of colonels with lieutenant
colonels in PMS positions. Quality throughout much of the university com-
munity was gauged largely in terms of rank. A colonel, the prevailing belief
was, brought more prestige to the job and to the university than a mere lieu-
tenant colonel.

The “downgrading” of PMS positions had begun in earnest in the late
1970s when General Donn Starry was TRADOC Commander and Major Gen-
eral French was his DCSROTC. It was a matter of both necessity and prefer-
ence. Starry and French saw a cut in the TRADOC Officer Distribution Plan
for colonels as an opportunity to fill PMS positions with lieutenant colonels,
who, they were convinced, would bring more enthusiasm and energy to the job
than would many colonels. Their experience told them that many of the colo-
nels assigned to ROTC were on the verge of retirement and were consequently
more focused on follow-on employment opportunities than on the task at hand.
Richardson took up where Starry and French left off and hastened along the
“downgrading” process.'?

Organizational Changes

Unfortunately, ROTC’s irregular command apparatus prevented the re-
forms and initiatives sponsored by Richardson from taking full hold. Local-
ism and regionalism continued to pose formidable barriers to progress. Yet, it
was during this period that certain organizational adjustments were made that
resulted in the ROTC headquarters taking on at least some of the characteris-
tics of a real command. It assumed certain additional functions and widened
its involvement in others. Its liaison and coordination roles in particular were
expanded. Officers from the Office of the DCSROTC now attended periodic
meetings hosted by the Army Vice Chief of Staff, General Maxwell R. Thurman.
At these gatherings, Thurman was briefed on the status of the ROTC and he in
turn gave guidance on various issues affecting the program.'*

Sometimes, ROTC representatives brought back from these meetings ideas

50



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

the services’ FY 1995 operations and maintenance budget requests to force
them “to comply with previous congressional direction.”

Cadet Command responded that the congressionally imposed MS III
enrollment minimum had been eliminated. The operative guidance relative to
unit closures was now contained in Department of Defense Directive 1215.8,
dated March 25, 1994, which set a production minimum of 15 for host battalions
but said nothing about contract minimums. The General Accounting Office
citing of the 17 MS III enrollment standard cast into doubt its knowledge of
current Defense Department disestablishment procedures. The suggestion
that Congress should reduce the services’ operations and maintenance budget
indicated, many felt, that the General Accounting Office auditors did not fully
appreciate “the four-year nature of ROTC” and the effects that the wholesale
disestablishment of units would have on program stability.”

Attempt to Close Second Region

By the beginning of 1994, projected personnel cuts, unit closures, and
production mission decrements seemed to recommend further reductions in
camp structure and the intermediate command and control apparatus. Ac-
cordingly, proposals calling for the elimination of an additional region head-
quarters, four brigade headquarters, and a summer training site were drawn
up and appended to the Five-Year Plan. It was hoped that the personnel sav-
ings achieved with these reductions could be redistributed within the com-
mand so as to shore up and restore to health undermanned battalions and ex-
tension centers.

Cadet Command representatives presented these proposals to the Army
Chief of Staff in November 1994. The Chief approved them in concept. To
actually do away with a region headquarters—and hence with a summer train-
ing site since the latter was collocated with the former—a preliminary study
had to be conducted assessing the cost-effectiveness of the action and investi-
gating, among other things, the effects of the proposed closure on the civilian
job force in the affected area and on the local environment. Army Regulation
10-5 provided the regulatory basis for the study. Because of the small number
of people involved, the shutting down of brigade headquarters was allowed to
proceed as outlined. These disestablishments are expected to be completed
by the end of FY 1996.”

Based on such considerations as the amount of training space and the
number of FORSCOM troop units available, billeting potential, and the
suitability of available ranges, Cadet Command Headquarters decided to retain

249



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

had to be modified. The Cadet Command Training Division was tasked to
revise it in such a way as to make it applicable to all levels of the Military
Qualifications Standards system and make it suitable as an evaluation device
for field training. Accordingly, the Training Division effected several modifi-
cations to the LAP, the primary one involving an increase in the number of
leadership dimensions. Instead of 12, the new model contained 16 dimen-
sions. The added dimensions were: physical stamina; technical/tactical com-
petence; mission accomplishment; and followership.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Audrain, PMS at the University of Nevada-
Reno, represented Cadet Command in the special study group. Audrain ar-
gued for the use of LAP technology throughout the Army officer education
system. Cadet Command got the opening it needed to publicize the LAP when
in July 1987, General Maxwell Thurman tasked it to conduct a longitudinal
study to chart the leadership progress of cadets from precommissioning to
their first unit of assignment. The resultant Gold Bar Transition Program—
through which the longitudinal study was accomplished—required Cadet Com-
mand to examine all Officer Basic Course operations to determine how leader
development was approached after commissioning.

Accordingly, Command representatives visited each basic course to ob-
serve the methods of instruction, the mechanics of evaluation, the relation-
ship between leadership development and task mastery, the transition from
MQS I to MQS II, the methods for leadership assessment during field train-
ing, and the sequence of instruction. The Cadet Command evaluation team
found, like other evaluation teams that had looked at the Officer Basic Course
system over the last three decades, that the system lacked a systematic
approach to the development of leadership skills in lieutenants. There was no
standardized approach to the measurement of leadership potential. In fact.
none of the schools even had a method of gauging leadership ability.

Cadet Command had a solution at the ready—the Leadership Assess-
ment Program. General Thurman agreed and, in June 1988, directed that the
LAP technology be integrated into all officer, warrant officer, and noncom-
missioned officer leader development courses. Cadet Command was charged
with the responsibility of training TRADOC LAP assessors, assisting the
Officer Basic Courses with introducing the LAP in their curricula, and coor-
dinating final program design with the Center for Army Leadership. Even a
number of National Guard OCS programs (the South Carolina program being
perhaps the most notable) and the Military Academy introduced a version of
LAP in their summer training program. Heretofore, they had been without a

114



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The Infantry ROTC Basic Course curriculum, for instance, offered military
history, current military policy, infantry tactics, and military organization as
theoretical subjects, and marksmanship, drill and ceremony, and orienteering
as practical ones. The Advanced Course of instruction followed a similar pat-
tern. The infantry had the largest enrollment and greatest number of ROTC
units. Approximately 40 percent of the ROTC officers produced between the
wars were commissioned through infantry units.”

Impediments to Program Effectiveness

The ROTC may have turned out an adequate supply of reserve junior
officers during the inter-war years, but it did not always produce lieutenants
ready to take their place in the Army. A host of troubles beset the program.
Federal budgets were tight, training resources were scarce, facilities were of-
ten inadequate and, because of the pacifist sentiment prevalent in many uni-
versity communities, the environment on the college campus was not always
supportive of an officer training program. Moreover, because ROTC in this
era was geared almost exclusively to the production of reserve officers, a sense
of urgency and immediacy was often absent. In many units, close order drill
was the heart of the program. Any tactical instruction that did take place tended
to be overly theoretical. Summer camp, where cadets received their most con-
centrated practical training, was more often than not conducted at a leisurely
pace with cadets given nights and weekends off and their schedule punctuated
by frequent social activities. The result of all this was that the newly commis-
sioned ROTC lieutenant often lacked basic military skills and knowledge and
was unfamiliar with the ethos of the military profession.

Part of ROTC’s problem (which had been anticipated by the General Staff
when the program was still in the planning phase) lay in its decentralized and
diffuse organizational structure. At the national level, the G-1 of the War De-
partment was responsible for assigning Regular Army personnel to ROTC duty,
the Adjutant General of the Army for the financial management of the pro-
gram, and a section of the G-3 for policy formulation. The G-3 assigned such
a low priority to ROTC that the officer appointed to this duty usually rotated
to another assignment before he became familiar with his area of responsibil-
ity. College officials who visited Washington, D.C., with the hope of discuss-
ing the ROTC program with War Department authorities, often came away
disappointed because they could not identify an officer who was responsible
for their particular area of concern.

16


RETO Review of Education and
Training for Officers
RFD _ reserve forces duty
RIF reduction in force
RM Resource Management
ROTC Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps
RPA Reserve Personnel, Army
Ss
SAI Senior Army Instructor
SASC Senate Army Services
Committee
SAT Scholastic Aptitude Test
SERB Selective Early Retirement
Board
SMAAC
State Military Academy
Advisory Conference
SMP = Simultaneous Membership

Program
SOCC School of Cadet Command
SROTC Senior Reserve Officers’
Training Corps

SSB __ Selective Separation Bonus

SSC U.S. Army Soldier Support
Center

STAR structural analysis and
review

sy school year

T

TAA Total Army Analysis

TAG The Adjutant General

TDA _ table of distribution and
allowances

TJAG The Judge Advocate
General

TOE Table of Organization and
Equipment

TPU troop program unit

TRADOC

U.S. Army Training and
Doctrine Command
TRAMEA
TRADOC Management
Engineering Activity

TSP training support package

LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABREVIATIONS

U
UMT Universal Military Service
USACCU.S. Army Cadet Command

USAR _ U.S. Army Reserve
USAREC
U.S. Army Recruiting
Command
USAROTCCC
U.S. Army ROTC Cadet
Command
USAREUR
U.S. Army Europe
USAWC
U.S. Army War College
USCONARC.
U.S. Continental Army
Command
USMA U.S. Military Academy
Vv
VCSA Vice Chief of Staff of
the Army
vsI Voluntary Separation
Incentive
WwW
WWI World War |
WW II World War II
x
xo executive officer
Y
YATS Youth Attitude Tracking
Survey

337



CHAPTER VI

ERA OF
DOWNSIZING

The collapse of the Iron Curtain, the dissolution of the USSR’s
East European satellite governments, and the implosion of the
Soviet state heralded a new era in global politics. These
momentous events changed many of the fundamental strategic
assumptions under which the Army had operated since 1945.

On 24 April 1990, coincident with the fourth annual Spring Review,
Cadet Command conducted its first change of command. Reporting in as the
new Commanding General from his previous position as Commander of the
First ROTC Region was Major General Wallace C. Arnold. He had been
commissioned in 1961 through the ROTC program at Hampton University in
Hampton, Virginia and had served as Military Assistant and Executive Officer
for the Office of the Under Secretary of the Army, Commander of the 69th Air
Defense Artillery Brigade, and Director for Personnel and Administration of
the U.S. European Command before taking over First Region in June 1987.!

The circumstances and challenges facing Major General Arnold in the
spring of 1990 were very different from those encountered by his predecessor
when he assumed command in the spring of 1986. The collapse of the Iron
Curtain, the dissolution of the USSR’s East European satellite governments,
and the implosion of the Soviet state heralded a new era in global politics.
These momentous events changed many of the fundamental strategic assump-
tions under which the Army had operated since 1945.

Beginning in the late 1980s, the Army saw its budget steadily shrink as
the congressional focus shifted from containing the communist threat to re-
ducing the national deficit. To help achieve this latter end, the Defense De-
partment came out with a plan in the summer of 1990 to cut Active Army end

145



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

part, often viewed the recruiter as a threat, fearing that if given the opportunity,
he would try to entice the student away from ROTC into the Army with talk of
the Army College Fund and the New GI Bill (a fear that was greatly exaggerated
but not altogether groundless).TM

The process of bringing the two communities closer together started in
February 1985 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between
Major General Prillaman and the Recruiting Command Commander. The un-
derstanding established a common ROTC-Recruiting Command data base
which the DCSROTC staff and later the Cadet Command Headquarters moni-
tored to determine how aggressively ROTC instructors were pursuing the pros-
pects provided to them. In 1989, an even more momentous step was taken to
create the kind of ROTC-Recruiting Command synergies advocated by
Jugenheimer several years before. This effort, which came to be known as
Operation Partnership, bound the two commands together even more firmly
by, among other things, giving recruiters access to the GOLDQuest system. If
this access provided the means, a change in Recruiting Command manage-
ment policy, which gave recruiters credit (or points) for directing students
toward ROTC, provided the recruiters with the motivation to cooperate with
Cadet Command.”

The Recruiting Command found Operation Partnership to be helpful in
fulfilling its enlisted recruiting mission. Operating under the cloak of ROTC,
its recruiters could approach high school students without inciting the hostil-
ity and fear of high school guidance counselors and teachers who were often
loath to see their more able students spirited away into the Regular Army.
Participation in the ROTC was a much more palatable alternative to these
educators. Operation Partnership also helped the Recruiting Command by
energizing ROTC cadre to do a better job referring cadets who, because of
financial or other difficulties dropped out of ROTC, to recruiters. Often,
through such programs as the Army College Fund and the Montgomery GI
Bill, formerly financially pressed students were able to return to college and
the ROTC program and complete their degree.”°

Scholarship Program

One of the primary tools possessed by the command to attract its share
of the nation’s most talented and intellectually capable high school students
was the Army ROTC scholarship program. Established by the ROTC
Vitalization Act of 1964, the program drew into the ROTC ranks students of

140



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

U.S. Army Cadet Command

MAJOR GENERAL J.M. LYLE Commander
COLONEL R. F. ZINSER Chief of Staff
Dr. A. T. COUMBE Command Historian

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Coumbe, Arthur T. (Arthur Thomas), 1951—
U.S. Army Cadet Command: The 10 Year History/Arthur T. Coumbe,
Lee S. Harford.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. United States. Army. Reserve Officers' Training Corps—History.
2. United States. Army. Junior ROTC-History. 3. United States. Army.
Cadet Command-History. |. Harford, Lee S., 1951-. Il. Title.
U428.5.C64 1996
355.2'232'071173-dce20 96-6306
CIP



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

orienteering, patrolling, weapons assembly, a hand grenade throw, and the
Army Physical Fitness Test—throughout the academic year for the purpose of
preparing for brigade-sponsored inter-battalion competitions (so-called bri-
gade “shoot-outs”) held each fall. The winners of the brigade competitions
would then vie for the regional title. Projected costs argued against having
the four regional victors compete for a national championship.”

Training at Historically
Black Colleges and Universities

The adoption of the TMI system served to uncover some problem areas
that had heretofore escaped the notice of ROTC program administrators. One
of those problem areas involved ROTC battalions at Historically Black Col-
leges and Universities (HBCU). The TMI showed that the performance level
of HBCU cadets at Advanced Camp fell below the Cadet Command mean.
This was very worrisome to the command because HBCUs produced approxi-
mately half of the African-American officers for the Army.

To correct HBCU training shortfalls, Cadet Command proceeded along
several distinct but parallel lines. In September 1986, it convened the first
HBCU Camps Conference immediately following the conclusion of the Camps
After Action Review. The conference allowed Wagner to assemble together
the PMSs of the 21 HBCU ROTC units at one location (Fort Monroe), present
them with the generally disappointing results attained by their cadets at
Advanced Camp, and solicit their assistance in finding ways to remedy this
situation.

At this September gathering, the Cadet Command staff and PMSs looked
at how the training methods and approaches of successful HBCU battalions
differed from the others. The intent of this exercise was to boost the perfor-
mance level of the sub-par battalions by having them imitate the ways of their
successful associates. From this effort came a common training strategy for
all HBCUs. This strategy was not universally popular because of the new and
heavy demands it placed on battalion commanders, but it did achieve the de-
sired results in short order. The performance ratings of HBCU cadets at the
1987 Advanced Camps registered the improvement.

The principal architect of the HBCU Camps Conference was Lieutenant
Colonel Leonard M. Jones, Jr., himself a product of an HBCU and the former
PMS of Hampton University. Jones was also instrumental in transforming
another HBCU-ROTC conference—the annual HBCU Conference—into a

110



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

for felonies and moral turpitude offenses to enroll in the Advanced Course.
He also deplored the lack of initiative, leadership ability, and cognitive and
communicative skills that he found in all too many recently commissioned
ROTC graduates.”

The practice of commissioning people who did not possess the requisite
strength and flexibility of intellect to lead on the modern battlefield particu-
larly disturbed him. This practice, it was asserted, had created a performance
gap; the complexity of modern weapons systems was overmatching the intel-
lectual abilities of the junior officers responsible for employing them. See
Figure 2-1. In Wagner’s words,

Too many of our young officers cannot meet operational stan-
dards in the field....It is tragic to observe an Army in its greatest
modernization surge in history lacking the junior leadership re-
quired to exploit the potential of our new systems. Technical
competency, disciplined and decisive decision-making, and flex-
ibility in adapting to rapidly changing situations are missing tal-
ents in many of our younger officers.*

The Fourth Region Commander thought it strange that the Army had put
so much effort into raising the quality of the enlisted force and in producing
first-rate soldiers while neglecting the equally important task of turning out
competent second lieutenants. Yet this neglect of collegiate military training
should not have been so surprising for it was something of a tradition in the

THE PERFORMANCE GAP

s
\ES we
gYSTEM orn oon
o
aoe
anne PERFORMANCE GAP

PEOPLE CAPABILITIES

1980 1990 2000

Figure 2-1. The Performance Gap

59



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

science department and the host institution would work to boost production.
The same directive prescribed the disestablishment of units that did not meet
the Defense Department standard by the end of their one year evaluation pe-
riod. Shortly after the directive came out, 167 institutions received “letters of
concern” informing them that they were not meeting the new production stan-
dards and were, therefore, candidates for disestablishment or probation. Be-
cause it soon became apparent that it would not be "feasible or prudent" to
close approximately 65 percent of the institutions hosting ROTC (167 out of
291 ROTC units), the Defense Department relaxed its strict stance and, by
adding certain qualifying provisions, watered down its closure criteria.

The abrupt manner in which the Pentagon announced its new closure
methodology angered many within the academic and Army communities. The
announcement had not been coordinated in advance with either TRADOC or
the ROTC region headquarters. Some university presidents first learned of
the new criteria through newspapers articles.

According to one witness who viewed events from the perspective of the
Third ROTC Region Headquarters, this attempt to get tough with uneconomi-
cal units, like so many previous and subsequent attempts of this type, foun-
dered because of the intense and effective resistance put up by college and
university administrations. “Disestablishment,” he observed, “is a politically
sensitive area. It is doubtful any program can be disestablished without the
institution's concurrence.””*

The General Accounting Office was not impressed with the efforts of the
Defense Department and the Army and laid most of the blame for the problem
of uneconomical units on them. In a 1977 follow-up to their 1973 report,
General Accounting Office representatives faulted the defense establishment
for retaining the set of “vague and subjective” viability considerations origi-
nally inserted into the 1971 edition of Department of Defense Directive 1215.8
(i.e., cost per officer produced, quality of officer produced, institutional sup-
port, and the service retention rate of graduates) and complained that not nearly
enough progress had been made in making the ROTC a more cost-effective
enterprise.” During School Year 1975-1976, the General Accounting Office
reported, over 30 percent (87 out of 287) of Army ROTC detachments should
have been put on probation according to the Defense Department criteria but
only 18 percent (51 out of 287) actually were. Moreover, 75 of these 87 units
had been below the standard for more than one year, although only six pro-
grams had been deactivated over the previous two years.”

During School Year 1976-1977, an incident took place that lent support

225


RECRUITING CADETS

would be placed on active duty and who would not, and the branch to which
each commissionee, regardless of component or status, would be assigned.
Representatives from each branch sat on the annual board.

Besides the obvious diffusion of authority and responsibility such a sys-
tem entailed, this joint control over accessioning had several flaws. First, the
annual board that made the accessioning decisions contained many members
who had but a passing familiarity with ROTC and its cadet evaluation mecha-
nisms. Even members who were ROTC graduates were often unclear about
what the modern program was all about.”

A second flaw involved the system’s propensity for arbitrariness. Since
many branch representatives on the board had little knowledge of how the
program operated, their criteria for selecting cadets for their branch were of-
ten narrow and quirky. One year, for example, the Infantry Branch Chief
instructed his representative on the board to select only those cadets who had
attained an Advanced Camp score of 5—reserved for the top 10 percent of
cadets. On another occasion, the Military Police Branch Chief indicated that
he wanted only cadets with a grade point average of 3.0 and above.

The problem of arbitrariness was compounded by the single board for-
mat that ruled accessioning. In this system, one bad decision sent ripples
throughout the entire boarding process. The Infantry Chief who insisted that
only cadets with camp scores of 5 be allowed into his branch opened the way
for such anomalies as a cadet with a 2.0 grade point average and a ranking at
the bottom of the order of merit list back at home campus but who had per-
formed well at a six-week camp to be selected over another cadet with a much
higher overall evaluation but who had received a 4 or 3 at Advanced Camp.
Because decisions about what type of commission was to be awarded (Regu-
lar Army or reserve) and whether or not an individual would be assigned to
active duty were made by branch, anomalies of the type described above re-
sulted in further inequities and the inefficient use of the human resources at
the Army’s disposal.”

To eliminate these problems, Cretella placed a Cadet Command
representative on each board. This representative guided the board in its
deliberations and served as a source of information. The Personnel and
Administration Division also split the accessioning process into three district
components or phases. In Phase I, an order of merit list that rank-ordered
every commissionee was developed using the composite score mentioned
previously. Then, in the next phase, two decisions were made on every cadet:
first, whether the individual in question would be given an active duty or reserve

143



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Commander, he had used every tool and channel available to him to underline
the inappropriateness of turning precommissioning military training over to
the Army’s personnel managers. After the command had been established and
his emotions had cooled, Wagner summarized his thoughts about this issue in
an interview:

I did not want the ROTC to be aligned under the DA DCSPER
because I feared it would become another recruiting agency
and forget the major essence of its function, which is leader-
ship development... Producing officers of substance and
intellectual capacity would be lost as a part of the DCSPER
community.?

Forging A New Image

Major General Wagner took over the reins of the new ROTC com-
mand on 10 March 1986. One of his first tasks was to come up with a name
for the new organization—a task that on the surface might seem simple enough
but whose accomplishment was to incite lively controversy. He disliked the
title ROTC Command—the name that the Army Staff proposed to attach to
the organization. At the Pentagon, Wagner had heard officials referring to the
ROTC Command as “ROTCOM,” the “Rots,” and the “Rotters,” appellations
that he found insulting. Moreover, he considered ROTC to be an inaccurate
and, indeed, a derogatory term since it conjured up images of the program’s
less than venerable past. New verbal images had to be introduced to represent
the current thrust of the program. He advanced Cadet Command as a fitting
designation.‘

There was stiff resistance at the Department of the Army and else-
where to the title “Cadet Command.” Neither West Point nor OCS cadets, it
was pointed out, fell under the jurisdiction of the commander of the ROTC
program. West Point authorities demonstrated a particular sensitivity about
the proposed name; they objected to the appropriation of the word cadet—a
word historically associated with the students at their institution—by the in-
stitutional upstart at Fort Monroe.>

In truth, there was more than simple parochial sensibilities involved
in the squabble over the name. Wagner saw his command one day becoming
an organization that would control all precommissioning military training
in the U.S. Army, as his earlier proposal for the establishment of the Army

70



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

Post-World War Il

The two decades after World War II were austere ones for the JROTC.
In fact, from 1947 until the passage of the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964, the
Army froze JROTC growth due to funding and manpower constraints. This
freeze was something of a boon to the NDCC, which did not rely on federal
funding for its growth or maintenance. Seventy-five of the 109 NDCC units
extant in 1963 were established after the imposition of the 1947 freeze —
after, that is, the schools on the JROTC waiting list (of which there were ap-
proximately 400 in 1963) realized that they had practically no chance of get-
ting a unit

When Robert S. McNamara became the Secretary of Defense in 1961,
the JROTC entered upon a period of intense scrutiny. The $4.7 million needed
annually to run the program and the 700 active duty personnel needed as in-
structors McNamara found to be an excessive price to pay for a program that,
despite its title, produced no officers and made no “direct contribution to mili-
tary requirements.” Secretary McNamara’s solution to this problem was to
convert JROTC into NDCC units. He saw the two programs performing the
same mission but differing in one critical respect—cost. The entire NDCC
cost less than $100,000 a year to administer. As a result, the FY 1964 budget
contained no provision for funding the JROTC, with the exception of military
high schools. Monies were set aside, however, for those JROTC schools agree-
ing to convert to the NDCC.

Tronically, McNamara’s attempt to eliminate the JROTC resulted in the
program’s enlargement. Shortly after McNamara’s intentions were announced,
members of Congress were inundated with letters and telegrams insisting that
JROTC was an irreplaceable national asset. Its salutary effect on juvenile
delinquency alone, its defenders claimed, was worth the cost of maintaining
it. JROTC supporters in the House of Representatives introduced legislation
proposing the expansion of the program from the existing 254 to a maximum
of 2,000 units, and its extension to both the Navy and the Air Force. During
the course of the congressional hearing on the JROTC legislation, the De-
fense Department, taken aback by the storm of criticism which its proposal
had unleashed, backtracked and requested that it be allowed to reconsider the
matter. Its reconsideration was to take the form of a review of the JROTC/
NDCC for the purpose of assessing the desirability of maintaining its support
for the program. The House subcommittee holding the hearings agreed and
an 1]-member Defense Department commission was appointed to undertake

259



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

the proposals and actions of these officers. Unfortunately, the disjointed
and decentralized structure of the program prevented these designs from
being implemented on any more than a local or, at best, a regional level.

The present work represents an attempt to describe and analyze the
revolution in precommissioning education and training effected by the
U.S. Army Cadet Command. Before beginning discussion of the various
forces and personalities that played a role in forming and shaping the
command, it is first necessary to review the history of collegiate
military training and the ROTC program to provide a framework for
what follows.



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

explained the problems posed by such units in an address he made to a group
of educators in 1964. He told the group that:

Coincident to any expansion will be the problem of substandard
units. We have a number of institutions now that because of low
enrollment or low quality of production fail to meet standards.
These institutions also tend to be the most expensive ones from
the point of view of the Army. It would thus seem reasonable
that at the time any decision is made to take in additional col-
leges and universities, some of our expensive, substandard units
would be dropped. This problem is being studied with great care
for it has many ramifications, which I need not mention to you
gentlemen.'®

Although Evans never precisely spelled out these ramifications, he was un-
doubtedly referring to the “political” problems that often accompany the clo-
sure of ROTC units, especially those associated with high-priced prestigious
schools.

In 1965, the Department of the Army entrusted the so-called Haines Board,
which was comprised of a group of distinguished military officers and educa-
tors, with the task of determining “the adequacy and appropriateness” of the
Army’s system of officer education and training. In its analysis of
precommissioning training, it found that the Army was having difficulty main-
taining viable ROTC units “in universities with high academic standing.”
Board members pointed to the fact that in 1965, nine of America’s most pres-
tigious colleges (Stanford, Rice, Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, MIT,
Yale, Princeton, and Harvard) together produced only six Regular Army sec-
ond lieutenants."’

In the mid-1960s, congressional worries about the growing trend within
the academic community to abolish compulsory ROTC and about slumping
ROTC production totals stimulated that body to pass the ROTC Vitalization
Act of 1964. This act provided for, among other things, the bifurcation of the
ROTC into a two- and four-year program and the awarding of Army ROTC
scholarships. Both provisions were designed to boost program participation.

The termination of compulsory ROTC programs became a matter of
particular concern to the Army for it usually resulted in an almost immediate
drop in enrollment on affected campuses. To counter this trend and ensure its
ability to sustain ROTC output at desired levels in the future, the Army decided

221



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

conduct summer camps. From the very beginning, however, the Defense
Department provided very limited support to summer training. It authorized
temporary duty pay, for example, only for the JROTC cadre who directly
administered the camps. Everybody else, including cadets, had to pay their
own way. In 1985, TRADOC requested funds to subsidize JROTC cadet
attendance at summer training, but the request was denied. One reason cited
for the denial was the absence of any legal authorization for JROTC camp
support. How important this consideration actually was, however, is open to
question. The service comptrollers, into whose lap the issue fell, questioned
how the Defense Department would profit from monies spent on encampments,
since JROTC enrollment levels had been satisfactory for some time without
the advantage of additional funds. In light of such lukewarm support by the
Defense Department, it is perhaps surprising that JROTC summer encampments
took place at all.'®

Attempts at Reform, 1985-1986

The rapid expansion of the JROTC between 1980 and 1985 over-
whelmed the management capabilities of the regions. In the First Region, for
example, the number of units increased by 33 percent (225 to 298) between
1983 and 1985. In his 1984 annual assessment, Brigadier General Curtis F.
Hoglan, the First Region Commander, candidly spelled out what this dramatic
growth meant for the junior program in his area:

A year ago, I cautioned that we were close to the straw breaking
the camel’s back. We are there now in First Region. While much
lip service has been given to the JROTC Program and new em-
phasis placed on high school recruiting, I am forced to treat this
area with benign neglect because the priority of our effort is to
the college program directly.”

The passage of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control
Act of 1985 (the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act), which mandated a federal
program of stringent financial austerity, complicated the task of JROTC man-
agement still further. Funds for supplies, equipment, and travel were slashed.
As a result, inspections of existing JROTC units and the establishment of new
ones had to be postponed. Senior units were asked to take up the slack and

264



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

out of the closet” and give it an emphasis equal to that afforded the senior
program. He also advocated expansion of the program:

JROTC will not be on the back burner during my tenure. I want
growth, more summer camps, full implementation of the new POT
and better interaction and support from Senior ROTC. We have
the capacity to do more for high school students.“

The Commanding General convened a task force and charged it with de-
veloping a campaign plan to implement JROTC expansion. The task force
met from 9 September to 13 September 1992 at the Sheraton Inn in Hampton,
Virginia. Its leader was Colonel Robert B. Sauve, the Chief of Staff of the
Third Region. In addition to individuals from the Cadet Command staff, rep-
resentatives from each subordinate region and selected JROTC cadre com-
prised the task force.”

Major General Arnold briefed Lieutenant General Thomas P. Carney, the
DCSPER, about the campaign plan on 15 September 1992. Fifteen days later
(1 October), Congress passed the JROTC expansion project into law. At the
same time, it authorized $18.7 million for Army JROTC expansion in FY 1993.

While awaiting formal guidance from the Office of the Secretary of De-
fense, Major General Arnold issued interim instructions to his region com-
manders for the expansion. In a memorandum dated 20 October 1992, he told
them to contact all high schools in their respective regions that had previously
applied for a JROTC unit and offer them one. A similar offer was to be made
to cross-enrolled schools that had not yet submitted an application. Arnold
also stressed the importance of providing information and the appropriate appli-
cation materials to all secondary schools that expressed an interest in the pro-
gram.

Cadet Command received the official Defense Department guidance it
sought on 29 October. In addition to discussing questions of funding and the
payment of instructors salaries, the guidance set out the broad parameters un-
der which the expansion was to proceed. It prescribed that:

Schools requesting a JROTC unit should specify which service
program (e.g., Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) they desire ...
Schools requesting a new unit from any service should list de-
sired Service affiliation in order of preference. Resolution of

277



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

land-grant university flavor, were more accepting of the tuition restriction
because it would save money and make the idea of military scholarships more
palatable to Congress.

There were still other complications. The service retention rate of Naval
ROTC scholarship recipients had been disappointing. In addition, the Air
Force reported it had attained better retention results with its cadet aviation
program than it did with its Air Force ROTC. Many legislators, therefore,
were reluctant to pour money into a program of subsidized military education
that seemed to hold little chance of achieving the desired effects.*

Post-Korea

The year 1958 witnessed yet another attempt to expand the Naval ROTC
scholarship program to the other services. The Army Ordnance Corps came
forward with a plan, patterned after the Navy’s model, that was designed to
meet its need for technically trained officers. The Army DCSPER took up the
Ordnance plan and reconfigured it to apply to the Army as a whole. Yet once
again, not enough support could be generated in the cost-conscious Congress
to get the measure passed.”

In that same year, the Navy felt compelled to modify its ROTC scholar-
ship program to compensate for recent tuition hikes. In April 1958, the Chief
of Naval Personnel informed officials at 15 institutions, most of which were
private, that the number of scholarships awarded to members of their fresh-
man class in the upcoming academic year would be cut. Because they had
been given no forewarning of this move, officials receiving the notices were
shocked. It was subsequently explained to the colleges and universities af-
fected that since the start of the scholarship program in 1946, there had been
an average increase of $500 in annual tuition at high-cost institutions. By
decreasing quotas at high-tuition schools and increasing them at low-tuition
schools, the Navy could boost the number of scholarships it awarded annually
from 1,600 to 1,800. When the heads of some private colleges objected to this
move, the Navy added that the retention rate of Naval ROTC graduates from
high-cost schools was lower than the overall mean.

Critics expressed two major objections to the Navy’s action. First, they
complained that the Navy would be losing high-quality talent from some of
America’s best colleges. Secondly, they argued that ROTC graduates of high-
cost institutions would later become influential spokesmen for the Navy among
the American public as they rose to occupy positions of power and responsi-
bility in the professional and business communities. The Navy simply could

188



MAJOR GENERAL WALLACE C. ARNOLD
Commanding General
U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command
Fort Monroe, Virginia

297



CADET TRAINING

moved from Benjamin Harrison to Monroe. Richardson quickly lent his ap-
proval, because he could see no compelling logic in keeping the cadre train-
ing center at a remote site under a “foreign” commander. Improving
intracommand communication was another reason for moving the school to
Fort Monroe. With the School of Cadet Command collocated with the head-
quarters, information about policy changes or policy implementation prob-
lems could be quickly spread throughout the ROTC community.

The third and final component of the restructuring plan was educational
in nature. Students were to receive a firm grounding in command philosophy,
procedure, policies, and methods in order to promote program standardiza-
tion, Special emphasis was to be placed on demonstrating how these policies,
procedures, etc., were to be applied in the field. The emphasis previously
placed on making ROTC cadre training compatible with the ethos and style of
the civilian business community was dropped.

Between September and December 1986, Cadet Command effected the
restructuring plan. Faculty selection was the first order of business. The
instructional staff was chosen from among veteran ROTC cadre members who
had excelled as educators and trainers on campus. Their reporting date was
set as 5 January 1987, affording them limited preparation time. Concurrent
with the selection of a faculty, a curriculum was developed. In its final form,
it consisted of five major subject areas—a command orientation; the Goldstrike
Management System; ROTC recruiting and retention; instructor training; and
the Precommissioning Assessment System. Instructor designees were told to
have their lesson plans ready when they reported to Fort Monroe.

To house the School of Cadet Command, TRADOC gave the com-
mand a rather unimposing building in the general vicinity of Cadet Command
Headquarters. At the same time, it awarded a contract for the badly needed
renovation of this wooden World War II vintage structure. The building’s
dilapidated condition was an indication of the importance that many TRADOC
staff officers attached to the new command.

When the first School Commandant, Lieutenant Colonel Michael E.
Hodson, reported to Fort Monroe on 5 January 1987, preparations for the
school’s opening were far from complete. No furniture had arrived and the
interior of the building was in shambles. With the assistance of the post engi-
neers, Hodson and his staff set about making the necessary alterations and
improvements. This involved painting the walls, clearing away debris, rewir-
ing the electrical circuitry, and arranging the furniture when it finally arrived.
The instructors had to wedge in class rehearsals between repair projects.

119



CONCLUSION

Although standardization and
centralization touched
and changed virtually every aspect
of the ROTC program, in no area did they have more
profound effects than in training.

The establishment of Cadet Command gave the ROTC program an orga-
nizational structure that allowed it, at long last, to realize its potential as a
source of commissioned officers. Plagued by a decentralized command appa-
ratus and administrative structure during the first seven decades of its exist-
ence, the program had been unable to assert its claim to the resources, atten-
tion and personnel it needed to become a really effectual precommissioning
training institution. But putting the American system of collegiate military
training on a sound organizational footing was no easy matter. Few recog-
nized this more clearly that those General Staff officers who framed the plan
for the original ROTC program that came into being in 1916. The task of
imposing a standardized program of instruction upon such a diverse set of
institutions as those represented by the American collegiate community, they
realized, was a truly daunting one. Over the years, numerous attempts were
made to improve the situation—the curriculum was modified, ROTC regions
were created, management staffs were enlarged—but, owing to various orga-
nizational irregularities and lack of emphasis on the part of the Army, none of
these expedients had the desired effect.

The commitment to reform that permeated the Army in the aftermath of
Vietnam coupled with the Reagan Administration’s determination to expand and
modernize the armed forces created the national setting in which the long-delayed
overhaul of the ROTC could begin. With the establishment of the command
in April 1986, new initiatives and management mechanisms touching virtually

288



RECRUITING CADETS

The Contribution of the DCSROTC

The overhaul of the ROTC advertising and marketing management system
began under Major General Prillaman. A key event in this overhaul was the
creation of the Operations Division in June 1984. The new organization grew
out of the old Advertising, Media, and Marketing Division. It retained the
existing Advertising and Marketing Branches but added a Plans and Analysis
Branch. Filled by robbing the regions of many of their operations research
systems analysts, the new branch performed the heretofore neglected functions
of market analysis, the formulation of marketing strategies and the “selling”
of its strategies to the Army DCSPER, the office responsible for managing
officer accessions.

The advantages connected with this headquarters reshuffling quickly
became apparent. Because of the increased analytical capability that the new
division brought to the headquarters, the DCSROTC could more persuasively
articulate his needs to decision-makers at TRADOC and at the Department of
the Army. It was no accident that the DCSROTC’s advertising budget shot up
from $6.5 million in FY 1984 to $9.5 million in FY 1985, a 46 percent in-
crease. This, in turn, helped raise ROTC’s “production efficiency ratio”—the
number of commissionees per cadre officer—by 20 percent over the same
period (from 5.1:1 to 6.1:1).®

The 1984-1985 marketing plan reflected the DCSROTC’s increased ana-
lytical capabilities. The plan was something of a milestone in that it allowed
regions to assign recruiting missions (or quotas) on the basis of market poten-
tial in addition to past performance. It also called for greater marketing and
recruiting efforts in high schools. To further these efforts, the DCSROTC
staff drafted a high school recruiting plan for the regions and extended the
Fourth Region’s Goldminer Team model throughout the ROTC community.
Three Goldminer Teams were put in place in each region.”

In concert with the moves made possible by the restructuring of the Op-
erations Division, N.W. Ayer, the Army’s advertising agency during this era,
came up with new ways to publicize the ROTC to the American public. Ayer’s
proposals sprang from a survey it did of high school and college students who
were not enrolled in ROTC and had, in marketing jargon, a “neutral propen-
sity” toward the military. The results of the survey were startling. Ayer’s
researchers found that the students interviewed knew very little about ROTC.
Most of them, in fact, equated enrolling in ROTC with enlisting in the
Regular Army.

125



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Distribution of Officers. Study No. 6. Washington, D.C.: HQ AGF, 1946.

____.. Training of Officer Candidates
in AGF Special Service Schools. Study No. 31. Washington, D.C.: HQ
AGF, 1946.

Janowitz, Morris. The Professional Soldier. New York: Free Press, 1971

Koch, Adrienne and Peden, William, eds. The Life and Selected Writings of
Thomas Jefferson. New York: Random House, 1944.

Lathrop, Robert L. Student Attitudes Toward Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
Programs: A Survey of Freshmen at the University of Minnesota.
Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota, 1962.

Lipscomb, Andres A. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Volume XII.
Washington, D.C.: The Jefferson Memorial Association of the United
States, n.d.

Lyons, Gene M. and Masiand, John W. Education and Military Leadership: A
Study of the R.O.T.C. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959.

Masland, John W. and Radway, Laurence |. Soldiers and Scholars: Military
Education and National Policy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1957.

Moenk, Jean R. Operation Steadfast Historical Summary: A History of the
Reorganization of the U.S. Continental Army Command (1972-1973).

HQ FORSCOM, Fort MacPherson, GA and HQ TRADOC, Fort Monroe,
Va., 1974.

Parker, William B. The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill. New
York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924.

Perry, Ralph B. The Plattsburg Movement. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1921.

Pollard, James E. Military Training in the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities.
The Ohio State University, 1962.

Sparrow, John C. History of Personnel Demobilization in the United States Army.
Washington, D.C.: CMH, 1951.

Toffler, Alvin and Heidi. War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st
Century. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1993.

Weinert, Richard P., Jr. The Guns of Fort Monroe. Fort Monroe, Va.:
Casemate Museum, 1990.

Wood, Leonard. The Military Obligation of Citizenship. Princeton, N.J., 1915.

ARTICLES

“Behind the Drive to Destroy ROTC,” U.S. News and World Report,
June 26, 1970.

Biggins, Virginia. “Instructors Get Own School,” The Times-Herald, January 20,
1987, p. B2.

Cage, Mary Crystal. “Few Students Get Bachelor's Degrees in 4 Years, Study
Finds.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. July 15, 1992, p. A29.

Cleary, Thomas J. “Laboratory for Leadership.” Army Digest. June, 1965.

Cohen, Eliot. “Making Do with Less, or Coping with Upton’s Ghost.” Strategic
Studies Institute, USAWC, 26 May 1995.

Collins, Robert F. “ROTC Today and Tomorrow,” Military Review, May 1986.

Cronin, Thomas E. “Thinking and Learning About Leadership,” in Robert L.
Taylor and William E. Rosenback, ed. Military Leadership: In Pursuit of
Excellence. 2d Edition. Boulder, San Francisco and Oxford: Westview
Press, 1992.

347



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

training. The number of Active Army battalions stationed on the installation
and the overall capacity to host an Advanced Camp (taking into consideration
such factors as acreage, ranges available, etc.) were the selection criteria. Forts
Bragg and Lewis were found to be more suitable than Riley for the Advanced
Camp mission.® Hence, the two former posts were retained while Fort Riley
was eliminated as an ROTC command headquarters.

THREE REGION COMMAND STRUCTURE (After December1992)

Ath Region HQ
Fort Lewis, WA 2nd Region HQ
Fort Knox, KY,

1st Region HQ
Fort Bragg, NC

a
CADET COMMAND
Total Units
1st REGION SROTC —— 349 | 2nd REGION
Total Units JROTC 835 Total Units
srotc 142 | ] oconus 21 | |SROTC 107
sRoTC ——_ 276 | =~ = - |sROTC —___ 298
. oe ath REGION . oe
Total Units
sROTC___ 100
JROTC ____ 261

Figure 8-4. Three Region Command Structure (After December 1992)

243



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

A cadet’s camp score was based on the rating he received from his pla-
toon tactical officer at Advanced Camp. The rating primarily reflected the
cadet’s leadership ability as measured by the 16 dimensions of the Leadership
Assessment Program. Every tactical officer had to attend a class before the
beginning of camp so that his ratings would be “calibrated” with those of his
fellow tactical officers. The end result was that platoon tactical officers looked
at cadet performance and approached their evaluation chores in very similar
ways. At the end of camp, the platoon tactical officer would rank-order the
cadets in his platoon using the results of the Leadership Assessment Program
evaluations as his compass. Cadets would then be given a score of 5, 4, or 3,
depending on where they stood relative to their platoon mates.*!

This forced distribution evaluation system had many advantages. It im-
parted a sense of urgency and intensity to Advanced Camp, helped shift the
focus of Advanced Camp from the acquisition of basic military skills to leader
development, and gave decision makers a means by which to determine who
would get active duty and who would be assigned to the reserves. This last
advantage was a very important one in the five years before 1991, when over
50 percent of every ROTC graduating class went into the reserve components.

After Major General Lyle had become familiar with the command and
the ROTC program, he began to have reservations about the cadet evaluation
system as he had found it. His two main reservations about the system cen-
tered on its subjectivity and its lack of standardization. The lack of standard-
ization was of particular concern to him because of the tremendous personnel
turbulence that the command was experiencing. With cadre coming and go-
ing at an extremely rapid rate, standard, uniform, and objective methods for
gauging cadet performance and leadership capacity, he felt, had become es-
sential.

With the guidance of the Commanding General as its anchor, Cadet
Command’s Training Directorate developed a new evaluation system. It was
based on a 3,000 point scale; grade point average was worth a maximum of
1,000 points; the PMS evaluation a maximum of 1,000 points; and the Ad-
vanced Camp score a maximum of 1,000 points. The new system was intro-
duced in the summer of 1995. Its results will be used in the accessions pro-
cess for the first time in the fall of 1996.

Objectivity and standardization were built into the new system. For grade
point averages, this was accomplished by adjusting or normalizing by both
institution and major. Every cadet was to receive a score calculated on the
basis of a comparison of his grade point average with the mean grade point

180



29.

30.
31.

32.
33.

34.
35.

36.
37.

38.

39.

40.
41.
42.
43.
44,

ENDNOTES

(1) Cadet Command Reg 145-1, Chapter 7. (2) Fact Sheet, ATCC-OR, CPT Watts,
Operations Directorate, 28 March 1989, subject: Operation Goldminer. (3) Cadet
Command Reg 147-7, Operation Goldminer, November 1989. (4) Cadet Command Reg
145-3, Staking Your Claim, October 1986. (5) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson,
28 November 1994.

Ibid.

(1) Cadet Command Reg 145-6, Green to Gold Prospecting, 21 August 1989.
(2) Fact Sheet, ATCC-OR, MAJ McFarland, Operations Directorate, 28 March
1989, subject: Operation Green to Gold.

bid.

(1) Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 14 January 1995. (2) Author interview with
MAJ Harry F. Lawson, 17 October 1995.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 17 October 1995.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-OR, MAJ Walsh, Operations Directorate, 28 March 1989, subject:
Operation Partnership. (2) Letter, ATRO-O, MG Prillaman to Region Cdrs and PMS, 27
February 1986, subject: Letter of Instruction—USAREC/ROTC Referral Program, HRDC.
(3) Memorandum of Understanding between USAREC and USAROTCCC, 5 June 1988,
subject: Recruiting Coordination, HRDC.

Ibid.

(1) James L. Blum, Assistant Director for Budget Analysis, Congressional Budget Office
Cost Estimate, June 23, 1980, p. 21. (2) DCSROTC TRADOC,Semiannual, Historical
Report, 1 April-30 September 1978, p. 16, HRDC.

(1) ROTC Study Group Report, Chapter 4. (2) Author interview with COL Joseph
G. Cretella, 17 October 1995.

Author interview with COL Joseph G. Cretella, 17 October 1995. (2) ROTC Study Group
Report, Chapter 4.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

CHAPTER VI

DA Pam 360-10, Army Executive Biographies, February 1986, p. 523.

(1) Author interview with LTC J. Janele, 23 October 1995. (2) Cadet Command Annual
History, 1 January - 31 December 1990, pp. 21-26.

Enclosure 3, Section Methodology and Enclosure 4, Rationale for Viability Algorithm to
Information Paper, DAPE-MPO, LTC Kitchen, subject: AUSA Draft Resolution #1(6)-2-91.
Command Guidance, 1991.

(1) Author interview with LTC Paul Mellen, 15 February 1993.

(1) Author interview with MG Arnold, 1 June 1993. (2) Author interview with COL J.G.
Cretella, 1 June 1993. (3) Author inteview with Mr. James Ainslie, 7 December 1995.
(4) Author interview with Mrs. June Reams, 7 December 1995.

(1) Author interview with LTC James Janele, 23 March 1993. (2) Author interview with
LTC Michae! Hodson, 9 April 1993.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-PA, MG Arnold, to DCSPER, 6 December 1990, subject:
Curtailment of Early Commissioning Program (ECP), HRDC. (2) Cadet Command Reg
145-9, ROTC Accessioning and Commissioning, 24 August 1992.

ROTC Study Group Report, |: 12-14.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid. (2) Message, ATCG-P, GEN Richardson to DAPF-ZA, LTG Elton, 5 June
4985, subject: ROTC Early Commissioning Program (ECP), HRDC.

Author interview with COL J. G. Cretella, 7 April 1993.

321



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

Department of the Army Complacency

Despite the unenviable production track record in the 1990s, authorities
at the Department of the Army were not overly concerned about the shortfalls.
Their unconcern was at least partly attributable to the fact that Cadet Command
always achieved its active duty objective; it was the reserve components that
have suffered the shortages. In 1994, for example, Cadet Command met its
active duty mission of 3,078 officers, but fell 576 short of its reserve goal.
The active component simply did not see underproduction as its problem.°°

The indifference of the reserve components to the production shortfalls
reinforced the active component attitude. Reserve force structure was being
reduced and the Individual Ready Reserve was filled to excess. Army Reserve
leaders, far from being worried about not having enough lieutenants, were
worried that they were getting too many and pressed for a reduction in the
number of accessions from the ROTC. They pointed out that, in any case, they
did not have enough money to send all the lieutenants that were being com-
missioned to their basic branch Officer Basic Course.*' Some officers sus-
pected that the reserve position had more to do with priorities than with money.
High priority projects were funded, low priority ones were not.

Certain analytical difficulties clouded the picture even more. Both the
Army Reserve and the National Guard had in the past reportedly had trouble
in determining just how many new officers they needed each year. In the
environment in which the armed services had to operate in the 1990s, where
personnel and force structure cuts followed one another in rapid succession,
this was not difficult to understand.

Personnel Shortages

Personnel cutbacks constrained Cadet Command’s recruiting and officer
production capabilities. At the national and regional levels, Cadet Command
Headquarters and the various regional headquarters spearheaded the market-
ing and recruiting effort. Recruiting for a specific ROTC program, however,
could only be done on or near the campus in question by the local ROTC
cadre and cadet battalion. In any unit, there were a variety of administrative,
training and instructional tasks that had to be accomplished. Unfortunately
for the production mission, this left recruiting as the only discretionary part of
the battalion’s activity schedule. When personnel cuts came, it was the re-
cruiting function that suffered first.%?

After 1990, Cadet Command saw its manning level steadily reduced. (See
Table 3). Until 1993, TRADOC was able to avoid the full effects of these

169



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

experience the diversity they will encounter in the Army after
their commissioning.‘®

The proposed camp organization included a brigadier general as camp
commander supported by a full-time staff and liaison elements from the ac-
tive and reserve forces. During summer training periods, the staff would be
augmented by Military Academy, ROTC, and OCS cadre. FORSCOM and
reserve component units would be brought in for added support. The Fourth
Region staff identified Forts Benning, Chaffee, and McCoy as the most
suitable locations for the AOCC, because they offered facilities for light
infantry training and because they did not house Active Army maneuver
units, whose normal operations might be disrupted by the presence of thou-
sands of cadets. The proposed center would operate in three, eight-week
cycles of 4,500 cadets each and all training would revolve around the ca-
det platoon. Each platoon would consist of 30 to 40 cadets and two cadre,
who would monitor training and evaluate cadet leadership potential.4” See
Figure 2-3.

PROPOSED COMMAND STRUCTURE FOR AOCC

BRIGADIER GENERAL
Cadet Center & Post Commander |

FULL-TIME # FULL-TIME
STAFF LIAISON

SUMMER SUMMER

SUPPORT TROOPS.

AUGMENTATION

From ROTC, USMA
and Training Centers

: FROM FORSCOM

CADET
BRIGADES

r

Figure 2-3. Proposed Command Structure for AOCC

65



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

According to Major General Lyle, another principal objective of the plan
was to preserve the traditional essence of the ROTC program.” Contrary to
the assumptions of many who possess only a superficial knowledge of the
ROTC and its history, this essence is not primarily about combining a college
degree with military training. Officer Candidate School, the Marine Corps’
Platoon Leader’s Course, and the Military Academy can effect such a combi-
nation. Rather, it has to do with the fostering of an intimate military/univer-
sity relationship in which the military training, education and professional
development of an aspiring officer is conducted not on some self-contained
military installation, but on the college campus. Another part of the ROTC
tradition is linked to its continuous leader development process where the
regular reinforcement of training and instruction is provided on a year-round
basis, instead of in spurts, as in OCS and the Platoon Leader’s Course. Fi-
nally, the ROTC essence is bound up with the almost daily interaction which
occurs between the cadet and his ROTC instructor. This interaction not only
forms the basis of a very thorough officer screening process but also permits
the type of individualized mentorship so necessary to develop the prospective
officer’s leadership skills and professional outlook.”

The closures envisaged in the Five Year Plan will be, in certain respects,
much more difficult than earlier disestablishments. This is because the Hori-
zon inactivations and those that followed shortly thereafter, involved units
that in the main did not have a long ROTC tradition and in which ROTC had
not taken firm root. Indeed, of the more than 80 closures effected since 1990,
almost two-thirds of the affected units were established during the Expand the
Base era in the early 1980s. ROTC was more firmly rooted in many of the
institutions targeted in the Five-Year Plan.”

Nevertheless, Cadet Command took into the restructuring battle one sig-
nificant advantage. That advantage was the Effective Management Program—
a program introduced in the mid-1980s but one which has heretofore not been
used to effect unit disestablishments on a large scale. Its regular methodology
and lengthy probationary period rendered it less vulnerable to outside ma-
nipulation and pressure than the contract closure.

The Effective Management Program was given quasi-official recogni-
tion in 1994 when Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri, in arguing against
the closure of the ROTC battalion at Washington University in St. Louis on
the floor of the Senate, invoked the Effective Management Program and com-
mended it as an equitable and orderly method of making the necessary reductions
in the ROTC program. Cadet Command had attempted to shut down the unit on

247



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

36.
37.
38.
39,
40.
41.
43.

44.

45.

46,

ao

316

Procedures Decision Briefing for GEN Richardson,” 14 May 1985. (4) Author interview
with MG Daniel W. French, 21 September 1995.

Message, BG Hines, Director, OPMD, MILPERCEN, for MG Wagner, 30 September 1986,
subject: Qualification of Officers Serving in ROTC.

Oral history interview of MG Wagner by Dr. Ann Chapman, Office of the Command
Historian, TRADOC, 19 August 1988.

Cadet Command Reg 10-5, Organization and Functions, 14 November 1989,HRDC.
Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994.

Oral history interview of MG Wagner by Dr. Ann Chapman, Office of the Command
Historian, TRADOC, 19 August 1989.

Gordon A. Moon, “ROTC on the Rebound,” Army (August 1967), p. 47.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994,

(1) Author interview with Dr. Larry Brown, 5 October 1995. (2) Richard Halloran, “R.O.T.C.,
Shunned No More, Grows Increasingly Selective,” New York Times, July 20, 1987, p. 2.
(1) Ron Grossman, “Under the Gun: ROTC shoots down ‘nerd’ image by giving students
a tough summer-school lesson,” Chicago Tribune, July 19, 1989, p. 5D. (2) Richard
Halloran, “R.O.T.C., Shunned No More, Grows Increasingly Selective,” New York Times,
July 20, 1987, p. 2.

J.R. Bambery, “ROTC in Transition: A New Potential For Leadership,” USAWC Studies
Paper, January 1978, p. 11.

Oral history interview of MG Wagner by Dr. Ann Chapman, Office of the Command
Historian, TRADOC, 19 August 1989.

CHAPTERIV

A Review of Education and Training for Officers (RETO), |: v.

(1) Ibid. (2) Office of the COS, Department of the Army, Professional Development of
Officers Study (PDOS), February 1984, |:

A Review of Education and Training for brtcors (RETO), |: V-3.

(4) Draft letter, BG Charles F. Gordon, Cdr, Fourth ROTC Region to BG French,
DCSROTC, 14 September 1979. (2) Draft letter, BG Daniel W. French, DCSROTC, to
PMSs, 26 November 1979. (3) Military Qualification Standards (MQS) Manual |, HQDA,
June 1984, Chapter 1. (4) STP 145-I-MQS, Military Qualification Standards | Manual
(Precommissioning Requirements), HQDA, September 1986. (5) TRADOC Annual
Historical Review, 1 October 1980 - 30 September 1981, p. 338. (6) TRADOC Annual
Historical Review, 1 October 1979 - 30 September 1980, pp. 252-53.

(1) Military Qualification Standards (MQS) | Manual, Chapter 3, (2) TRADOC Annual
Historical Review, 1 October 1974 - 30 September 1980, pp. 252-53. (3) TRADOC
Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1982 - 30 September 1983, p. 219.

(1) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1980 - 30 September 1981, p. 338.
(2) Senior Division Program of Instruction, Army ROTC, HQ TRADOC, August 1984.
Ibid.

Senior Division Program of Instruction, Army ROTC.

Position Paper, COL Charlie W. Brewington, Chief, Advanced Camp Division, First ROTC
Region, 5 January 1982, subject: Implementation of the Professional Military Education
Requirement on Campus.

(1) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 April - 30 September 1981, p. 11,
HRDC. (2) STP 21-I-MQS, Military Qualification Standards |, Manual of Common Tasks
(Precommissioning Requirements), May 1990, Chapter 3.

Leadership Assessment Program (LAP), Assessor Training Guide, Precommissioning
Assessment System, n.d., pp. 3-5.

(1) TRADOC Annual Command History, 1 October - 30 September 1983, p. 220.
(2) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1979 - 30 September 1980,
pp. 256-57; 1 October 1980 - 30 September 1981, p. 340; and 1 October 1981 - 30
September 1982, p. 324. (3) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Reports,
1 October 1982 - 31 March 1983, pp. 16-17 and 1 April - 30 September 1983, pp. 5-6,HRDC.



56.

ENDNOTES

(1) Fact Sheet, ATTG-CD, Mrs. Carver, 15 January 1993, subject: National Science
Center. (2) Annual Historical Summary (January - December 1992), ATCC-HS, LTC L.A.
Bolen, 5 April 1993.

Ibid.

Author interview with Mrs. Louise Banton, 4 May 1993.

Annual Historical Summary (January - December 1992), ATCC-HS, LTC L.A. Bollen,
5 April 1993.

(1) Ibid. (2) Author interview with Mrs, Carol Hetler and Mr. Cal Foster, 20 October 1995.
Ibid.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hayes, 22 January 1996.

333



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

the academic community. Upon its formation, the panel took up the task
of articulating the program of “general military education” called for by the
Service Academy Board in 1949. With the aid of education specialists, it drafted
an outline of a curriculum, which it labeled the General Military Science Pro-
gram, for the purpose of establishing a common body of military knowledge
that all prospective officers, regardless of future specialty, had to master be-
fore being commissioned. This so-called branch immaterial instruction em-
phasized (at the suggestion of the Chief of Army Field Forces, General Mark
W. Clark) small unit operations and consisted of 480 hours of on-campus in-
struction: 180 for the Basic Course and 300 for the Advanced Course. In
the Basic Course, cadets received a basic introduction to the Army and
learned the fundamentals of drill and staff procedures, while in the Ad-
vanced Course, they learned how to apply more advanced tactical tech-
niques. During summer camp, cadets practiced individual military skills
and received tactical training.*!

In the last year of the Korean War (1950-1953), the General Military Sci-
ence Program was introduced on an experimental basis. The following year,
it was offered as an alternative throughout the entire ROTC community. By
1960, over 80 percent of ROTC host institutions had adopted it. The adoption
of the new curriculum allowed the Army to begin the gradual phasing out of
branch specific summer training.”

The revised curriculum, however, soon aroused complaints from civilian
educators. ROTC, these critics charged, now took up too much of the student’s
time. During the inter-war years, ROTC had not been such a time-consuming
proposition. Military courses carried no academic credit at many colleges and,
because cadets were only getting reserve commissions, military instruction
often had little immediacy or urgency about it. The new time demands were
closely bound up with the post-war transition of ROTC from an institution
intended only to fill the ranks of the Organized Reserve Corps to one charged
with producing the bulk of active duty officers. The new instructional and
training regimen also had the effect of attracting more scrutiny to ROTC in-
struction, which many academic officials felt fell below college standards.
Some suggested that a large portion of ROTC course work should be accom-
plished during summer training. Such a shift in venue, they argued, would
allow the cadet more time to study and at the same time receive more concen-
trated and effective military training.”

Two members of the Army Advisory Panel in particular, Professors Lyons
and Masland, emphasized the need for further curriculum reform. Part of the

23



CHAPTER VIII

RESTRUCTURING
CADET COMMAND

"Disestablishment (of uneconomical ROTC units) is
a politically sensitive area. It is doubtful
any program can be
disestablished without
the institution's concurrence." *°

Cadet Command’s most challenging task in the post-Cold War era
has been the restructuring of the ROTC command and control apparatus.
Contrary to the assumptions of certain General Accounting Office (GAO)
auditors, aligning structure with resources and production goals goes far
beyond considerations of economic efficiency. The quality of
precommissioning training and education are also intimately bound up with
this very important issue.

Of particular significance to Cadet Command has been the question
of how many units should be maintained in operation. Sustaining too many
or too few both create problems but historically it has been the former
problem that has presented the ROTC program with its greatest difficulties.
The existence of uneconomical and ineffective units (commonly referred
to by the General Accounting Office and other government bodies as “non-
productive” or “unproductive” units) becomes an especially contentious
issue during periods of demobilization when officer requirements are
curtailed. To enable the reader to understand Cadet Command’s
contribution in this arena, this chapter will begin with a review of how the
Army has dealt with nonproductive units in the past.

215



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

provided that the cadet in question was otherwise performing satisfactorily.”

In general terms, the goals of the Army ROTC were to provide each ca-
det with a broad educational base; a general appreciation of the history of the
U.S. Army; a familiarity with the organizational structure of the Army and the
operations of its various components; a strong sense of personal integrity,
honor, and individual responsibility; a knowledge of the human dimensions
of military organizations and an understanding of basic leadership principles;
the ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing; and a suffi-
cient knowledge of Army life to ensure a smooth transition from the civilian
to the military environment.®

At its core, the Army ROTC was a four-year program designed to be
pursued concurrently with a baccalaureate degree. Each year of the normal
undergraduate experience was supplemented by a corresponding military sci-
ence (MS) course of instruction, i.e., Freshman = MS I; Sophomore = MS II;
Junior = MS III; and Senior = MS IV. A number of options were offered for
flexibility, including recognition and credit for previous military related ex-
perience and “accelerated” or “compressed” instruction to allow late entry
into the ROTC program. Placement credit for the Basic Course (MS I and MS
II) could be granted to prior service members who completed enlisted basic
entry training and to those students who had completed at least three years of
Junior ROTC. Battalions also had the option of offering an on-campus sum-
mer compression program, allowing students to complete MS I and MS Il asa
part of the summer school schedule. In addition, the PMS could permit a
student to compress the Basic Course by simultaneous enrollment in MS I and
MS II or the Advanced Course by simultaneous enrollment in MS III and MS
IV. For those students unable to complete the normal four-year ROTC cur-
riculum, receive placement credit, or take the compression course, there was
the two-year curriculum. Successful completion of a six-week Basic Camp at
Fort Knox, Kentucky, earned students credit for MS I and MS II, and permit-
ted their enrollment in the Advanced Course (MS III and MS Iv)?

In the MQS system, performance objectives guided military skills train-
ing while terminal learning objectives regulated the teaching of professional
knowledge and professional military education subjects. Performance objec-
tives set specified conditions and established performance standards for mili-
tary tasks. Cadets proved their mastery of the terminal learning objectives
through both objective and subjective testing. The minimum classroom
contact hours for military skills and professional knowledge subjects were
set at 90 hours for the Basic Course and 120 hours for the Advanced Course.

94



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

of the prestige which it had up to that point lacked.”

The report rejected the dual DCSROTC/ROTC Command alternative.
The principal objection to this alternative involved the “unconventional dual
role of the commander.” Such an arrangement, it was posited, “is prone to
conflicts of interest and is inconsistent with accepted Army patterns of organi-
zation.”°§

When the Comptroller’s study was sent to the field for staffing, CONARC
Headquarters strenuously objected to the recommendation that a separate ROTC
Command be created.” It took this position because it believed that a sepa-
rate command would, in the words of one CONARC spokesman,

..tend to divorce the ROTC program from the main-stream of
Army life as found in the ZI Armies and Class I installations and
thus degrade ROTC further in the eyes of the active Army. More-
over, under this concept, logistical and administrative support
would be part of the commander’s mission. We see this as an
added disadvantage to the proposal; that such support can be fur-
nished better through the Class | CONARC system.”

A concern about the personnel requirements that the establishment of a sepa-
rate command would inevitably entail also seems to have shaped the CONARC
decision.

In the end, the CONARC Commanding General won the argument. The
reorganization scheme that finally emerged from all this study and discussion
resembled neither of the Comptroller’s two preferred alternatives. It did, how-
ever, make two major changes in the way that ROTC was managed. At the
Department of the Army level, the ROTC function was transferred from the
Chief of Reserve Components to the DCSPER (effective | July 1966). An
ROTC Branch, consisting of 18 persons, was inserted into the Office of the
DCSPER’s RUO Division. This division then assumed responsibility for policy
and program matters pertaining to all three commissioning sources—ROTC,
the Military Academy, and OCS.

The second and more significant change was the shift of operational
responsibility for the program from the Department of the Army to CONARC
(effective 1 January 1967). The latter headquarters thus became the focal point
for ROTC—or, at least, as close to a focal point as existed during this period.
To exercise its newly acquired authority, CONARC elevated the ROTC Division

30



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

cause for objection, and appeared to be the most equitable means at hand
to select programs for elimination.”

All of the 15 inactivations, however, were manifestly not Effective Man-
agement Program actions. Some of the institutions targeted had been on the
EMP for only one year. A few had not been on it at all. The University of
Santa Clara fell into this latter category. Its president reacted angrily when he
learned that his ROTC unit was about to disappear without being afforded the
courtesy of advanced warning. Nevertheless, because the necessity for program
reduction was so apparent and because the closures for the most part involved
schools without a long ROTC tradition, no one could block the inactivations.®

Operation Horizon, Alternative Strategies, and the January 1993 round
of inactivations represented immediate responses to an immediate need, i.e.,
the need to bring the institutional base of the ROTC program in line with
fiscal and personnel realities and diminished officer production requirements.
Given the time available to formulate and implement these plans and given
the atmosphere in which they were carried out (no one knew how far the end
strength of the Army would sink or how many officers would be required in
the future), the above mentioned initiatives were, on the whole, creditable and
capably executed undertakings. Nevertheless, they were not, and probably
could not have been with the prevailing uncertainty, directed toward any spe-
cific long-term objective or stable end state.

Region Closure

The inactivation of units carried out under Operation Horizon along
with the decision made in 1990 to reduce the number of Advanced Camps
from three to two, suggested to authorities at the Pentagon that a streamlining
of Cadet Command’s intermediate supervisory layers was in order. On 12
June 1992, the Department of the Army announced that the Third Region Head-
quarters, located at Fort Riley, Kansas, was to close and its assets and subor-
dinate units were to be distributed among the remaining three regions. The
official inactivation was to occur on 31 December 1992. See Figure 8-3 and
Figure 8-4.

Cadet Command did not want to eliminate a region. It argued that it
needed four region headquarters to facilitate administration and exercise
command and control. But the Army authorities held a different view. Officers
within the DCSPER were especially eager to see a region headquarters
disappear. In 1991, the DCSPER replaced the departing region commander,

241



APPENDIX C

JUNIOR ROTC
ENROLLMENT 1919 - 1995

SCHOOL YEAR NUMBER OF UNITS ENROLLMENT
1919-20 50 45,139
1920-21 57 46,538
1921-22 106 37,225
1922-23, 100 37,346
1923-24 99 40,324
1924-25 104 42,190
1925-26 100 38,225
1926-27 100 38,148
1927-28 100 39,978
1929-30 100 40,521
1930-31 103 41,334
1931-32 106 41,637
1932-33 105 40,556
1933-34 103 39,466
1934-35 103 88,728
1935-36 105 41,053
1936-37 140 53,202
1937-38 142 57,777
1938-39 140 61,791
1939-40 139 65,282
1940-41 139 68,895
1942-49 139 72,151
1950-51 TBP TBP
1951-52 TBP 61,280
1952-53 TBP 66,670
1953-54 TBP 66,694
1954-55 TBP 59,876
1955-56 TBP 59,343
1956-57 TBP 59,138
1957-58 TBP 60,917
1958-59 TBP 60,567
1959-60 TBP 59,825
1961-62 295 60,766
1962-63 295 TBP
1963-64 294 TBP
1964-65, 293 73,745
1965-66 287 67,84

302



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

of uneconomical ROTC detachments was not a new development. It cited its
March 1977 report, which, as we have seen, scored the services for maintaining
substandard units despite guidance to the contrary.*'

As might be anticipated, the Department of Defense, the Army, and Ca-
det Command did not agree with the GAO’s assessment. They admitted that
the retention of unproductive units was a problem but observed that many unit
closure decisions were strongly resisted by external forces—often, in fact, by
members of Congress. The case of Savannah State College in Georgia was
put forward as an illustration. Upon notification of the pending inactivation
of the Naval ROTC unit at that institution, the affected representative in the
House informed the Secretary of the Navy by letter that: “I am fully prepared
to use every means at my disposal to protect the Naval ROTC unit at Savan-
nah State during this very critical period....”. The Georgia representative’s
response, it was pointed out, was a “typical” reaction to a closure decision
and helped explain why the Army had such difficulty in the past in divesting
itself of ROTC units it neither wanted nor needed.”

The Army also defended its extension centers against the GAO’s accusa-
tions. It maintained that while these centers usually did not meet the criterion
of 17 contracted MS III cadets, their staffing levels and costs were signifi-
cantly below those of host units and their cost per commission was much lower.
Nevertheless, the Army and the Defense Department apparently felt that ex-
tension centers should be dealt with in a more forthright and above board
manner for they agreed to address them in the next revision of Department of
Defense Directive 1215.8.%

In their response to the General Accounting Office report, the Defense
Department and the three services at least tacitly accepted part of the respon-
sibility for the continuance of non-viable units. In the past, they conceded,
justifications for the retention of marginal units was done informally by the
services. Such a procedure invited irregularities of many kinds. To remedy
this flaw, they promised to incorporate justification procedures along with
improved viability criteria in the next edition of the department’s directive.

Phoenix/Alternative Strategies

In the winter of 1990-1991, the “Phoenix” work group was assembled at
Cadet Command Headquarters to study the impact that impending resource
reductions would have on the ROTC program and develop strategies that would
cushion the command from the full force of this impact. Phoenix had a broad
mandate. It was charged with the tasks of revamping the command’s missioning

237



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

instructor could be performed by active component soldiers and did not spe-
cifically require reserve expertise. Moreover, many decision makers believed
that AGR officers could be better employed elsewhere. An ROTC assign-
ment, they felt, contributed little to reserve readiness and therefore represented
a waste of both time and money. Some legislators even saw the use of full-
time reserve officers in ROTC units as an attempt to circumvent the congres-
sionally mandated end strength of the Army.?!

Not everyone in the Army favored the assignment of AGR personnel to
ROTC units. Senior Guard and Reserve leaders had indicated in the past that
they would prefer to employ their full time personnel in other ways—to bol-
ster the support given to troop program units, for example. Like some legisla-
tors, they viewed the reserve ROTC instructor program as detracting from
their primary mission. Many active component officers also wanted AGR
officers taken out of cadet battalions. Reserve instructors, they felt, did not
project the appropriate image or possess the necessary experience to be en-
trusted with the task of shaping and mentoring future officers.

Congressional approval of a phased elimination of reserve instructors
gave the command some breathing room but did not solve its fundamental
dilemma. It was clear that unless the AGR force was reinstated, there would
be tough times ahead for the ROTC. Accordingly, Cadet Command began a
campaign to garner congressional support for an AGR restoration. Letters
were sent to Congress explaining the importance of the AGR contribution to
the ROTC and pointing out the adverse effects that would inevitably follow a
reserve pullback. Major General Arnold took a personal hand in this effort
and used all the formal and informal tools at his disposal to get the command’s
case across to the appropriate people.”

Representatives from Cadet Command stressed five principal reasons for
continued reserve involvement in ROTC. First, the Army was the only ser-
vice that commissioned ROTC lieutenants directly into the reserve. Until the
early nineties, over 50 percent of the annual intake of new lieutenants into the
reserve components came from ROTC. Second, the reserve component pres-
ence on campus was necessary to “sell” reserve duty as a service option and to
provide role models and advisers for aspiring reserve officers. Third, AGR
officers were necessary to manage those programs designed exclusively for
the reserve. These programs included the Guaranteed Reserve Forces Duty
Scholarship program—intended to attract high quality lieutenants into the
Guard and Reserve—and the Simultaneous Membership Program, which
enabled cadets to serve in reserve units while attending college. Fourth, AGR

155



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

ee . with Mrs. Nadeena Cooper, Management Division,
Resource Management Directorate, USACC, 18 July 1995.
ae . with COL J.G. Cretella, Director, Personnel and
Administration Directorate, USAROTCCC, 1 June 1993.
oe with CPT Rachel Elkins, Personnel Management Division,
Personnel and Administration Directorate, 6 July 1995.
____. with Mr. Cal Foster, High School Directorate, USACC, 25,
eptember and 3 October 1995,
_. with MAJ Dale Fye, Scholarship and Accessions Manage-

ment Division, Personnel and Administration Directorate,USACC,
23 June 1995.

with Mrs. Pat Grizzle, Scholarship and Accessions

Management Division, Personnel and Administration Directorate,

USACC, 17 July 1995.

__._. with LTC Critz Hardy, Chief, Operations Division,
Marketing, Operations and Public Affairs Directorate, USACC,
6 December 1995.

—-------..._______. with Mrs. Carol Hetler, High School Directorate, USACC,
20 October 1995.

ee . with LTC Michael Hodson, Director, Operations
Directorate, USAROTCCC, 28 November 1994.

a . with MG James M. Lyle, Cdr, USACC, 15 January 1994
and 9 December 1995.

oo with COL Thomas Maclver, Director, Training Directorate,
USACC, 6 October 1995.

ee . with Mr. William Marlin, Chief, Management Division,
Resource Management Directorate, DCSROTC and USAROTCCC,
30 August, 21 and 23 September 1995.

_. with Mrs. Nancy Parker, Chief, Personnel Actions and

Standards Division, Personnel and Administration Directorate, USACC,

21 September 1995.

. with Mrs. June Reams, Scholarship and Accessions

Management Division, Personnel and Administration Directorate,
23 June 1995.

_. with GEN William R. Richardson, Cdr, TRADOC,
1995.
oe with LTC Kendal Smith, Director, Marketing, Operations
and Public Affairs Directorate, 15 February 1995.
__..____. with Mr. Roger Spadafora, Education and Assessment
ing Directorate, USACC, 10 October 1995.
ee . with Ms. Judy Taylor, Office of the CG, USACC,
15 September and 3 October 1995.
. with MG Robert E. Wagner, Cdr, USAROTCC, 23 and

25 March 1995.

Harford, Lee S. with MG John P. Prillaman, DCSROTC/Cdr ROTC
Command, n.d.

ee with COL Robert S. Cox, Chief, Training Directorate,
USAROTCCC, 12 and 23 October 1989.

-o with MG Robert E. Wagner, Cdr, USAROTCCC, 15 August
and 15 December 1989.

344



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

caused concern among senior Army leaders. The drop of scholarships at private
schools was an abrupt departure from the past and seen as a threat to close univer-
sity-Army relations. Thus, on 22 February 1996, a Tier 1A was established at
$20,000 to ensure continued diversity in the officer corps.

Perhaps the most profound effect that Cadet Command had on the Army,
however, lay not in the programs it instituted or in the specific improvements it
made but in the psychological and inspirational boost it gave to cadets. Former
training methods, recruiting practices, accessions policies, cadre assignment pro-
cedures, etc. imparted to cadets a sense that their precommissioning preparation
was inadequate. Many of them entered the Army with a distinct feeling of inferi-
ority. Cadet Command, by providing outstanding role models, offering challeng-
ing training and applying stringent selection criteria, was able to turn the situation
around and give cadets who made it through the program a sense that they had
indeed accomplished something worthwhile. They embarked upon their military
career not only better prepared but, more importantly, more confident in their
abilities. The ROTC lieutenants and captains who served in the Persian Gulf War,
as a group, had no doubts about their capabilities or the adequacy of their prepara-
tion. It is these junior officers who give the most convincing proof of Cadet
Command’s achievement.

While Cadet Command can be proud of its achievements, it cannot af-
ford to rest on its laurels. Many challenges await the command as it begins its
second decade of existence, and readies itself to enter the twenty-first cen-
tury. The process of downsizing the command to bring its institutional base
and intermediate command layers on line with reduced officer production re-
quirements and reduced cadre strength, must be pursued with even more vigor.
A reevaluation and readjustment of the summer camp structure must be in-
cluded as an integral part of this downsizing process. The command must
continue to seek efficiencies in staffing, organization and training, and to ex-
plore alternative staffing schemes designed with an eye toward achieving both
fiscal and personnel economies. Maintaining a close Army-university con-
nection, an important role of the ROTC since 1916, and adjusting the scholar-
ship program to ensure that the Army is getting enough officers of the right
types and of the requisite diversity of backgrounds, must also remain top pri-
orities. And, all this must be accomplished while maintaining Cadet
Command’s high product quality. While accomplishing all this will certainly
not be easy, Cadet Command, unlike the other organizational expedients that
in previous periods of demobilization had directed the ROTC program, is
equipped for and equal to the task.

290



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

for the 3d Infantry Division in Europe, he had had the chance to observe at
first hand a cross-section of the Army’s junior officers. He came away
unimpressed with what he saw. Fully 30 percent of the Army’s lieutenants
were, in his estimation, incompetent as leaders. They possessed neither the
moral nor intellectual attributes required of an Army officer. The ROTC, in
his opinion, was largely to blame because it did not impose uniform standards
of training, evaluation, and selection on ROTC regions or detachments. Its
products were, consequently, an extremely dissimilar lot; battalion
commanders simply did not know what they were getting when an ROTC
graduate reported into the unit.

Shortly before learning of his posting to Fort Lewis as Fourth ROTC
Region Commander, Wagner returned to the United States to visit his son who
was enrolled at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The visit dismayed him, at least from a professional point of view. The stu-
dent leaders and fraternity members with whom he talked manifested little
interest in and slight regard for the ROTC. Indeed, several were offended
when he suggested that they enroll in the ROTC. The program, it appeared to
him, was the province of students on the margins of the college, not of student
opinion makers—a perception that, as we will see, was largely correct. He
left William and Mary more concerned than before about the overall health of
the ROTC.*

As the Fourth Region Commander, Wagner introduced or had introduced
numerous measures, programs, and initiatives that, when applied nationally,
were eventually to lift the ROTC out of its post Vietnam rut. Nothing he did
in this period, however, proved more important than his establishment of a
close professional partnership with an officer three levels above him in the
chain of command—General Richardson. Through the media of phone calls,
office visits, conferences, and a host of other channels, he got his ideas across
directly to the TRADOC Commander. Together these two men laid the foun-
dation for the revolution in collegiate military training that occurred in the
late-1980s.

This relationship, though, was forged at a cost—namely, the willing
cooperation of TRADOC staff officers, many of whom were jealous of and
unnerved by Wagner’s rapport with Richardson. The Fourth Region Com-
mander approached General Richardson without consulting the DCSROTC
or anyone else in TRADOC Headquarters and did this with a frequency
and with a nonchalance that annoyed even the good-natured and mild-man-
nered Prillaman.?>

55



CHAPTER Ix

THE JUNIOR RESERVE
OFFICERS'
TRAINING CORPS

The JROTC was one of the few ways
that the U.S. Army served American society in
other than a warfighting capacity.

One of the responsibilities assumed by Cadet Command upon its cre-
ation in the spring of 1986 was the management of the Junior Reserve Offic-
ers’ Training Corps (JROTC). Throughout most of its history, the program
had been treated as a poor and intrusive relative by the Army. Many had
wanted it to go away. The JROTC, the feeling had been, consumed money
and personnel but produced nothing of any tangible benefit to the Army. The
present chapter will consider the JROTC and the part that Cadet Command
has played in changing its focus and overseeing its rapid expansion.

Early History

The Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, like its senior counterpart,
came into being with the passage of the National Defense Act of 1916. While
the senior program encompassed baccalaureate degree-granting institutions,
the focus of the JROTC was on secondary schools. Under the provisions of
the 1916 act, high schools were authorized the loan of federal military equip-
ment and the assignment of active or retired military personnel as instructors
on the condition that they followed a prescribed course of training and main-
tained a minimum enrollment of 100 students over 14 years of age.

At its inception, the JROTC course consisted of three hours of military

257



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

career service in the Army” beginning in School Year 1969-1970. CONARC
introduced the three-year scholarship a year later—in School Year 1971-1 9722"

Scholarship Diversification

The CONARC study was something of a milestone, for after its publica-
tion, the scholarship program began to expand in both scope and purpose and
assume the form with which we are familiar today. The pattern of American
higher education had become more diverse and complex since the end of World
War II and the scholarship program, if it was to be effective, had to allow for
this increased diversity and complexity. As a result, the types of scholarships
began to proliferate as ROTC program managers in CONARC and later
TRADOC attempted to exploit the recruiting potential of various “market
niches.”

Two special scholarship programs designed to encourage economically
disadvantaged students to enroll in ROTC, for example, were introduced in
School Year 1971-1972. One program resulted in 75 three-year scholarships
being reserved for ROTC cadets at institutions whose average family income
was $6,000 per year or less. The other program, which was only to be in
effect for one academic year, earmarked one four-year scholarship for each
Junior ROTC/NDCC program located within a poverty area, as defined by the
Office of Economic Opportunity. 2

Public Law 92-171 and Public Law 92-166

Anxious about the ill-effects that the end of conscription would likely
have on officer procurement, and alarmed about the pessimistic enrollment
forecasts coming out of CONARC. Congress passed two pieces of legislation
in late 1971 that had a significant impact on the ROTC scholarship program.
Public Law 92-171 (24 November 1971) increased the ROTC subsistence al-
lowance for scholarship and Advanced Course cadets to $100 per month for
the 10 month academic year. Public Law 92-166 (24 November 1971) permit-
ted two-year “non-progression” cadets to participate in the scholarship pro-
gram and raised the total Army scholarship authorization by 1,000, from 5,500
to 6,500.”

The CONARC, as we have seen, had originally requested that the number
of authorized scholarships be raised to 10,000 instead of 6,500—making P.L.
92-166 something of a disappointment to that headquarters. The House had
trimmed the request when it ascertained that there were more non-scholarship

194





RECRUITING CADETS

installation chain-of-command, the counselors devoted a considerable amount
of time cultivating good relations with local authorities. Those college-bound
enlisted people interested in becoming an officer were linked up with the PMS
at the school of their choice through the GOLDQuest computer network. By
1990, the Green to Gold system was fully operational, with counselors work-
ing on virtually every major Army installation in the nation.”

The program increased in significance in subsequent years. In 1995,
approximately 20 percent of ROTC commissionees were Green to Gold prod-
ucts (as compared to about 10 percent in the late 1980s and early 1990s).
Major General James M. Lyle, the Cadet Command Commander in 1995, was
an ardent proponent of the program. He raised the number of Green to Gold
scholarships by over 80 percent (193 to 350) after he assumed command in
1993 and flooded the TRADOC school system and his fellow general officers
with Green to Gold brochures, letters, and fact sheets. Lyle felt that
the combination of ROTC leadership training, a college education, and
enlisted experience gave the newly commissioned Green to Gold lieutenant
a huge initial advantage over his peers. He dubbed the program the Army’s
“new OCS” in recognition of its importance to Cadet Command and the Army.”

Cadet Command-Recruiting
Command Cooperation

Another facet of Cadet Command’s effort to improve ROTC recruiting
centered on forging a closer working relation with the U.S. Army Recruiting
Command. In the past, the relationship had not always been a complementary
one. In fact, many times the Recruiting Command and the ROTC community
found themselves working at cross purposes.

The absence of a formal mechanism by which the two commands could
interact and provide each other information about possible prospects other
than at the local level did not help matters. Neither did the fact that they had
fundamentally different missions serve to allay antagonism and
misunderstanding. The Recruiting Command concentrated on filling the
enlisted force; the ROTC focus was on filling its own ranks with students
qualified to be officers. Recruiters received no credit and were given no
incentives for identifying students interested in ROTC, even though they
regularly visited high school and college campuses as part of their normal
duties. Shunting students toward ROTC, in fact, could actually hurt the
recruiter, for it meant the loss of a potential enlistee. ROTC cadre, on their

139



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Congress acceded to the Army’s requests and passed the Reserve Officers’
Training Corps Vitalization Act of 1964. This legislation authorized 5,500
two- and four-year scholarships, raised the cadet monthly subsistence allowance
from approximately $27 to $50, and introduced a two-year program to
supplement the traditional four-year one. The new abbreviated program
permitted a student who did not complete the Basic Course to enter the
Advanced Course by attending a six-week Basic Camp during the summer
before his junior or MS III year. It also mandated that all Advanced Course
cadets enlist in the Army Reserve and serve either six months or two years on
active duty upon commissioning.”

The Comptroller’s Organization for Management Study

While the Vitalization Act was still being debated, the Army’s senior
leaders resolved to upgrade the “organization for management” of the ROTC
program. Otherwise, the belief was, the reforms introduced by the Vitaliza-
tion Act would have little effect. Senior officers were particularly concerned
about the decentralized nature of the ROTC management hierarchy and the
localism that this engendered. One officer gave voice to these concerns in an
article which appeared in the Army Magazine in 1963. Each ROTC unit, he
complained, “is inclined to remain an island unto itself.” It would be neces-
sary, he felt, to reverse “this rather wasteful system of detachmental individu-
alism” if things were ever going to get better. Others called attention to the
adverse effects of unit parochialism on ROTC operations. One commentator,
in an article which ran in a national magazine in 1963, wrote:

There seems to be no definite overall policy about important as-
pects of the program. The basis for selecting students for the
ROTC and for keeping them in the program are different in each
school. The same is true of the method of awarding the Distin-
guished Military Student classification.”

Initially, the Army Chief of Staff tasked the ROTC Division within the
Office of the Chief of Reserve Components, Department of the Army to study
the problem. When that body returned a report with recommendations not to
his liking, the Chief of Staff rejected it. He then turned to the Comptroller
General of the Army and directed that officer to conduct “a comprehensive
study of the management of the ROTC/NDCC (National Defense Cadet
Corps) program.”*!

26


U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

system in effect in which no two camps offered the same training experience.
One camp stressed individual training skills, another accentuated small unit
tactical training. The systems for evaluating leadership ability were just as
diverse. Brigadier General Wagner viewed the absence of a standard evalua-
tion mechanism as the most serious deficiency:

The obvious result of these differing Advanced Camp systems is
the absence of a defined, understood, and uniformly applied yard-
stick against which we judge the officership qualities of cadets.
At the bottom end of the quality spectrum, a cadet “makes it”
based upon the luck of the draw. Where one goes to camp “does”
matter. In the summer of 1983, a camp with one-half the popu-
lation of another camp boarded twice as many cadets.”

Wagner was by no means the only one worried about the state of ROTC.
Ever since the 1978 RETO Study had focused attention on the program’s prob-
lems, successive TRADOC Commanders, their DCSROTCs, and service school
commandants had evidenced considerable concern about low commissioning
standards and unevenness of training, especially summer camp training. The
Commandants of the Ordnance, Field Artillery, Signal and Quartermaster
Schools were especially vocal in expressing their misgivings.”

At the close of camp, Wagner began visiting host and extension centers
in order to discuss his concerns with instructors in the field. He impressed
upon the cadre the critical importance of their mission while at the same time
soliciting their views for improving ROTC training and operations. Before
long, he gained an understanding of the quality of instruction, the type of
cadet recruited into the program, and the character of the cadre.

Upon his return to region headquarters, he had Colonel James Neale, his
Chief of Staff, draw up a position paper outlining the impressions garnered by
Wagner from his experience thus far as region commander. The paper was
entitled ROTC: Everybody’s Business and was published in October 1983. It
made two major points: first, the ROTC program produced 70 percent of the
Army officer corps; second, the program was not alive and well as everybody
believed it to be.*!

To drive home the second point, Neale made certain generalizations about
the state of the ROTC. These generalizations, he was to find out, were not
ones that everyone wanted to hear. For example, he denounced the program's
permissive enrollment policies that allowed students with civil convictions

58



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

average for his particular school and his particular major. The PMS evalua-
tion consisted of four distinct elements: military science grade point average;
a leadership evaluation score; a PMS “roll-up” or summary of leadership scores;
and a whole person score. Cadets could attain whole person points by partici-
pating in student organizations, cadet activities, athletics, honor societies, stu-
dent government, etc. The other parts of the PMS evaluation were likewise
scored against specified performance criteria.

The Advanced Camp evaluation system experienced a major overhaul
under Lyle. The forced distribution system was abandoned. In its place, a
system that measured cadets against a set of absolute performance standards
(instead of against each other) was introduced. The Commanding General
thought this only appropriate since the rest of the Army had been using abso-
lute standards to gauge training effectiveness for some time.*

The new evaluation system was not received with universal approbation
within the command. Some objected that normalizing grade point averages
by major and college did not take into account qualitative differences between
institutions. But Cadet Command Headquarters operated under the assump-
tion that diligence, determination, and demonstrated performance were better
gauges of officer potential than mere intellectual attainment. The command,
after all, was in the business of producing soldiers, not sociologists. And the
normalized grade point average was the best means available to measure what
the command wanted to measure.

One got the impression that many who objected to the normalized grade
point average did so without great conviction. Their real objection, it ap-
peared, was to the new method for computing the PMS (or on-campus) evalu-
ation score. Formerly, as we have seen, the score reflected the PMS’s subjec-
tive appraisal of a cadet’s officer potential relative to those of the other cadets
in a particular commissioning class. The new evaluation system substituted a
set of specific performance criteria for the relative scale of the old system
and, in so doing, seemed to take away much of the PMS’s power. It was this
perceived loss of power that really bothered most of the critics.

Ata meeting of Cadet Command’s senior leaders held at Fort Monroe in
February 1995, Colonel Robert B. Sauve, the First Region Chief of Staff, spoke
for many in the command when he pointed out to Major General Lyle the
advantages of the old way of doing things. The old way, he said, allowed the
PMS to sit down “eyeball to eyeball” with cadets and, the implication was,
get a measure of their character that the new system, with its specific perfor-
mance criteria, simply could not do. Lyle was unimpressed. New conditions,

181



CONCLUSION

every aspect of the ROTC were introduced. The ways in which cadets were
recruited, selected, motivated, and trained were drastically altered to reflect
the new emphasis on product quality.

Although standardization and centralization touched virtually every as-
pect of the ROTC, in no area did they have a more profound effect than in
training. Advanced Camp assumed an unprecedented uniformity of style, sub-
stance and spirit. A sequential and progressive training format replaced the illogi-
cal one of past camps and leader development replaced the acquisition of basic
skills as the core of summer training. On-campus instruction soon followed suit.

In addition to standardizing precommissioning military training, Cadet
Command moved forward with several other initiatives designed to ensure
that it would be able to turn out enough lieutenants of the desired quality in
the future. An organizational restructuring of the command was one of these
initiatives. Through the agency of the Five Year Plan, a concerted effort was
made to bring the number of units on line with cadet enrollment and the num-
ber of instructors available. The Army, in previous periods of demobilization,
had not done this and a “hollow” ROTC had been the outcome.

While the institutional drawdown has not progressed as far or as fast as
certain senior leaders in Cadet Command have desired, it has achieved sub-
stantial results, especially when compared to previous efforts made along these
same lines. But more important than any success the command has enjoyed in
eliminating unproductive units has been its articulation of a desirable organi-
zational end state. In this projected end state, the number of units, cadets and
instructors were in balance and the ROTC was insulated against large and
sudden institutional expansions and contractions, which inevitably bring a deg-
radation of training, leader development, and production efficiency in their
wake. Stability, continuity, and a sense of permanence, qualities essential to
the long-term health of any institution, were thus built into the system of
precommissioning education and training outlined in the Five Year Plan.

A fundamental reordering of the way the Army managed its ROTC schol-
arship program was another Cadet Command initiative. Until recently, the
scholarship program was extremely resistant to budgetary control. University
officials who set tuition rates, rather than the Army, determined how far ROTC
scholarship dollars would stretch. The fact that a disproportionately large
share of the scholarship budget went to cadets attending expensive private
schools aggravated the management problem.

Through scholarship tiering, Cadet Command changed all of this. The in-
troduction of a variety of award levels, each of which had a definite limit attached
to it, enabled the scholarship budget to be effectively controlled. Tiering allowed
the command to give more scholarships and raise production without an increase
in funding. However, enrollment at many high cost private schools dropped, and

289



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

duty officers. It seconded the Gray Committee’s call for a program of subsi-
dized military education for all three services, recommending that cadets “re-
ceive tuition, fees, books, uniforms, and training equipment, together with an
emolument of perhaps $25 per month.” Because of its concern about costs,
the Service Academy Board wanted the services to grant three- instead of four-
year scholarships.°

Korea

The Truman Administration presented a bill to implement the recom-
mendations of the Gray Committee and the Service Academy Board to Con-
gress in 1950. Before this legislation could be considered, however, the Ko-
rean War broke out and pushed it into the background. During the war, Con-
gress passed two measures that seemingly rendered ROTC scholarships un-
necessary. The first was a bill to extend World War II-era GI Bill benefits to
Korean War veterans. The second was the Universal Military Training and
Service Act of 1951, which provided the incentives of draft deferment and the
opportunity to fulfill one’s service obligation as an officer for college stu-
dents to join the ROTC.”

Despite the diminished prospects for subsidized military education, pro-
moters of Army and Air Force ROTC scholarships tried in 1952 and again in
1953 to get their agenda through Congress. They championed a bill that pro-
posed two types of four-year scholarships. One type was intended to turn out
reserve officers who would complete an extended active duty tour before go-
ing into one of the reserve components. The second type was designed to
produce career officers.

The bill was doomed from the start. By 1953, the Army and Air Force
were inundated with second lieutenants as a result of the Korean War build-
up. They had to eliminate their glut of junior officers, not entice more college
students into officer-producing programs. Moreover, the three services could
not reach an agreement on the bill’s provisions. The Navy feared that its
extant scholarship program, with which it was very satisfied, would be placed
in jeopardy if this new piece of legislation was passed. It especially opposed
the provision inserted by the Bureau of the Budget (to which the Army and
Air Force had no objection) to cap tuition payments at $600 per year. This
would, Navy officials believed, cripple the Naval ROTC program at many of
the major private colleges and universities. Cadets at these institutions would
have to pay part of the tuition themselves or drop out of that particular
program. The Army and Air Force, whose programs had a distinct state/

187



APPENDIX A

DEPUTY CHIEFS OF STAFF FOR

ROTC (DCSROTC) AND

CADET COMMAND COMMANDERS

BG Wilfrid K.G. Smith
July 73 - Aug 75

MG Charles C. Rogers
Sept 75 - Nov 78

MG Daniel W. French
Nov 78 - Jun 81

COL Richard L. Elliott
Jul 81 - Sept 81

MG Robert A. Sullivan
Oct 81 - Sept 82

COL Richard L. Elliott
Oct 82 - Dec 82

MG John P. Prillaman
Jan 83 - Mar 86

MG Robert E. Wagner
Mar 86 - Apr 90

MG Wallace C. Arnold
Apr 90 - Jun 93

MG James M. Lyle
Jun 93 - Present

(DCSROTC)

(DCSROTC)

(DCSROTC)

(DCSROTC)

(DCSROTC)

(DCSROTC)

(DCSROTC and CDR, ROTC Command)

(CDR, ROTC Cadet Command)

(CDR, ROTC Cadet Command)

(CDR, Cadet Command)

299



CADET TRAINING

Although great leeway was allowed in scheduling military science subjects,
no subjects could be transferred between the Basic Course and the Advanced
Course. To assist ROTC instructors, TRADOC’s U.S. Army Training Support
Center, working closely with branch schools and other TRADOC agencies,
prepared and distributed lesson plans called training support packages for each
military skill and professional knowledge subject listed in MQS I.'°

The Leadership Assessment Program

The evolution of the Leadership Assessment Program (LAP), the second
derivative of the RETO report, began in November 1979 when the TRADOC
DCSROTC, assisted by the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral
and Social Sciences and Development Dimensions International, took up the
task of devising a performance-based assessment process for all three Army
commissioning sources. The idea of screening cadets for leadership potential
through the use of behavioral simulation exercises was new to the ROTC pro-
gram. If it was new to the ROTC, there was some precedent for it in other
government agencies, however. During World War II, the U.S. Office of Stra-
tegic Services (OSS) used an assessment methodology involving rigorous
physical and mental testing to choose the best candidates for intelligence agents.
In the 1960s, various government agencies and private companies followed
the lead of the OSS by developing assessment instruments of their own to
assist in selection and promotion decisions. The Army experimented with
personnel assessment in a pilot project conducted at Fort Benning near the
end of the Vietnam War. It had been the favorable reports of the Infantry
School instructors participating in this project that persuaded the RETO Study
Group to recommend such an assessment system for precommissioning edu-
cation and training programs."!

The DCSROTC/Army Research Institute Study of 1979-1980 produced
the LAP. As originally designed, the LAP was a process for evaluating the
leadership behavior of prospective MS III cadets through the use of 12 “di-
mensions of leadership.” Seven draft revisions and three field tests were nec-
essary before the LAP Assessor Training Guide and the LAP Assessor Work-
book, the materials that instructed ROTC cadre members how to conduct the
LAP, were ready for distribution.

This leadership assessment process underwent a final field testing in the
fall of 1980 at nine universities hosting ROTC—Fordham University, New
York; The Citadel, South Carolina; Central State University, Ohio; Texas A&M

95



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

list. The new function was also intended to encompass senior Army leaders.
It was these senior leaders who determined how the Army’s dwindling
supplies of money, people and resources were distributed among subordinate
elements. In an era of scarcity, Cadet Command had to sell itself to this influ-
ential group or face organizational decline—perhaps even extinction.”

Evaluate and access replaced select on the command function list. This
change reflected more than anything else the command’s maturation as an
organization. Wagner had emphasized select because, at the time he arrived
on the scene, the ROTC was not doing a very good job of culling unsuitable
officer candidates from its ranks. By the time Arnold assumed command, this
was no longer a problem. Consequently, Arnold and his personnel chief, Colo-
nel Joe Cretella, shifted the command’s focus to another area—that of cadet
accessioning of which evaluation was an important part.

In the world of precommissioning military training, accessioning referred
to the process by which cadets were brought into the Army. It involved, among
other things, evaluating officer potential, assessing military and academic
records, assigning branches, determining the type of duty (active or reserve)
to be assigned and the type of commission (regular or reserve) to be awarded,
and scheduling attendance at an Officer Basic Course. At the Military Acad-
emy, the process was simple. Branches were assigned on the basis of class
rank, Everyone, until recently at least, went on active duty and reported to a
branch basic course approximately two months after commissioning. Offi-
cials at the academy oversaw the entire operation.

Accessioning in the ROTC was a much more complex enterprise. All
cadets obviously did not graduate in June, as at the Military Academy, and did
not receive their commission at the same time. This greatly complicated Of-
ficer Basic Course scheduling. Prior to 1991, it was not uncommon for cadets
to wait an entire year between commissioning and reporting to their basic
course. The scheduling problem was particularly acute in the case of
commissionees assigned to the Aviation Branch where the difficulties caused
by a multiplicity of commissioning dates were compounded by a shortage of
aircraft at the Aviation School. The shortage severely limited class size. In
addition to representing a loss to the Army, the hiatus between commissioning
and attendance at a branch basic course created difficulties for the newly com-
missioned lieutenant who often had a hard time finding meaningful employ-
ment during this period. For individuals going into the reserves, it often meant
that they had to place the pursuit of their long-term career goals on hold for
months. Establishing an order of merit list (or almost anything else for that

158



CADET TRAINING

by Major General Prillaman and Major General French, who by this time was
the Soldier Support Center Commander, formally marked this decision. The
new program, named the TRADOC Orientation and Enrollment Program, in-
troduced a single curriculum for all ROTC cadre.

The ROTC School held courses throughout the year, with five to six it-
erations being offered in the summer and 16 iterations during the academic
year. The Orientation and Enrollment Course was taught in two phases. Phase
1 (30 to 40 classroom hours) covered ROTC product knowledge and the Lead-
ership Assessment Program while Phase II (40 classroom hours) taught sales
and communications techniques.

Not everyone, including many ROTC instructors who took the course,
was enamored of the new format. Some objected to its unstructured nature—
an objection that related to the fact that there was no unifying philosophy or
outlook to give coherence to the course. Discrete and unrelated blocks of
instruction followed one another in apparently random order.

It was Phase II—the portion dealing with sales and communication tech-
niques—that drew the most fire. Like the instruction given by the Sales-Man-
agement Corporation at the training center in Chicago and at the National
Guard Professional Education Center in Arkansas, Phase II represented an
attempt to apply the salesmanship and marketing techniques of the business
world to the military. Unfortunately, the techniques that proved useful selling
used cars were not as valuable in an organization whose primary mission was
the molding of professional Army officers. Moreover, Phase II instruction
did not address marketing and recruiting at the detachment level, the level at
which the students operated. It tended to be overly theoretical, focusing on
general marketing and recruiting principles rather than emphasizing practical
application.

The policy of requiring attendees to wear civilian clothes without name
tags was also the butt of much student criticism. Some officers objected be-
cause it made getting acquainted with other cadre members more difficult and
inhibited the informal exchange of information and sharing of experiences
among students—some of the most valuable aspects of the course. There was
an even more deep-seated and fundamental objection to this policy, however.
Cadre members understood that, at bottom, the wearing of civilian clothes
without name tags represented a symbolic loosening of the ties between the
ROTC on the one hand and the Army and the military ethos on the other. In
light of the disturbing comments that the DCSROTC was getting from the
field about the indifferent quality of and lack of career motivation in the ROTC

117



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Brigadier General Floyd J. Walters, Jr., with a colonel, J.C. Parrish, and
indicated that henceforth the Third Region would not get a general officer as
a commander. The message was clear. Major General Arnold had no choice
but to go along.

Before the decision to eliminate a region was made, a study was conducted
to assess the ability of the existing region headquarters to support summer

FOUR REGION COMMAND STRUCTURE (Before December 1992)

4th Region HQ
Fort Lewis, WA 3rd Region HQ

2nd Region H@
Fort Riley, KS ree

Fort Knox, KY,

\

1st Region HQ
Fort Bragg, NC

CADET COMMAND
Total Units

1st REGION SROTC ——___ 349 2nd REGION

Total Units JROTC 835 Total Units
sroTc ———_ 115 | | conus 21 | |SROTC 107
JROTC —_____ 160 JROTC —___ 298

3rd REGION 4th REGION

Total Units Total Units
SROTC ______ 88 SROTC ___ 68
JROTC —___ 348 JROTC ___ 144

Figure 8-3. Four Region Command Structure (Before December 1992)

242



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

“adequate procurement” and “adequate military training”—a dilemma they
resolved by opting for adequate procurement. One Undersecretary of the Army
summed the matter up quite succinctly:

Adequate procurement and adequate military training prior to
graduation are not both obtainable under current conditions. Since
we cannot train unless we first procure, procurement takes pre-
cedent where there is conflict. And, given the trends in Ameri-
can education, we cannot expect in the foreseeable future to meet
our ROTC requirements without deferring some of the military
training and motivational aspects of an ROTC officer’s educa-
tion to the post-commissioning period.”!

In the years that followed, the dilemma became more acute.

Despite the emphasis placed on recruiting and building an adequate produc-
tion base, ROTC enrollment plummeted by 75 percent (from 165,430 to 41,294)
between School Year 1967-1968 and School Year 1972-1973. The end of con-
scription certainly played a part in this. So too, according to Brigadier General
Milton E. Key, the Chief of CONARC’s ROTC Directorate in 1972, did the vir-
tual elimination of compulsory ROTC and the “apathetic enrollment policies...of
many PMS.” The legacy of Vietnam, it appears, weighed heavily on many cadre
members. They were reluctant be become too visible on campus.”

Steadfast

To boost sagging officer production (especially reserve officer produc-
tion because the reserve components had a particularly difficult time filling
their officer ranks after Vietnam) and to improve program management, Army
leaders introduced a new command structure for the ROTC in 1973. The new
arrangements came about as part of the post-Vietnam “Steadfast” reorganiza-
tion, which replaced CONARC and the U.S. Army Combat Developments Com-
mand with the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and
the U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM). The new structure, the De-
partment of the Army promised, would eliminate the “layering and span of
control deficiencies” that had plagued the old system.”

In the intra-Army discussion that preceded the Steadfast reorganization,
calls for the creation of a separate ROTC Command were heard and re-
jected. Once again, it seems that the personnel costs associated with such an

36



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Under Operation Striper, noncommissioned officers were not placed in
such difficult and embarrassing circumstances. They limited their teaching to
subjects about which they knew a great deal. Instead of coming across as
incompetents, they appeared as consummate professionals.”

To Wagner, forging a new image for the ROTC meant not only im-
parting to it a sense of history and tradition, it also entailed giving it an
Regular Army flavor. One way he attempted to do this was by extending
the Fourth Region’s system for ROTC unit designation and cadet battalion
organization through the entire command. He directed that all elements in
the Cadet Command chain-of-command (i.e., battalions, brigades, and re-
gions) adopt the prescribed unit designations and organization along with
operational names by the end of 1989. There was a precedent for this move.
General Maxwell Thurman had introduced a similar unit identification scheme
into the Recruiting Command when he headed that organization.

Despite this precedent, the redesignation of ROTC units stirred up all
sorts of opposition, especially in the Pentagon and at TRADOC. There were
two primary reasons for this opposition. First, many felt that the new desig-
nations were inaccurate and, in a sense, insulting to the Army. Battalion and
brigade were terms that should be reserved for “regular” military units and
should not be used in connection with the ROTC. Second, the commanders of
the new units were designated battalion and brigade commanders. In the Army
promotion system, service as a battalion and brigade commander is a virtual
prerequisite for advancement to high command. Critics of the name change
wanted to make it clear that a lieutenant colonel serving as a PMS was in no
way the professional equal of a “real” battalion commander. Strangely enough,
many of these same critics seemed to accept the proposition that recruiting
battalion commanders approximated their counterparts in tactical units, at least
in terms of hours worked and pressures associated with the job.”!

Of course, changing the ROTC vocabulary to reflect more martial im-
ages was just one small part of a larger campaign to infuse a Regular Army
spirit and intensity into the program. Yet, the importance of such semantical
adjustments should not be underestimated. Names and titles convey powerful
images and messages and often shape the ideas that individuals and groups of
individuals have about themselves and others. The adoption of battalion and
brigade as designations for ROTC units impressed upon members of the com-
mand and the Army as a whole that the ROTC was no longer the agency that
produced reserve officers to be called up in case of mobilization; it was now
responsible for turning out leaders for America’s first line of defense.

78



CONTENTS

Headquarters Cadet Command (1986) 81
State Locations of Brigade Commanders (1986) . 84
Cadet Command Goldminer Locations . 85

Training Advanced Camp (1987) ....
Cadet Command Recruiting Publicity Brochures, 1991
1991 Version of the Resume Ad.....
Basic Camp Attendance 1965-1992
ROTC Commissions:1986-1992
Mission & Production Over Time
1985-1986 Army ROTC Scholarship Programs
Scholarship Enrollment as Percentage of Contracted Cadets.... 201
Scholarship Offers - Past, Present & Future .
Scholarship Allocation Before Tiering
Scholarship Allocation Plan After Tiering
ROTC Units (Host + Extension Centers).
Enrollment Per Unit
Four Region Command Structure (Before December 1992)
Three Region Command Structure (After December 1992)
The Five Year Plan ...
Average Number of Officers Per Unit
A) Units, Cadets, Cadre in Balance,
B) Units, Cadets, Cadre Off Balance .
JROTC Expansion Status: School Year 1995-1996.
Junior ROTC Camps....

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1 Command Functions
Table 2 Cadet Command Advertising Budget, 1980-1995
Table 3 Cadet Command Officer Strength
Table 4 Proposed Closures FY 93...
Table 5 JROTC Program of Instruction, 1995-1996
Table 6 JROTC Summer Camp Program of Instruction .

Unless this publication states otherwise, masculine nouns and pronouns do not refer
exclusively to men.

xi



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

14.

18.

19.

314

(1) MAJ Mare Girard, History of Cadet Command Cannons, n.d., HRDC.
(2) Memorandum for Record, ATZG-M, Dennis P. Mroczkowski, Director, Casemate
Museum, n.d., subject: Availability of Cannons for Cadet Command. (3) Memorandum
for Record, AMSMC-MMD-IC, R. B. Worrick, Chief, Management Support Section, HQ,
U.S. Army Armament, Munitions and Chemical Command to Cdr, Cadet Command, 28
September 1988, subject: Loan Agreement. (4) Memorandum for Record, ATCC-RR,
LTC Noah Nason, Ill, Acting Director Resource Management, Cadet Commang, to Car,
Fort Monroe, Director of Logistics, 18 May 1989, subject: Assignment of Requisition
Priority 06—Howitzer Saluting 75-mm. (5) Memorandum for Record, AMSMC-MMD-IC,
Marvin G. Cotton, Accountable Property Officer, HQ, U.S. Army Armament, Munitions
and Chemical Command to Car, Cadet Command, 7 June 1989, subject: Termination of
Army Equipment Loans; 1st Endorsement, ATCC-RR, LTC Nason, Acting Director, Re
source Management, Cadet Command to Cdr, Fort Monroe, Director of Logistics, 15
June 1989. (6) Memorandum for Record, ATZG-LPB, CWO Robert Moore, Jr. Property
Book Officer, HQ Fort Monroe to Cdr, U.S. Army Armament, Munitions, and Chemical
Command, 13 June 1989, subject: Request for Ownership. (7) Richard P. Weinert, Jr.,
The Guns of Fort Monroe. (Fort Monroe, Va: Casemate Museum, 1990), pp. 41-42.

(1) Cadet Command Pam 145-7, 1988. (2) Author interview with Dr. Larry Brown, 3
October 1995. (3) Message, DUELER SENDS, ATCC-ZA, MG Wagner, to region cars,
24 May and 6 June 1988, subject: Cadet Creed. (4) Message, DUELER SENDS,
ATCC-ZA, MG Wagner, to region cdrs, 28 September 1988, subject: Battalion
Command Briefing and Visits.

(1) Dining-In Guide, Fort Bragg, N.C.: U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Center for Military
Assistance, n.d. (2) James A. Moss, Officers’ Manual. (Menasha, Wis.: George Banta
Publishing Company, 1929.) (3) Cadet Command Pam 145-7, 1988. (4) U.S. Army
Command and General Staff College (CGSC) Pam 28-1, Dining-In, 15 March 1985.

(1) Letter, ATCC-TT, COL R. J. Wooten, COS, Cadet Command to the Institute of
Heraldry (TIOH), 12 May 1986, subject: U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command Flags and
Guidons; 1st Endorsement, COL Luchino, Director, TIOH to Cdr, Cadet Command, 8
August 1986. (2) Memorandum, COL Alexander Woods, Jr., Chief, Marketing Division to
Chief, Training Division, 2 September 1986. (3) Letter, ATCC-TT, MG Wagner to
Director, TIOH, 20 October 1986, subject: Design and Colors for Cadet Command's Flags
and Guidons; 1st Endorsement, COL Luchino, Director, TIOH to Cdr, Cadet Command,
20 January 1987, and 2d Endorsement, COL Robert Cox, Chief, Training Division to
Director, TIOH, 6 February 1987. (4) Letter, ATCC-TT, COL Cox, Chief, Training
Division, to ROTC region cdrs, 5 December 1986, subject: Cadet Command Flags and
Guidons. (5) Memorandum, DAPC-PDH-Z, COL Luchino, Director, TIOH to DAPE-MPO,
LTC Stuart B. Travis, 17 February 1987, subject: Change in Official Colors and Flag
Designs for Cadet Command and SROTC Units. (6) Memorandum, DAOE-MPO, COL
Travis to DAPC-PDH-Z, COL Luchino, 30 April 1987, subject: Change in Official Colors.
(7) Memorandum, DAPC-PDH-A, COL Luchino, Director, TIOH to Cdr, Cadet Command,
11 June 1987, subject: Cadet Command and SROTC Flags. (8) Memorandum, ATCC-
TT, COL Cox, Director of Training, to ROTC region cdrs, 30 October 1989, subject:
Brigade Flags. (9) Memorandum, ATCC-TT, COL Kenneth A. Harris, Director of Training,
to Director, TIOH, 1 February 1990, subject: Cadet Command Brigade Flags; 1st
Endorsement, TAPC-PDH-R, COL Robert F. Baker, Director, TIOH to Cdr, Cadet
Command, 8 March 1990. (10) The Institute of Heraldry Drawing Numbers: (a) 5-1-42,
20 May 1987, Distinguishing Flag, U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command Region HQ;
(b) 5-1-682, 21 May 1987, Distinguishing Flag,U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command;
(c) 5-9-1, 18 August 1969, revised 26 May 1987, Base Drawing for Standards Senior
ROTC; (d) 5-1-540, 4 February 1977, revised 26 May 1987, Guidon for HQ, ROTC
Region; (e) 5-1-514, 29 May 1987, Guidon, Senior ROTC Non-Branch Oriented; (f) 8-9-
1B, 16 January 1990,Cadet Command Military College Flags; (g) 5-1-723, 8 March 1990,
U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command Brigade/Region.

(1) ROTC: Everybody’s Business, TAB F, “Operation Striper” (2) Cadet Command Pam
145-7, 1988. (3) Letter, SGM Foster, 2 May 1985.

David M. Young, “ROTC Required or Elective,” Military Review (February 1962), p. 25.



Preface

This volume is an examination of the role played by the U.S. Army
Cadet Command in the reform and reorientation of the Army Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps. It was undertaken to provide the Cadet Com-
mand Commander and other interested senior Army leaders with an as-
sessment of the command’s part in the revolution in precommissioning
military training that began in the mid-1980s. Extensive documentary
files and numerous oral history interviews support the study. Endnotes
document the sources used in this volume and an index facilitates the
location of specific topics.

Iam greatly indebted to Major General Robert Wagner, Major Gen-
eral Wallace Arnold, and Major General James Lyle for the invaluable
perspectives they provided on the establishment and subsequent devel-
opment of the command and Major General Daniel French for the in-
sights he gave into events preceding the founding of the command. My
thanks also to the many members of the Cadet Command Headquarters
staff, past and present, for their part, which was considerable, in prepar-
ing this study.

My thanks also goes to the Multi-Media Services Division (ATZG-
PMT-A) Fort Monroe, directed by Mr. Will Moffett and to Mr. Robert
Beaman without whose valuable publication design, technical support and
editorial assistance this publication would not have been possible.

Fort Monroe, Va. ARTHUR T. COUMBE
February 1996



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

At the micro (or unit) level, Lyle was intent on fashioning an ROTC
program comprised of relatively large, abundantly staffed, host battalions with
a production capacity of 15 second lieutenants per year. The name he at-
tached to this model was “Cadet Command 2000.” The individual unit in this
model was to be large enough to sustain truly vital training and leadership
development programs. The minimum enrollment level necessary to achieve
this purpose was, in Lyle’s estimation, around 200.

In addition to establishing a baseline size, the model specified the num-
ber and kinds of officers needed in a host battalion. A minimum of five offic-
ers would be assigned to every unit—enough to perform the full range of func-
tions—i.e., training, recruiting, administration, teaching, etc.,—associated with
the ROTC mission. A PMS in the grade of 0-5 (lieutenant colonel) would
head the program on campus. Command-wide, 15 percent of the PMSs would
be female, roughly equating to the female portion of total ROTC enrollment.
The PMS was to have a major (0-4) as his deputy or executive officer. This
officer was to be both branch-qualified (i.e., have been either a battalion S-3
or executive officer) and a graduate of the Command and General Staff Officer’s
Course. The remaining three officer instructors were to be captains. Two
would be from the active component and one from the reserves. Fully half
were to be combat arms officers with the remainder being evenly split be-
tween Combat Support and Combat Service Support. In short, the ROTC bat-
talion was to be a reflection of the Army, considered in its totality.*° The high
proportion of combat arms officers in the model reflected the Commanding
General’s view that the Army’s leaders will continue to come primarily from
among the ranks of “warrior-leaders” in the foreseeable future.”

By specifying that the ROTC battalion executive officer be branch-quali-
fied, Lyle was making a statement about the quality of officer he wanted in
the program. In the post-Cold War Army, only top performers were given the
opportunity to be S-3s or executive officers. Such assignments were virtual
prerequisites for promotion and higher command. Without them, one’s career
prospects were bleak. The Commanding General’s determination to get this
type of officer assigned to the college campus, which will undoubtedly prove to
be a formidable task, was an affirmation of his belief that few missions were more
important than the precommissioning training of the future officer corps.”

Underlying the Five Year Plan was the assumption, occasionally hinted
at in the past but never fully articulated by senior ROTC leaders, that in order
for the ROTC to be a stable, effective, and economically efficient instrument

255



RECRUITING CADETS

exceptional quality. Between 1980 and 1985, the number of scholarship
applications jumped up by 62 percent, a reflection both of the enhanced
popularity of the military among American youth and the increased number of
scholarship awards (which rose from 6,500 to 12,000 in 1980) authorized by
Congress. During this same period, the proportion of contracted cadets on
scholarship rose from one-third to over one-half. Army ROTC scholarships,
which covered tuition, books, supplies, and equipment and provided each
recipient with a $100 a month subsistence allowance during the academic year,
varied in value from school to school depending on tuition rates and the length
or term of the scholarship. All scholarship cadets incurred an eight-year
service obligation and most were required to spend between two to five
years on active duty.”

In the early 1980s, the Army divided ROTC scholarships into 16 sepa-
rate categories, each designed to attract a particular type of student. Scholar-
ships were also of different durations; there were four-, three-, and two-year
varieties. After 1982, the academic discipline mix ratio began to weigh more
heavily in the scholarship selection process. Engineering and physical sci-
ence majors were given preferential consideration because of the difficulties
the Army was experiencing getting such students into the program.

The Army was not convinced that it was getting its money’s worth from
the scholarship program. Neither, for that matter, was Cadet Command Head-
quarters. Colonel Joseph G. Cretella, chief of the command’s Personnel and
Administration Division, spearheaded the effort to make the program more
economical and more effective from a recruiting perspective.*

Cretella advanced along several axes. First, as might be anticipated, he
standardized things. One application form and one application process now
sufficed for all categories of scholarship. Second, he simplified things. From
1986 to 1989, he reduced the number of scholarship categories from 16 to 12.

He also addressed two other particularly thorny problems that had long
plagued the ROTC scholarship program. One was the Army’s failure to realize
its goal of awarding all authorized scholarships. Every year, many scholarship
winners, because of the receipt of other financial awards, acceptance at a service
academy, and a host of other reasons, decided to decline the ROTC offer. To
eliminate this slippage problem, Project TWA was launched. This project
provided a means of estimating the acceptance rate of ROTC scholarships in a
given year. After the acceptance rate was calculated, it was held up against
the number of available scholarships. Cadet Command would thus “over-
award” scholarships (just as TWA and other airlines overbooked airplane seats

144



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

domestic order that was emerging. There was a growing recognition that na-
tional power rested not upon military strength alone but upon a host of other
political, social and economic forces not the least of which was the quality of
education afforded to the nation’s youth.

The most recent JROTC expansion had its beginning on August 24, 1992,
when President George Bush announced during a speech at the Lincoln Tech-
nical Institute in Union, New Jersey, that:

Today I’m...doubling the size of our Junior ROTC
program...We’re going to expand it (from 1500) to 2900
schools...JROTC is) a great program that boosts high school
completion rates, reduces drug use, raises self-esteem, and gets
these kids firmly on the right track.”

The 2,900 high schools to which President Bush was referring included
those sponsored by the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy as well as the
Army. Due to subsequently imposed funding constraints, however, the ser-
vices could not quite reach the stated objective.

The Bush idea reflected an earlier proposal of the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell. In a memorandum to the Secretary of
Defense, dated 8 June 1992, General Powell had characterized JROTC as the
“best opportunity for the Department of Defense to make a positive impact on
the Nation’s youth.” General Powell urged particular emphasis should be
placed on establishing JROTC units in the nation’s inner cities—areas where
drugs, gangs and juvenile delinquency flourish.”

The Los Angeles riots of April 1992 provided the immediate stimulus for
the JROTC initiative. Powell visited the site of the disturbances and was
touched by what he saw. The Chairman, it seems, felt that the junior program’s
emphasis on responsible citizenship, leadership development and respect for
constituted authority would prepossess American youth to eschew such ex-
pressions of frustration in the future and encourage them to channel their en-
ergies along more productive avenues.

The U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command was the organization given the
mission of planning and carrying out the expansion. It was a mission that, in
a way, had been anticipated by the commander of Cadet Command. In his
command guidance for School Year 1990-1991, issued shortly after he as-
sumed command, Major General Arnold vowed that he would “get the JROTC

276



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

for coordinating ROTC affairs received substantial augmentation. However,
the basic organizational structure remained pretty much the same and things
continued to operate pretty much as before.

ROTC Under Assault

The undeclared war in Vietnam entangled the ROTC ina controversy of
an intensity unparalleled in the program’s history. Concerns about the draft as
well as about the cost and morality of the war turned many college students
and faculty members into virulent opponents of the American involvement in
Vietnam. As the only visible sign of the Army on campus, the ROTC became
the “lightning rod” for anti-war sentiment. Anti-ROTC demonstrations be-
came commonplace and, on some university campuses, acts of violence, van-
dalism, and arson were directed against ROTC instructors and facilities.

During this time of turmoil, many universities re-evaluated the desirabil-
ity and appropriateness of retaining ROTC. Some of this institutional intro-
spection can be attributed to the unpopularity of the Vietnam War, but some
reflected a genuine concern about the quality and substance of ROTC instruc-
tion. Nine universities, including some of the most prestigious, decided to
discontinue their connection with the program, while some others reduced or
eliminated academic credit for military science courses. The abolition of ROTC
units at elite institutions along the eastern seaboard was more than offset, quan-
titatively at least, by the creation of additional detachments at state institu-
tions in the South and West. The trend away from elite schools, however,
worried some Department of Defense officials. They feared that the average
quality of ROTC students would drop and that the social balance of the Army
officer corps would be upset. There were other officials and officers who were
glad to see the Army sever its relations with schools which, in their opinion,
had never been avid supporters of the military in any case.

Faced with such widespread and diverse opposition to ROTC, the
Defense Department buckled and agreed to reexamine the design and adminis-
tration of the program with the intent of making collegiate military training
more palatable to academic authorities and, at the same time, making the cur-
riculum more relevant to the needs of the student. Taking his cue from a rec-
ommendation submitted to him by the Association of State Universities and
Land-Grant Colleges, Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird set up a commit-
tee to review the ROTC curriculum and suggest ways to make the program fit
less obtrusively into the academic community. In June 1969, he appointed Dr.
George C. S. Benson, former President of the Claremont Colleges and long

33



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

obtaining a reserve commission; the thought of graduating never crossed their
minds. Neither did ECP officers as a group perform well at Officer Basic
Courses. Many had to wait several years after being commissioned to attend
a basic course—the average period between graduation and commissioning
for ECP cadets was 24 months. It was not surprising that many did not look
or act particularly military when they reported and had difficulty passing the
physical fitness test and meeting Army weight standards.

The Early Commissioning Program also adversely affected reserve unit
readiness. The pursuit of a bachelor’s degree was, according to Army policy,
to be the primary purpose of ECP officers. This meant that completion of a
resident Officers Basic Course had to be postponed in many cases because
basic course and academic schedules were impossible to reconcile. A six-
month basic course simply could not be squeezed into a three-month academic
summer break. Without completing a basic course, the ECP officer was
nondeployable."*

Major General Arnold’s recommendation to eliminate the Early
Commissionary Program rested on three basic considerations. First, the pro-
gram lowered product quality, a condition that, in the post-Cold War era, the
command no longer had to tolerate. Second, the program had, for the time
being, created a surplus of lieutenants in the Individual Ready Reserve. This
surplus could be drawn upon to fill shortages that did occur. Third, the
downsizing of the Army reduced officer production requirements.

It was this final consideration—reduced officer production requirements—
that perhaps carried the greatest weight. Richardson and Wagner had tried to
do away with the Early Commissioning Program but were prevented from
doing so by the determined resistance of the program’s supporters in Con-
gress. This resistance was led by congressional backers of the Military Junior
Colleges, who viewed the program’s abolition as the death knell of the insti-
tutions they were trying to protect. And, in fact, the Early Commissioning
Program was one of the most powerful incentives that these junior colleges
had in their recruiting arsenal. By 1991, however, the necessity for cutting
back on officer output had become apparent even to the most fervent champi-
ons of the junior colleges and the ECP. Bowing to the inevitable, they acqui-
esced in the ECP’s demise, at least for the most part. They did manage to
insert in the legislation that abolished the Early Commissioning Program a
proviso directing that the program would be kept alive in the six Military
Junior Colleges affiliated with the Army ROTC.'*°

152



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

TIERED TRAINING
1i[ [teT] [Iss] [am] [fet] xe [cs |
2L I I I |
3L_] T_T [|
4LL it ft ee |
s>L] TT) I [| |
6 T J{ ] Tf]
7 T [i T TT
8 [TT [i | JT jt
9 T | T tf [ 7
rol | I Tt [ if { TJ
Camp Training Phases
TB - Trail Blazer GT - Green Thunder
GS - Gun Smoke KT - Kit Carson
AM - Audie Murphy CS - Capstone Exercise

Figure 2-2. Tiered Training (See page 101)

There were, in Wagner’s estimation, simply too many flaws in the exist-
ing multi-camp system. Camps were too short to evaluate leadership poten-
tial and standards between camps varied greatly. Moreover, the multiplicity
of camps inhibited the development of a sense of corporateness among ROTC
cadets and among cadets from the three commissioning sources.

The implementation of the single camp concept would eliminate or alle-
viate many of the problems inherent in the old system. By pooling ROTC,
OCS, and Academy cadre, better cadre-to-cadet ratios could be achieved, which
in turn would enhance the quality of both training and evaluation. The Army
would also enjoy a much greater degree of quality control over the officer
selection process. All aspiring officers would be placed under the same mag-
nifying glass and evaluated under the same conditions.** In addition, the AOCC
would foster a corporate spirit within the officer corps. Brigadier General
Wagner summed up the benefits of the proposed camp as follows:

Upon commissioning all officers should be of a uniform high
quality, share the same training experience, and believe they
are joining a cohesive integrated Army. ROTC cadets would
meet West Point cadets and West Point cadets would

64



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

The shield, lamp, and sword generated no controversy but the helmet of
Pallas Athena and the Duty-Honor-Country inscription unleashed a firestorm.
The DCSPER, Lieutenant General Elton—himself a West Point graduate—
and the Superintendent of the Military Academy, Lieutenant General Willard
Scott, hotly protested the incorporation of these latter two elements into the
ROTC crest. In words that only partially veiled his deep-seated hostility to
the proposed ROTC insignia, Scott pointed out that:

The strong association of this motto and these colors with West
Point makes them most inappropriate for inclusion in/on the shoul-
der sleeve insignia of another commissioning source. I object...to
the use of the helmet of Pallas Athena...I strongly urge Depart-
ment of the Army disapproval of the proposed insignia.’

Elton, who was just as repulsed as the Superintendent by the ROTC request,
wholeheartedly agreed and ordered the Institute of Heraldry to come up with
some alternative design for the ROTC crest.'”

On 19 December 1985, the Institute presented the DCSROTC with two
choices. Design A substituted the motto “Leadership Excellence” for “Duty-
Honor-Country” (Wagner's original recommendation), while Design B sug-
gested “Knowledge Leadership” (a recommendation of the Institute). Both
alternatives replaced the helmet of Pallas Athena with a Greek helmet and
both retained black and gold as the colors. Prillaman chose Design A and
forwarded it up the chain-of-command to obtain the Department of the Army’s
approval. Initially, the Department demurred on the grounds that the ROTC
had not been officially activated as a command. Again, General Richardson
intervened on behalf of Cadet Command and persuaded the Army Chief of
Staff to authorize the modified patch for wear by ROTC cadre and cadets.
Formal approval was finally granted on 22 August 1986.'' See Figure 3-3.

Cadet Command was activated, or granted official recognition of its
new command status, on 15 April 1986. The second of May was set as the
date for the command’s activation ceremony, which was to be held at Fort
Monroe’s Continental Park. Like his campaign for a new shoulder patch,
Major General Wagner saw the activation ceremony as a means to stimu-
late esprit de corps within his command and to instill in cadets and cadre a
sense of the history and tradition of the ROTC.’? The Spring Review be-
came an annual event commemorating the anniversary of Cadet Command’s

73



ADET COMMAND
HISTORICAL
STUDY SERIES

U.S. ARMY
CADET COMMAND
THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

19961121 136

By
ARTHUR T. COUMBE
LEE S. HARFORD

OFFICE OF THE COMMAND HISTORIAN
U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND
FORT MONROE, VIRGINIA



CADET TRAINING

team members ample time to observe training and uncover things missed
at the program review. Camp operations could be staged for a short visit by
a general officer; they could not be staged for the extended visit of the team.

As the deputy team chief, Lieutenant Colonel Hataway played a princi-
pal role in codifying the summer training process. Using the Fourth Region
model and the experiences of the Evaluation Team, he produced an Advanced
Camp How-To-Fight Manual. The manual outlined in great detail how re-
gions should conduct summer training and specified the training order. Suc-
cessive editions of the manual helped institutionalize the command’s training
methodology and capped the efforts toward standardization—efforts which
were rewarded in the camps of 1988.'7

One of the most important byproducts of the standardized camp system
was a more rational and effective training sequence. The tiered training sys-
tem with its staggered reporting format was introduced at all Advanced Camps.
Consequently, all ROTC cadets now experienced sequential, progressive and
identical training. The staggered format resulted in a 20-day extension of
camp operations (although Advanced Camp for the individual cadet still lasted
for only six weeks). The added time largely explained why such a logical and
obvious step had not been taken before. ROTC cadre and program managers
had for decades complained about a summer camp program that taught pla-
toon operations before weapons employment but were prevented from doing
anything about it because of a lack of time and money.

The five-phase, six-week, summer training program started with the most
fundamental instruction and progressed through successively more complex
training. Each phase (called an operation) was given a distinctive title, i.e.,
Trailblazer (general military subjects), Gunsmoke (weapons training), Audie
Murphy (small unit tactics), Green Thunder (weapons demonstration), Kit
Carson (small unit patrolling), and Challenge (capstone exercise). During
Operation Trailblazer, the prospective lieutenant was expected to master the
basic skills of soldiering. Upon completing this phase, the cadet was sup-
posed to be able to analyze terrain and navigate using a map and compass, to
identify types of obstacles and the methods for their proper employment on
the battlefield, to respond properly to a chemical attack, to operate company-
level radio and wire communications equipment, and to complete a 25-meter
swim in battle dress uniform with boots. A leader’s reaction course was in-
corporated into this training phase to test cadet leadership abilities under stress-
ful situations.

Weapons training was conducted during the next segment designated

99



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

units. Many officers accepted the Voluntary Separation Incentive or the Se-
lective Separation Bonus, incentive measures intended to help the Army achieve
congressionally mandated manpower reductions, shortly after their posting to
Cadet Command. In most cases, these officers then left the Army from 90
days to six months after they submitted the appropriate paperwork. The prob-
lem with this, from the Cadet Command perspective, was that the officer as-
signment system did not replace these individuals in a timely fashion. Many
units had to operate with a diminished staff for extended periods.

The problem became particularly acute when the Professor of Military
Science—the senior officer on campus and head of the ROTC program—de-
cided or was forced to retire. Because the Personnel Command assigned many
“at risk” field grade officers (i.e., who face the distinct possibility of being
involuntarily retired) to Cadet Command, many campuses were assigned a
succession of PMSs who served for only a brief time and then left.

In 1992, for instance, the PMS was replaced in 97 out of 175 host institu-
tions. This represented a much higher than average turnover rate since many
PMSs were on four-year tours or had extended their normal three-year as-
signments. A significant portion of the 97 officers mentioned above were
victims of the Selective Early Retirement Board. Many ROTC programs fell
victim to successive involuntary separation boards. The Chancellor of
Vanderbilt University told of the ill effects such a succession of events had on
the ROTC program on his campus:

..the students (i.e., the ROTC cadets at Vanderbilt
University)....were not well served by the Army. They had three
Army ROTC Directors in three years. ... the Army did not do as
good a job as it might in providing stable leadership...given seri-
ous lack of continuity by Army personnel, I am not surprised by
your assessment that our students do not perform well at camp.

And the Vanderbilt case was not the most egregious one. Texas Christian Uni-
versity had five PMSs in four years and Texas A&M had six in five years.

The disproportionately large number of “at risk” officers assigned to
ROTC duty added to the problem of personnel turbulence. The command’s
selection rate for attendance at the Command and General Staff College was
11 percent while that of the Army as a whole was 21 percent. Its promotion
rate from major to lieutenant colonel was also significantly below the Army

173



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The school produced other reference guides to assist ROTC faculty. The
most useful of these was the Cadet Battalion Operation Guide. The guide
listed 2,063 significant events that take place on the typical ROTC-affiliated
campus and arranged them by military science level (i.e, MS I, MS II, MS TH,
and MS IV). In another section of the guide, events were organized by func-
tion (i.e., recruiting and retention, marketing, training, supply, administra-
tion, etc.) to help instructors track their particular areas of responsibility. The
guide provided the kind of compact guide to ROTC unit operations that ROTC
instructors had long desired.”

Some officers in the Cadet Command Headquarters, including the com-
mander and his training director, wanted to widen the scope of the school’s
responsibilities even further. The success attained by the school’s faculty in
the areas of cadre training and policy formulation suggested their use as a
kind of on-campus directed telescope in much the same manner as “Barky”
Norman’s Evaluation Team served as a directed telescope for Advanced Camp.
Accordingly, SOCC instructors were formed into mobile training teams and
dispatched to battalions to conduct so-called assistance visits. In reality, these
visits were done more with an eye toward selectively sampling the field to
determine whether or not battalions were following Cadet Command direc-
tives than with helping the unit in question although, of course, the latter pur-
pose was also served. In the end, the visits were discontinued because they
were too manpower intensive and diverted time and energy away from the
school’s primary mission.

The manner in which the School of Cadet Command was launched
and used tells much about the way Cadet Command operated during its
formative years and about Wagner’s personal command philosophy and
style. This manner can be summed up in one phrase—abrupt revolutionary
change. A naturally impatient man to begin with, Wagner abhorred
evolutionary change, which to him merely meant delay and procrastination.
In order for reforms or changes to overcome the historical and organizational
inertia they would inevitably encounter, he believed, they had to be
implemented quickly, thoroughly, and if need be, firmly. If he sensed that his
subordinates did not fully share his enthusiasm for a particular project or if
their zeal for it seemed to lag, he would, one way or another, get them into
line. Disrupting old patterns and changing traditional ways of thinking, in
Wagner’s estimation, simply could not always be accomplished with
patience, understanding, and diplomacy.

122



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Despite the implementation of the Early Commissioning Program, the
number of so-called completion students (i.e., those who had completed ROTC
but had not yet received a degree) continued to increase. This increase was
attributed to two principal reasons. First, more cadets were receiving credit
for the Basic Course. Prior enlisted service, attendance for one year at a ser-
vice academy, and the completion of three years of Junior ROTC all qualified
students to enter directly into the Advanced Course. Secondly, students were
taking longer to fulfill graduation requirements. Many “high-tech” disciplines
such as engineering had evolved into essentially five-year programs. In addi-
tion, the rising costs of university attendance were forcing growing numbers
of students to work at the same time as they were pursuing their degree, forc-
ing many to postpone their graduation dates. '°

The increasing number of completion students created headaches for the
Army. Since many of them could not find a unit vacancy, they were not com-
missioned, Many eventually dropped out of school or transferred to another
university and accountability was lost. According to the DCSROTC, approxi-
mately 1,000 cadets per year were being lost to the officer accessions system
in the late seventies and early eighties. This represented an annual loss of one
million dollars in subsistence payments."!

To rectify the situation, the DCSPER authorized the initiation of the
Commission of Completion Students Program in 1982. This program permitted
cadets to be commissioned in the reserves without joining a unit and gave the
Army some control over students who would otherwise have been lost to the
system. After commissioning, these officers were assigned to the U.S. Army
Reserve Control Group in St Louis, Missouri. Eventually, the term
Commission of Completion Students Program was dropped and all
completion students, whether they joined a reserve unit or not, were referred
to as ECP officers.

Throughout the 1980s, the Early Commissioning Program played a big
role in officer production. In some years, ECP officers constituted over 60
percent of all ROTC commissionees. See Figure 6-2. The program was a
major financial incentive for students with prior military service. They could
receive their commissions early and serve as officers in reserve units while
still attending college. The program became extremely important to the
National Guard and the Army Reserve. In 1984, the California Guard re-
ceived 95 percent (74 out of 78) of its ROTC lieutenants from the Early
Commissioning Program. The Army Reserve had a similar experience.
Reserve component commanders felt that a lieutenant without a degree was

150



Foreword

Much has been written about the remarkable regeneration of the
Army in the two decades after Vietnam. The “training revolution,” which
fundamentally changed the way the Army prepared for its war-fighting
mission, was an important part of that regeneration. It permitted the
Army to field a force of the type that performed so competently and
confidently in Operations Just Cause and Desert Storm. Strangely,
the precommissioning part of that training revolution went largely
unnoticed by the public and by senior Army leaders despite the fact
that the changes and improvements made in this arena were every bit
as revolutionary as those effected elsewhere in the Army. It is hoped
that the present volume will help correct this oversight as it relates to
the Army’s largest commissioning source-the Reserve Officers’
Training Corps (ROTC)-and complete the picture of the training

revolution the other aspects of which have received so much attention

and acclaim.

JAMES M. LYLE
Major General, United States Army
Commanding

FOREWORD



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

he felt, required new methods. With the tremendous personnel turnover
rate in the command, a more objective system of cadet evaluation, in his
opinion, had become a necessity. It was as much a question of fairness as
anything else.**

The new Advanced Camp evaluation scheme also stirred up a great deal
of controversy and opposition. Cadre members protested because it took power
away from the platoon tactical officer. By the end of the first summer of its
implementation—i.e., the camp of 1995—this source of discontent had been
greatly reduced. Most platoon tactical officers discovered to their surprise
that the new evaluation system had many advantages. The intensity of train-
ing and their authority over their platoon had not diminished as some had
expected.** One of the most vocal opponents of the new system, initially at
least, was Major General Wagner. Wagner had retired in the Fort Monroe area
and had accepted a position as special assistant to the President of Norfolk
State University. His proximity to Fort Monroe allowed him to keep abreast
of developments in the command.

Wagner objected to the new system because it did away with the forced
distribution evaluation scheme—a scheme that, as we have seen, he had insti-
tuted when he was Cadet Command Commander. The old system had gener-
ated an intensity and a sense of urgency in training that, Major General Wagner
felt, had helped raise ROTC summer training to a new level. It might have
not been the essence of Wagner’s system but it was undeniably an important
part of it. Wagner passionately entreated his old comrade Lyle to retain the
old system, but to no avail. Lyle was determined to alter it.

In addition to his pronounced philosophical predilection for absolute per-
formance standards, there were at least two other reasons why the Command-
ing General felt that a change was in order. First, he believed that the forced
distribution evaluation system had outlived its usefulness. In the command’s
early years, it had been an effective device for selecting cadets for active duty.
Less than 50 percent of ROTC graduates were given the opportunity for ac-
tive duty during that era, but in the post-Cold War world, virtually everyone
who wanted active duty got it. A winnowing mechanism was no longer neces-
sary. Second, he felt that the forced distribution scheme sent the wrong mes-
sage to the aspiring officer. It engendered competition, which was a destroyer
of unit cohesion. What was needed, he felt, was a cadet training experience
that taught cooperation, which was a builder of unit cohesion. Major General
Wagner gradually came around to his old friend’s point of view, but it took a
great deal of persuading to get him to that point.**

182



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

After 1984, the average graduation time lengthened still further. It stood
at 5.5 years in 1992, according to one source. A 1992 study conducted by the
National Collegiate Athletic Association indicated that only 53 percent of the
full-time freshmen at the 197 universities surveyed graduated within six years.
In some areas, the average was still higher. Officials representing the Califor-
nia State University system and the University of New Mexico reported that
it took 10 years or more for half of their students to complete bacca-
laureate programs. In the ROTC program, the prolongation of under-
graduate studies has been evidenced by the aging of its cadet corps. In 1985,
approximately 20 percent of the ROTC commissionees were over 24 years of
age. By 1994, this figure had risen to 35 percent.’° Rising college costs, a
reduced level of government support for higher education, fewer course offer-
ings and a number of other factors help explain this trend. °7 (See Chapter 6,
page 166).

Cadet Command responded to the changing demographics of its cadet
corps by attempting to raise the age of scholarship eligibility. From 1989 to
1993, repeated requests were submitted to increase the scholarship age limit
for nurses, a group which has proven especially reluctant to enrol] in the Army
ROTC. All of these requests, however, came up empty. Then, in December
1993, Major General Lyle received a letter from Senator Robert Bennett of
Utah, soliciting his opinion about the current legislation that prohibited
cadets commissioned after the age of 25 from getting ROTC scholarships.
At the same time, Senator Bennett informed the Commanding General that he
intended to introduce a proposal to raise the age limit for scholarship cadets
from 25 to 29. It seemed incongruous that a cadet could get a commission at
29 but not be eligible for financial assistance.

Bennett pointed out that the scholarship age restriction presented “a par-
ticular problem” in Utah where there were a large number of cadets who be-
longed to the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS). Many LDS members upon
or shortly after graduation from high school served on religious missions which
lasted up to two years. Their delayed entry into college often resulted in their
commissioning date being pushed past the age of 25 and thus made them
ineligible for Army ROTC scholarships. Lyle assured the Senator that he would
lend his full support to the initiative.

Nevertheless, the proposal got nowhere. In order for an issue affecting
all ROTC programs to go before Congress, it must have the backing of all of
the services. In this case, the Air Force would not give its support. (The reasons
for the Air Force’s opposition were not clear to observers in Cadet Command

202



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Operation Gunsmoke. This second phase of training focused on the correct
battlefield employment of hand grenades, fire support systems, the M-60
machine gun, anti-armor weapons, the M-16 rifle, and armor. The fire sup-
port portion of the training, in which cadets practiced the fundamentals of
indirect artillery fire planning, and the anti-armor portion, in which they as-
sembled, fired, and disarmed the LAW, Dragon, and TOW anti-tank weapons,
were, perhaps, the most challenging parts of this phase.

The RECONDO training exercise followed the completion of Gunsmoke.
This event included a 60-foot rappel, a one- and three-rope bridge crossing, a
30-foot rope drop into water, and a 200-foot “slide-for-life” into water. Ca-
dets who successfully completed this exercise (approximately 50 percent) re-
ceived the RECONDO Tab to wear on their uniforms. RECONDO training
tested a cadet’s composure under stress and gave the cadre a unique assess-
ment opportunity.

The 108 hours of tactical exercises included in Operations Audie Murphy
and Kit Carson provided an ideal forum for teaching and evaluating leader-
ship. Under conditions similar to those encountered in combat, the cadre could
gauge the leadership potential of each cadet as he served in leadership posi-
tions. The Squad Tactical Reaction and Assessment Course, included in Op-
eration Kit Carson, reinforced all previous tactical training.

Operation Green Thunder build on Audie Murphy and Kit Carson by ex-
posing the cadet to the complex operations and the firepower of a combined
arms (company) team. Through observation of a simulated mechanized battle
and separate live-fire demonstrations, cadets obtained a first-hand look at the
lethality and precision of weapons on the modern battlefield. They also gained
an appreciation of the different elements assigned to the combined arms team
and how these elements interacted when conducting an assault on an enemy
position. The assault normally included a parachute inserted reconnaissance
team, a landing zone reconnaissance team inserted by helicopter rappel, a pla-
toon helicopter air assault, a sling load insertion of tactical vehicles, and a
tank heavy company team attack supported by helicopter gunships. Green
Thunder had the additional aim of encouraging cadets to pursue one of the
combat arms as their branch of commission.

Operation Challenge was the capstone exercise of Advanced Camp. The
designation of this segment was preceded by the region nickname to add a
sense of local color to the event (First Region — “All American Challenge;”
Third Region—” Warrior Challenge”; and Fourth Region - “Adventure Chal-
lenge”). The operation itself consisted of a platoon field training exercise

100



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

Once again, many linked ROTC’s ills to its fragmented and decentral-
ized organizational structure. At the Department of the Army level, the Orga-
nization and Training Division and the Personnel and Administration Divi-
sion of the Army General Staff controlled those aspects of the program which
fell into their respective areas of responsibility. The Office of the Executive
for Reserve and ROTC Affairs (until 1954 when it was abolished) had various
advisory, supervisory and liaison functions. Most of the other General
and Special Staff agencies at the Department of the Army, including the
Administrative and Technical Services, had an “ROTC desk” which handled
matters relating to their particular field of concern. The size of this desk var-
ied from one person, performing ROTC-related duties on a part-time basis, to
several persons. No one staff division had responsibility for the overall con-
duct of the program.

The story was pretty much the same at the intermediate level. In army
headquarters, duties and responsibilities were likewise parceled out among a
number of staff sections. Although each army headquarters was organized
along the same lines, the number of people devoted to ROTC related duties in
each staff section varied widely among the armies. And again, there was no
one staff section charged with overseeing the ROTC.”

New Direction

The year 1948 marked a watershed in the history of collegiate military
education for in it, several developments took place that foreshadowed ROTC’s
transformation from an institution whose primary purpose was to turn out re-
serve officers to one charged with producing the majority of active duty and
career officers as well. The build-up of Cold War tensions moved Congress in
1948 to pass the Selective Service Act, which encouraged tens of thousands of
students to enroll in ROTC to enable them to fulfill their military obligation
by serving as officers. The year 1948 also witnessed Congressional approval
of the Distinguished Military Graduate Program, which awarded a limited num-
ber of Regular Army commissions each year to the most highly qualified ROTC
graduates. In that same year, a committee, headed by the Assistant Secretary
of the Army Gordon Gray, concluded a study which explored the future role of
the Army Reserve in the nation’s defense. In its findings, the Gray Committee
recommended that the ROTC be renamed the “Army Officer Training Corps”
and become the primary source of officers for the Army.**

These developments reflected the growing feeling that the ROTC was,

21



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Army Preference for “High-Tech” Disciplines

Although School Year 1982-1983 was the first time the Army imposed a
scholarship quota to get engineers and physicists into the ROTC, its predilec-
tion for this kind of individual was not new. The curriculum of the U.S. Mili-
tary Academy had a “hard skill” orientation since its inception. In more re-
cent times, the push to create a more technologically knowledgeable officer
corps took off after World War II. It gathered more momentum after the 1973
Arab-Israeli War, which many observers saw as ushering in a new age in war-
fare. A more technologically sophisticated form of warfare, the assumption
was, needed a more technologically sophisticated officer to wage it.

In 1978, the Review of Education and Training for Officers (RETO) Study
Group voiced its concern about this issue. The group deplored “the absence
of any control over the academic disciplines being pursued by (ROTC) schol-
arship students.” This lack of control, it complained, meant that many ROTC
graduates pursued fields of study that had “no reasonable direct application to
the military environment.” What was desperately needed, it concluded, was
“a better link” between precommissioning education and post-commissioning
requirements.“°

The Army’s preference for the engineer, physical scientist and mathema-
tician over the person of letters, however, went beyond utilitarian consider-
ations. It was in part a reflection of national attitudes. Americans have al-
ways prized technical know-how. They have not been content with merely
manipulating a piece of equipment, they have had to master it. In a similar
way, the Army expected an officer not only to be able to use a laser range
finder, but to understand the physical and optical principles that governed its
operation as well. The Army’s technological bias was also tied to social ori-
gin. Few members of the officer corps came from the leisured classes. Most
of their middle and lower middle class parents had to work to provide for their
families. “Education” to this group was not about expanding one’s intel-
lectual horizons or about exploring the source of one’s convictions but
about getting a well-paying job. Engineering, business and medicine were
disciplines that were highly valued because of their income potential.”

Reinforcing this predisposition for “high tech” disciplines was the belief
that quantitative and scientific studies were uniquely suited to promote clear,
straightforward, analytical thinking—the type of thinking that made for a suc-
cessful staff officer. As Lyons and Masland observed, the focus of introduc-
tory courses in these fields was not on developing skeptical, inquisitive minds

204



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

National Guard organizations of nine western states sent OCS candidates to
Lewis that first summer. The next year, the program was expanded to the
Advanced Camp at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Nine eastern states sent their
OCS candidates to that camp. By 1996, it was projected, all states would
participate in this program.% The bringing together of two commissioning
sources with such different traditions into an intimate training relationship was
certainly a milestone in the history of Army training.

Cadet Command’s assumption of TRADOC’s precommissioning mandate,
however, also caused some problems. When certain senior National Guard
officers heard about it, they were furious. They made it plain that they did not
want Cadet Command interfering with state-run commissioning programs.

Major General Wagner aggravated matters by taking the oversight mis-
sion seriously—too seriously according to some observers. During his last
two years in command, he had representatives from his headquarters make a
series of National Guard OCS site visits. The reports his agents brought back
to him were not always highly commendatory of the programs visited. He, in
turn, did not try to sugarcoat the assessments he gave to the TRADOC Com-
mand and staff. He did not win friends at the National Guard Bureau or else-
where in the Guard by proceeding in this manner. One state OCS Comman-
dant reportedly became so exasperated with Wagner that he refused to allow
the Cadet Command Commander or his minions to visit his facility.”

Headquarters Organization

The entire command and control architecture of the ROTC program
changed when Cadet Command became a major subordinate command of
TRADOC. A single national headquarters devoted exclusively to the
administration of the ROTC now directed the efforts of the four region head-
quarters. The change did not please everyone, of course. Staff officers as-
signed to the region headquarters chafed at the sudden erosion of their opera-
tional autonomy that the new organization brought with it.

With the 38 additional positions approved by General Richardson, Cadet
Command Headquarters was 40 percent larger than the staff agency it had re-
placed. The headquarters itself was organized according to function; it con-
sisted of a command group, a coordinating staff of five divisions (later to be-
come six directorates) and six special staff offices. The four ROTC region
headquarters were similarly structured and nearly as large; they had 115 au-
thorized positions as opposed to 132 such slots in the national headquarters.”*

80



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

a problem and left it at that (his view was not shared by all Defense Depart-
ment representatives who testified, however)."! Many Defense Department
and Army officials like Mr. Ailes recognized that, in respect to the ROTC
scholarship program, selling quality to Congress was easier than selling
quantity.

The scholarship provisions of the Vitalization Act did not reflect the spe-
cific desires of the Department of Defense, the Army, the Air Force, or the
majority of land-grant and state universities. The Department of Defense, in
fact, championed a scholarship scheme that differed markedly from the one
finally approved by Congress. The Defense Department, with the support of
both the Army and Air Force, pushed for a two-year scholarship with an $800
tuition cap. Mr. Normal S. Paul, the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Man-
power), told the House Armed Services Committee that the $800 figure re-
flected the average “across the country” tuition cost. The Department’s ob-
jective in imposing an $800 tuition cap, Mr. Paul explained to the committee,
was “to make the program available to the most people at the lowest cost.” It
was also for this reason that the Defense Department proposed, in addition to
the $800 tuition limitation, that retired personnel and reserve officers be used
in the ROTC program."

O. C. Aderhold, the President of the University of Georgia and spokes-
man for the Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, op-
posed both the Holloway Plan and the tuition cap option, although he ob-
jected more strongly to the former than the latter. As an alternative, he sug-
gested a scholarship program modeled after the Korean GI Bill, which pro-
vided each student-veteran with a “flat sum per month covering retainer pay,
tuition, fees, supplies, books, and equipment.”

The flat sum scholarship, Aderhold argued, had two principal advantages.
One was that it would greatly reduce the “undue administrative detail” that
would necessarily be a part of the other scholarship schemes, thereby stream-
lining administration and cutting costs. An even more important advantage,
from his perspective, was that it would eliminate the “inequality among uni-
versities with respect to reimbursement for educational services.” The tuition
charges of colleges and universities, he told the Senate Armed Services Com-
mittee, “ are set in accordance with a variety of institutional considerations
not necessarily related to the cost of educating undergraduate students in a
particular curriculum or program.” His obvious point was that high-cost edu-
cation did not necessarily equate to high-quality education. ®

Aderhold’s proposal was met with the objection that a flat sum scholarship

190



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

Cadet Park and Salute Battery, Fourth ROTC Region, Fort Lewis, Washington

The 1988 Spring Review witnessed the firing of the first Cadet Cannon-
ade. The three-volley cannonade, which symbolically saluted the concepts of
Duty-Honor-Country, thereafter became an integral part of the Cadet Com-
mand ceremonial repertoire. Wagner formed his own salute battery, the Golden
Cannoneers, for the 1989 Spring Review, and equipped them with three 75-
mm pack howitzers which he named Duty, Honor, and Country. Howitzers of
this type had been used by glider, airborne, and mountain field artillery units
during key campaigns in World War II, and Wagner wanted to borrow their
tradition for the command. Earlier, in September 1986, two Model 1857, 12-
pound gun-howitzers, popularly called Napoleons, were installed at the en-
trance to the Cadet Command Headquarters for the same purpose. Wagner
directed all of his subordinate units to establish cadet parks, form salute bat-
teries, and manufacture an “instant tradition” of their own.'*

In addition to witnessing the firing of the first Cadet Cannonade, the
1988 Spring Review saw the introduction of the Cadet Creed. Dr. Larry Brown
of the Training Directorate was the principal author of this creed, which ex-
plained what the Army expected of its cadets. It was subsequently read to all

75



INTRODUCTION

and knowledge also aroused comment. These reports, along with the
substandard performance of ROTC graduates at branch basic courses,
suggested to some that the Army had erred in making the ROTC the pri-
mary source of Army officers.

A number or chronic problems plagued the program in the four de-
cades after World War II that greatly detracted from its value as an insti-
tution of precommissioning education and training. A major problem
was a lack of standardization—a deficiency that was evident in every
functional area from administration to training. As Professors Gene M.
Lyons and John W. Masland noted in the preface of their seminal work
on the ROTC program, Education and Military Leadership: A Study of
the R.O.T.C.:

ROTC is a familiar brand name. It is not, however, one of those
brand names which guarantee uniform ingredients in all pack-
ages bearing the brand...it varies from campus to campus.”

Although written in 1959, this remark was as true in the early 1980s as it
was at the time it was written.

This lack of standardization had many negative consequences. Train-
ing especially suffered. While some ROTC units instituted rigorous mili-
tary training regimens and produced well-oriented lieutenants fully ready
to benefit from instruction at branch basic courses, other units had no
training program worthy of the name. The same unevenness of training
prevailed at ROTC summer camps. Here, too, the quality and content of
training varied widely. This condition largely explains why as recently
as the early 1980s, a battalion commander who welcomed a newly com-
missioned ROTC graduate into the unit could not be certain of just what
he was getting.

Advertising and marketing were other areas hurt by the lack of
standardization. The ROTC advertising effort was uncoordinated and,
in many respects, haphazard. Each level in the ROTC hierarchy followed
its own agenda; there was no central message or theme to give coherence
or a distinct image to the program.

Nonstandardization also afflicted the methodologies used for
selecting cadets for commissioning. Governing command structures



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

beginning of School Year 1974-1975.7° An early selection cycle for four-year
scholarship applicants was introduced in School Year 1975-1976."

Not all scholarship initiatives undertaken in the 1970s were federally
sponsored. A few were state-funded. One school, Ohio University, was saved
from disestablishment in 1976 because it agreed to take advantage of Ohio
Army National Guard scholarship awards to bolster its ROTC enrollment.”*

The trend of scholarship diversification continued in the 1980s. Public
Law 96-357, signed by President Jimmy Carter in September 1980, expanded
the program to include the “Total Force”—i.e., the National Guard and the
Army Reserve as well as the Active Army—by providing for Reserve Forces
Duty scholarships. The same piece of legislation set aside scholarships ex-
clusively for Military Junior Colleges (MJC), extended the age of scholar-
ship eligibility for prior service cadets, and removed the prohibition on
awarding scholarships to two-year “lateral entry” cadets. By School Year
1985-1986, the four basic types of Army ROTC scholarships that had been
available in the late 1960s had blossomed into 16 different varieties.” See
Figure 7-1.

1985 - 1986 ARMY ROTC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS

on

)

3-Yr
Programs
31% 15% Allocation | 15% Allocation 2-Yr
Program Programs
39%

/4% National
‘Non-Enrolled,

3% Quali
Enrichment
3% Active Duty
i
3% Minority ‘Active Duty 2%
‘neoutivg Regular Cycle 18% ‘Military College 1%

Incentive

\ 4-Yr
Programs
30%

Figure 7-1. 1985 - 1986 Army ROTC Scholarship Programs

Military Junior College 1%

196



CHAPTER IL

THE CONCEPT OF
A CADET COMMAND

..1 consider ROTC to be first and foremost a crucible for
leadership development. | see a direct link between what the
officer is to learn before commissioning and the follow-on
training provided in the TRADOC school system, and our goals
for future officer professional development...

By 1980, the ROTC was facing a crisis. Despite the many incentives
introduced in the 1970s to stimulate student interest in ROTC, production
problems persisted. Although it had recorded substantial gains in the last sev-
eral years, the Office of the DCSROTC had no chance of meeting the ambi-
tious production goals set by the Army Staff. The legacy of Vietnam and the
elimination of conscription still weighed on the program. A declining na-
tional birth rate and a downward trend in college enrollment threatened to
complicate the task of ROTC program managers even further.

Yet by the turn of the decade, forces were in motion that promised some
relief. The defense build-up that occurred during this era, started under the
Carter but accelerated under the Reagan Administration, had spawned both an
expansion and a major restructuring of the Army. Two initiatives in particu-
lar—the Division 86 “heavy division” project and the force modernization of
the reserve components—had important implications for the ROTC, princi-
pally because they heralded the need for a greater annual influx of lieutenants
into the Army.'

But at TRADOC headquarters, attention in the early 1980s was focused
on the near-term prospects of the ROTC program, which did not appear very
good. Even with the Expand the Base initiative and the other measures
adopted to raise production, few believed that “ten-five by eighty-five”

45



53.

54.
55.

56.

57.
58.

59.

63.

64.

65.
66.

67.

ENDNOTES

Fairlamb, Chief, Education Division, n.d.

(1) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1979-30 September 1980, pp. 251-52.
(2) DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 October 1979-31 March 1980,
p. 16 and pp. 29-30, HRDC. (3) DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report,
1 April 1980-30 September 1980, p. 13, HRDC.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994.

(1) Memorandum of Understanding between the Army ROTC Command and the Army
Soldier Support Center (SSC), 1 March 1984, subject; Establishment of a ROTC School
at Ft. Benjamin Harrison, In. (2) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1981-
30 September 1982, p. 338. (3) DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Reports, 1
October 1981-31 March 1982, pp. 5-6 and 1 April-30 September 1982, pp. 14-15, HRDC.
(4) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1983-31 December 1986, pp. 64-65.
Memorandum, ATZI-IG, LTC George Kovac, Jr., Inspector General, SSC to MG Daniel
W. French, Cdr, SSC, 12 September 1984, subject: ROTC Course.

Ibid.

(1) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1983-1986, pp. 64-65. (2) School of Cadet
Command History Report, 1984-1989, pp. 1-2, HRDC.

(1) Memorandum, ATSG-DTI, Mr. Gotshall, Chief, Individual Training Division,
SSC to Director of TRADOC SSC, 23 January 1985, subject: ROTC Front-End Analysis.
(2) Memorandum, ATRO-ZA, MG Prillaman, DCSROTC to Cdr, TRADOC, 9 December
1985, subject: ROTC Cadre Training Course, with enclosure “Concept Plan: Re-design
of ROTC Cadre Training Course,” (3) Letter, ATTG-T, Cdr, TRADOC to Car, SSC, 9
December 1986, subject: Program of Instruction (POI) for 7C-F31/500-F20, School of
the Cadet Command, HRDC.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 11 October 1995.

Ibid.

(1) Letter, ATCC-OS, Cdr, USAROTCCC to Cdr, TRADOC, 24 February 1987, subject:
Concept Plan to Establish the Schoo! of Cadet Command at Fort Monroe. (2) Author
interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 11 October 1995. (3) School of Cadet Command
History Report, 1984-1989, p. 2, HRDC.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-OS, MAJ Marc Girard, Operations Officer, SOCC, to
Commandant, SOCC, 23 January 1987, subject: Opening Ceremony for the School of
Cadet Command After-Action Report. (2) Virginia Biggins, “Instructors Get Own School,”
The Times-Herald, 20 January 1987, p. B2.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-SC, LTC Hodson, Commandant, SOCC to DCSRM, TRADOC,
14 March 1988, subject: Review of School of Cadet Command POI. (2) Memorandum,
ATCC-SC, LTC Hodson, to Region Cdrs, 7 September 1988, subject: Semiannual Letter
of Instruction. (3) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 11 October 1995.

Ibid.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-ZA, MG Wagner to all PMSs, 5 July 1988, subject: Battalion
Operations Guide (Gold Time). (2) Memorandum, ATCC-ZA, MG Wagner to all Brigade
Cars, 25 May 1989, subject: The Brigade Commander's Operating Guide (BCOG), HRDC.
(3) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 11October 1995.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 11 October 1995.

Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995.

CHAPTER V

(1) U.S. Army Audit Agency, “Report of Audit: Senior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
Program,” #EC-201, 16 April 1986, p. 2. (2) A Review of Education and Training for
Officers (RETO), 1:54.

ROTC Study Group Report, |:1-5

“Report of Audit: Senior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Program,” p. 29.

Ibid., pp. 29-30.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 12 October 1995.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-MA, COL Robert R. Thompson, Marketing Director, 15

319



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

obligation. But to accommodate those cadets in the queue who did want a
commission, ROTC production had to be reduced more gradually than actual
Army requirements dictated. That is one reason why when in 1992 the
command fell 500 short of its assigned production mission, no one in the
Pentagon was too concerned.

By the time Major General Lyle arrived at Fort Monroe, conditions had
changed. The queue had disappeared. Cadet Command over the previous
several years had reduced enrollment levels and curtailed recruiting efforts,
especially at the battalion level, to correspond to decreased production re-
quirements. The Army also had a better, if not exactly clear, view what its
eventual end state would likely be in the post-Cold War era. Lyle’s initial
estimate of the situation was that if the command wanted to meet the 4,500
production mission that the Department of the Army had set for it, it had bet-
ter get its recruiting and marketing apparatus back in high gear immediately.
Arnold had become concerned about the production mission during his last
months as commander but, due to the short amount of time left to him, could
do little about it.

The new commander’s sense of urgency was further heightened by his
worries about the future state of the Individual Ready Reserve, a pool of re-
serve soldiers managed and administered by the Army Reserve Personnel Cen-
ter in Saint Louis, Missouri. The Army relied upon this manpower pool for
individual replacements and augmentees in emergencies. By the summer of
1993, it was becoming apparent to some observers, Major General Lyle promi-
nent among then, that the Individual Ready Reserve was not an inexhausible
resource. The glut of junior officers that had accumulated in this pool in the
late eighties and early nineties coincident with the post-Cold War demobiliza-
tion would begin to dry up after mid-decade as the eight-year military obliga-
tion of these individuals began to expire. If the Army did not act soon and
make provision for restocking this pool, the feeling was, it could find itself in
a critical situation in a few years.TM

Major General Lyle attacked the problem on three fronts. First, he pointed
out to all senior Army leaders who would listen that Cadet Command had a
recruiting and production problem. With the Army shrinking in size and the
Individal Ready Reserve brimming with officers, many found this difficult to
believe. The new commander explained that, in order for Cadet Command to
accomplish its mission, he had to project two to six years into the future. He
had arrived at Fort Monroe in June 1993; anything he might do to increase
output would not begin to register until the summer of 1995 and the full effects

162



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

product of the JROTC program at Rogers High School in Newport, Rhode
Island, and had a particular interest in seeing the command represented in this
region. When a JROTC unit was established at White Mountains High School
in Whitefield, New Hampshire in September 1995, the command attained its
distribution objective of being represented in every state."

The JROTC expansion did run into some problems. Some of these prob-
lems were created by members of the military community. Within the Depart-
ment of Defense, there were, and had been for many years, detractors of the
JROTC who resented funds being siphoned off from more traditional military
missions to support JROTC units. They considered JROTC to be a non-mili-
tary endeavor whose management needed to be the responsibility of an agency
other than the Defense Department. A 1990 Department of Defense proposal
to abolish JROTC reflected, in part, the sentiments of these critics. With Gen-
eral Powell being one of the prime sponsors of the JROTC program, however,
these detractors had to be somewhat discreet and indirect in their opposition
to the expansion initiative.”

JROTC Expansion Status: School Year 1995-1996

Si
ALASKA

5/0
HAWAlL
5/0
AM SAMOA 2
5 CANAL ZONE
Guam 15
3 GERMANY
NORTH MARIANAS 1 RGN-5t
2RGN-31 KOREA
4 RGN -58
# SCHOOLS 1362 JAPAN
AS OF 14 NOV 95 3
VIRGIN ISLANDS}
5/0
PUERTO RICO

Figure 9-1. JROTC Expansion Status: School Year 1995 - 1996

279



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

appropriate role model on campus. Low lieutenant colonel to colonel promotion
rates for PMSs bore this out. Second, relatively few of the faculty members or
officials who sat on the university-appointed selection committee had a military
background or were familiar with officer career paths. In many instances, this
left a candidate’s undergraduate and graduate transcripts as the only records
that the committee could understand and evaluate.

Cadet Command moved to address the problem by establishing a for-
mal PMS Selection Board. It was to meet biannually and review the files
of all officers put forward by their branches to fill these positions. Their
performance as Army officers was the primary basis on which nominees
were evaluated. Cadet Command could, and regularly did, reject those
officers who, although they may have possessed solid academic creden-
tials, had not proven by their service in the Army that they would be suit-
able role models for cadets.*°

An effort was also made to raise the quality of the subordinate officers in
each battalion—the Assistant PMS. In this area, too, the ROTC had experi-
ence difficulties in the past. All too frequently, officers arrived on campus
with one of two aims. Either they reported with the intention of cutting short
their ROTC tour and returning post-haste to the “real” Army where the jobs
were more exciting and the promotion opportunities were better, or they came
determined to complete a graduate degree. In either case, their focus was not
on the task at hand.

The Cadet Command Commander tried to change this by initiating an
intense lobbying effort with the Office of the DCSPER and by flatly rejecting
substandard performers and inexperienced officers who were nominated for
ROTC duty by that office. The ROTC needed, he believed, seasoned officers
who had already commanded a company and whose chances for advancement
were good. Anything else was unacceptable.*°

The results achieved by these efforts were dramatic. Within two years of
the command’s establishment, the promotion rate for captains in Cadet Com-
mand actually came to exceed the Army average. The promotion rate of field
grade officers shot up sharply as well, albeit not as sharply. The key to the
success attained by the command rested with its ability to control who was
selected for an ROTC assignment.*”

87



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

technology, life skills and other subjects designed to prepare young men and
women to take their place in adult society, replaced instruction in military
skills as the core of the program.

Because of the expansion, which began in 1992, and which extended the
JROTC to every state in the nation, the new JROTC curriculum is having a
direct impact on over 200,000 high school students, more than the program
has ever reached. And the program is not standing still. Even as this book
goes to press, new initiatives are underway that promise to keep the JROTC
curriculum relevant to the needs of today’s student, and ensure that the
program continues to produce outstanding citizens for the nation in the
twenty-first century.

287



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

events were also to be parts of this phase. The final ROTC-student contact
(Chance 5) was to be made throughout the drop/add period. On-campus tele-
phone and direct mail efforts were to be the highlights of Chance 5.

All PMSs, it was realized, could not carry out the plan exactly as out-
lined above. Each PMS was expected, however, to follow the basic thrust of
the plan and ensure that the overwhelming majority of incoming students were
made cognizant of the opportunities and incentives available through ROTC.
The Commanding General directed that cross-enrolled schools and extension
centers were to be incorporated into the “Five Chances to Say Yes” campaign.”

Lyle also challenged the cadre to do everything in their power to raise
retention and progression rates so that the command would no longer have to
depend so heavily on Basic Camp and other lateral entry programs—programs
that by their very nature are unstable from an enrollment projection point of
view. PMSs, according to Lyle, should raise both the MS I to MS II and MS IIT
to MS III retention rates, which stood at 40 percent and 36 percent respec-
tively, to 50 percent and boost the Advanced Camp to commissioning rate
from 80 percent to 90 percent.”

Cadre were also told to increase enrollment through the Simultaneous
Membership Program. Every ROTC host battalion and extension center, the
Commanding General asserted, should know how many company size reserve
units were in their market area. He set two to four cadets per company-sized
unit as the goal toward which cadre should aim.”

College and university incentive packages for ROTC cadets were yet
another facet of Lyle’s recruiting concept. All PMSs, he stated, must enlist
the aid of their local school administrations to help with ROTC recruiting and
retention efforts. This was especially important, he continued, for colleges
and universities that were on the Effective Management Program and for His-
torically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). This aid could take one of
several forms—room and board for scholarship students, tuition assistance,
endorsements of the ROTC program in official school publications, etc. The
important thing was to get the institution to enter into an active and support-
ive partnership with the ROTC. The underlying assumption in all of this was
that if a particular college or university did not want to support the program, it
might be better for all parties involved if Cadet Command concentrated its
efforts and resources at institutions that did actively support Army ROTC.

Finally, Major General Lyle stressed marketing and recruiting at the high
school level. ROTC cadre members, he maintained, were an integral part of this
effort. They must, therefore, adopt suitable themes and convey appropriate

176



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

instruction, simply have to be accomplished. However, because the forced
inattention to recruiting soon results in a smaller enrollment, training eventually
deteriorates as well. The PMS finds himself with too small a battalion and
too few cadre to provide cadets with a meaningful leadership experience or
with adequate training in all required areas. The emphasis of the battalion’s
training program then tends to shift from leader development to the acquisition
of individual military skills.” The scenario outlined above frequently did occur
in the 1970s to the great detriment of the Army and its officer corps.

The danger that abrupt personnel decrements pose to Cadet Command
was underscored in the spring of 1994, not long after the Five-Year Plan had
received the official blessing of the TRADOC Commander. Analysts on the
TRADOC staff, pressured to realize substantial and immediate manpower and
budgetary savings, advised the TRADOC Commander to “front load” the per-
sonnel reductions outlined in the Five Year Plan (i.e., cutting people before
cutting units). This front loading would have made impossible the orderly
drawdown of the ROTC and disrupted the entire collegiate military training
and education system. Fortunately for the command, this expedient was re-
jected, thanks in no small part to the existence of a Cadet Command downsizing
scheme that clearly delineated both an end state and an orderly method for
arriving at the end state.”!

THE FIVE-YEAR PLAN

15 | SY 94-95

pp imp [sie] 25 | 16] 15 [sv 95-26 |
RN
67

Pe al 270 | 20 |__| 13 [sv97-8]

Decision Points (DP)
based on:

© Markets

© Cadre

© Diversity

© Funding

300] 20 | [13 [sv96-97]

er.
9 250] 20 | | 127] sy98-99]

Figure 8-5. The Five Year Plan

246



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

or from friends of the targeted institutions.

The reluctance of government officials to close certain unproductive pro-
grams should not be viewed solely as a response to the pressures mentioned
above. Their reluctance also reflects a concern with the maintenance of what
many consider to be a healthy balance in university-military relations. If re-
ductions in the ROTC institutional base cut too deeply or proceed took quickly,
it is feared, the Army profile or “footprint” on America’s college campuses
would be diminished. This could result in the Army being increasingly sepa-
rated from the society it is supposed to serve.*®

Even within Cadet Command, sentiment for closings has not been uni-
versal. A sense of ownership sometimes has impelled subordinate regions
to retain substandard units. Also at work has been the natural, if illogical,
human inclination to associate the elimination or reduction of anything with
failure. If we had 100 units in the past and have only 70 today, we must be
going downhill, or so, at least, many seem to believe. In addition, the narrow,
tactical focus of many staff officers and analysts at both the regional and na-
tional levels sometimes obstructed their strategic vision. Their concern has
been with the viability of individual schools, not with the viability of the pro-
gram as a whole.*®

The Commanding General has on several occasions noted the irony of
his position. Most other commanders in the post-Cold War era have tried to
hold on to as much of their organization’s structural base as they could, and
have been told by their civilian and military superiors that they must cut fur-
ther. Major General Lyle has tried to pare down the ROTC structural base
and has been told by his civilian and military superiors that he must retain
uneconomical units.

Cadet Command’s Contribution

Through the measures it has taken to address the unproductive unit
problem, Cadet Command has turned the Army ROTC into a more efficient
and effective producer of officers. It has eliminated more substandard units in
the space of four years than the Army had done in the previous 70. Some have
argued that this achievement was due principally to historical circumstances.
Post-Cold War political and economic forces, they contend, have created a
broad consensus among decision makers for cutting units; Cadet Command
has merely ridden the wave generated by these forces. What they fail to
consider is that there was a similar consensus at the end of the Korean and

253



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

Major General Arnold (left) and Major General Lyle (right) at the
Change of Command Ceremony in June 1993

had assigned them without being certain of exactly how many officers it would
need in the future. This was to be expected because, as we have seen, Army
end strength projections were being constantly adjusted downward. The ten-
dency on the Army Staff was to err on the side of caution and set the goal on
the high side of what was felt to be necessary.

The existence of a commissioning queue in the early nineties was another
factor that worked to lessen Army concerns about officer output. This queue
was the natural result of the ROTC being an essentially four-year program.
At the beginning of School Year 1990-1991, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors
were lined up, waiting for graduation and commissioning, which for most of
them lay years in the future. These cadets could not be summarily dismissed
from the program unless the Army was willing to break its commitment to
them, which, for a variety of ethical, financial and public relations reasons, it
was not. In any event, it is doubtful that the Congress would have sanctioned
such a move. As it was, the Command had to resort to a voluntary release
program in 1991 to avoid overproduction. More than 1,000 Advanced Course
cadets took advantage of this option and walked away from their military

161



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

cadre from unproductive locations and assigning them to areas with growth
potential. What had been viewed as merely a desirable end was increas-
ingly coming to be looked upon as almost an operational necessity.

Post-Cold War Demobilization

No sooner had the Effective Management Program been implemented
than it, along with many other parts of the newly created Cadet Command
administrative control apparatus, was put to the test. The test came as a result
of the relaxation of international tensions and the consequent acceleration of
the process of military downsizing. Downsizing began in the personnel arena
at the beginning of FY 1987. Prior to that time, the Army was expecting
increases in officer end strength at least through 1991. The calculus of officer
production changed abruptly at the start of FY 87 when Congress ordered
reductions in ROTC cadre authorizations and mission requirements. The chal-
lenge from then on was cutting output and reducing the institutional base with-
out destabilizing and debasing the program.

As the Army had discovered in the aftermath of Korea and Vietnam, this
was no easy task. Because it takes two to four years to produce an officer
through the ROTC, the Army’s short-term ability to regulate the production
flow was limited. To deal with this immediate problem, the Army took two
steps. One was to authorize a one-time voluntary release program to non-
scholarship cadets who had been selected for reserve duty. In FY 1990, a
total of 1,128 cadets accepted this offer and “walked away” from their mili-
tary obligation. The other was to place its “excess” graduates in the Indi-
vidual Ready Reserve. Of course, the Army would have preferred to shunt
these lieutenants into reserve troop program units but the reserves themselves
were faced with end strength limitations and could not absorb the excess.”

The magnitude of the production problem was and is a matter of debate.
The General Accounting Office estimated that between FY 1987 and FY 1990,
the Army overproduced a total of 8,216 officers. In FY 1990 alone, it main-
tained, 60 percent of Army ROTC output was “unneeded.” The Army, on the
other hand, put the excess production figure at only 153. The diverging esti-
mates stemmed from diverging definitions of overproduction. Whereas the
Army viewed overproduction as the number of commissions exceeding the
mission, the GAO included both the cadets who “walked away” from their
military obligation in 1990 and those graduates assigned to the Individual
Ready Reserve in their definition.”

232



20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.
28.
29.
30.

31.

32.
33.

34,

35.

ENDNOTES

(1) Author interview with Mr. Cal Foster, 3 October 1995. (2) Author interview with
MG Wagner, 23 March 1995.

(1) Author interview with Mr. Cal Foster, 3 October 1995. (2) Author interview with
Ms. Judy Taylor, 3 October 1995. (3) Memorandum, ATOB-PA-P, COL Calvin J. Griggs,
Deputy Cdr, Second ROTC Region, for COS, ROTC Cadet Command, 14 August 1986,
subject: Visit with Director OPD.

Memorandum, ATCC-RR, COL R. J. Wooten, COS, Cadet Command to DCSRM,
TRADOC, 30 May 1986, subject: Concept Plan for Reorganizing the HQ,
U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command. (2) Memorandum, ATRM-MS, BG William H. Reno,
DCSRM, TRADOG, thru COS to Cdr, TRADOC, 25 June 1986, subject: ROTC Cadet
Command (Issue Paper); 1st Endorsement, ATRM-MS, BG Reno, DCSRM, TRADOC to
Distribution, 8 July 1986. (3) Letter, ATRM-MS,BG Reno,DCSRM, TRADOC to HQ DA
(DAMO-FDP), 31 July 1986, subject: Concept Plan—Reorganization of Headquarters,
U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command; 1st Endorsement, DAMO-FDP, COL Clarence B.
Hartman, Chief, Force Structure Management Division, HQDA to HQ TRADOC, ATRM-
MS, 19 August 1986; and 2d Endorsement, ATRM-MS, BG Reno, DCSRM, TRADOC to
Car, Cadet Command, 3 September 1986, HRDC.

(1) Memorandum for Record, ATCS, MG Carl H. McNair, Jr., COS TRADOC, 27 May
1986, subject: Cadet Command Review with GEN Richardson, 9 May 1986. (2) Author
interview with GEN Richardson, 12 October 1995.

(1) Author interview with COL Douglas S. Becker, 4 October 1995.
(2) Fourth ROTG Region Annual Historical Summary, 1992-1993, p. A-7, HRDC.
(3) Briefing Slide, NGB-ARO-TI, 94 Consolidation, n.d.

(1) Author interview with Dr. Larry Brown, 4 October 1995. (2) Memorandum,
ATCC-TE, COL Robert S. Cox, Director of Training, for region cdrs, 1 February
1989, subject: Cadet Command Responsibilities for National Guard Officer
Candidate School (NGOCS) Visitation Program. (3) Even before he initiated
the NG OCS site visits, Wagner’s stock with the National guard was not high.
The National Guard-Wagner antagonism reached a kind of culmination in
August 1990 when the Washington Post published excerpts from a supposedly
confidential memorandum MG Wagner had written to GEN Carl Vuono, when
the latter was TRADOC Commander. In the memorandum, Wagner deplored
the RC’s readiness posture—especially that of the National Guard—and told
his chief that “Our service (i.e., the Army) is literally choking on our RC.” Some-
one in Cadet Command HQ, it is alleged, leaked the memorandum to the press.

(1) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994. (2) Cadet Command
Reg 10-5, Organization and Functions, 2 June 1986. (3) Cadet Command Reg 10-5,
Organization and Functions, 31 December 1987.

Ibid.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994.

Cadet Command Reg 10-5, Organization and Functions, 31 December 1987.

Ron Grossman, “Under the Gun: ROTC Shoots Down ‘Nerd’ Image by Giving Students
a Tough Summer School Lesson” Chicago Tribune, Wednesday, July 19, 1989, p. 10.
(1) Letter, ATOD-TNG, BG Wagner, Cdr, Fourth ROTC Region, to Distribution,
20 December 1983, subject: Goldsirike #13—Cadet Organizational Structure.
(2) Cadet Command Annual Historical Review, 1 March - 31 December 1986,
p. 5. (3) Directory of Senior and Junior ROTC Units for SY 89-90 and 90-91
(Fort Monroe, Va.: HQ Cadet Command, 1989 and 1990).

Robert F. Collins, “ROTC Today and Tomorrow; Military Review (May 1986), pp. 36-39.
Ronald M. Joe, “The Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: The Past,The Present, The
Future,” USAWC Military Studies Paper, 11 May 1988, p. 18.

James D. Bush, “A Comparative Study of ROTC Professors of Military Science and Other
Officials,” (Ann Arbor, Mi.: University Microfilms International, 1981), p. 11.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-PM, CPT Patricia |. Harvey, for MG Wagner, 5 February 1987,
subject: FY 87 ROTC Bn Car/PMS Selection Board After-Action Report. (2) Fact Sheet,
ATCC-PM, CPT Patricia |. Harvey, 25 August 1986, subject: Selection Rate for
Promotion to Colonel. (3) Briefing Slides, TRADOC DCSPAL, “ROTC PMS Selection

315



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

There was little support at West Point or in the Army in general for the
AOCC. Authorities at West Point were particularly averse to the proposal.**
Their attitude led some to conclude that they feared the prospect of having
their cadets compete with those in the ROTC program on an equal footing.”
In the end, the proposal was rejected. It did, however, clearly indicate the
direction in which Wagner was trying to steer precommissioning training in
the U.S. Army.

A New Idenity

Imparting a distinct identity to the ROTC was another facet of his reform
agenda. In the past, localism had pervaded the program. Detachments oper-
ated as independent fiefdoms with their cadets feeling little kinship with or
affinity for cadets enrolled at other institutions. Many cadets thus did not get
a sense that they were part of a larger scheme that transcended the local cam-
pus. They might be of vital importance to the Army and to the nation, but they
saw nothing in their routine which would indicate this. Many of them entered
the Army without that sense of identity possessed by graduates of Senior Mili-
tary Colleges, West Point, and OCS.°°

Brigadier General Wagner tried to cure this identity crisis by introducing
measures designed to build an ROTC esprit de corps, imbue cadets with a
sense of their own history (or manufacture this history if it was missing), and
give a Regular Army aura to the ROTC experience. These measures, it is true,
had practical value as well, but their overriding purpose was to lend to the
program those moral dimensions listed above.

The Regimental Affiliation Program was one such initiative. Introduced
in 1985, it associated each cadet regiment at summer camp with a distinguished
active duty regiment. Cadets wore a version of the affiliated unit patch, dis-
played its flag during ceremonial functions, and in a sense, became a part of
that regiment’s tradition.

The renaming of ROTC detachments as cadet battalions and of ROTC
areas as cadet brigades was another part of the Wagner plan. The area and
detachment designations clearly did not evoke martial images or a Regular
Army aura. Moreover, the terms were too closely associated with the pro-
gram as it had existed in the past—a past that did not live up to the billing,
Wagner believed, that its supporters had given it. To combine the sense of
belonging to a centralized cadet corps with individual unit elan, he ordered
cadet battalions and brigades to adopt operational names and mottoes, such as

66



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

because it made it clear to both the PMS and the university president when a
unit was marginally productive. It involved no complicated cost figures or
arguments about quality. Moreover, the standard was flexible enough to be
manipulated. The difficulty was that it was obvious to almost everyone that
the services considered other factors besides those specified in the directive
when deciding whether or not to disestablish a particular unit. Some deci-
sions, for example, had been manifestly influenced by political considerations.**

DCSROTC Viability Standards

In conjunction with the instructions issued by Congress and the Depart-
ment of Defense, the Office of the DCSROTC at TRADOC Headquarters de-
veloped viability criteria of its own to help decide which units should be re-
tained and which units should be disestablished. In October 1973, one such
viability matrix was completed. It was supposedly designed to implement
congressional and Defense Department guidance, although in practice it proved
to be a very imperfect tool for achieving this end. The matrix was based on a
1000-point scale. The factors considered and the weights attached to cach
were as follows:

1. officer production 150 points
2. potential (for production) 150 points
3. rate of production 150 points
4. OBC performance 70 points
5. leadership potential 180 points
6. curriculum 50 points
7. academic credit 50 points
8. Barron’s profile rating 50 points
9. Army ROTC within the state 50 points
10. geographical proximity 20 points

11. other ROTC collocated with Army ROTC 20 points
12. personnel furnished the ROTC department 20 points

13. location of the ROTC department 15 points
14, monetary support “possible” 20 points
15. faculty support “subjective” no points*

To instill more regularity in the management of unit productivity,
TRADOC, in School Year 1976-1977, instituted the Intensive Management
Program. The stated purpose of this program was to provide early warning of

228



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

nothing) interest of students in the program. That lack of interest
was based entirely on the Army’s decision to drastically reduce
scholarship money available...We remain in partnership with the
Air Force ROTC, because the Air Force still provides reasonable
scholarship assistance.”

The “reasonable scholarship assistance” mentioned in President Foote’s
letter referred to the Air Force policy of covering the entire cost of tuition and
fees for a selected group of scholarship recipients regardless of the school
they attend.

SCHOLARSHIP OFFERS - PAST,
PRESENT & FUTURE

10000

$66M plus —=®Tier —e® 8K or 80%

9500}, Tuition Inflation

(FY 95$)
9000
8500 \
8000 \ ta
7500

vowo| _\ [
wn —

6000

sy sy sy sY sy sy sy sy sy
90/91 91/92 92/93 93/94 94/95 95/96 96/97 97/98 98/99

Figure 7-3. Scholarship Offers - Past, Present & Future

209



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

Army ROTC cadets training at Valley Forge Military Academy, 1960

As might have been anticipated, the Comptroller study found that ROTC
management was fragmented at all organizational levels. Under the existing
organization, the problem was at its most acute at army headquarters, where
the number of personnel devoted to ROTC matters was too few and the span of
control over instructor groups was too wide. Campus operations were being
managed, it appeared, by “remote control.” Indeed, one general officer in-
volved in the administration of the ROTC at the time contended that su-
pervision by the armies was so “insufficient” that “cases of embarrassing
divergences from policies and objectives” had become almost commonplace.

27



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

captains would do in an ROTC battalion. They without question could teach
any subject in the precommissioning program of instruction. But could they,
with their shallow military background, effectively act as role models and
mentors for cadets. The answer, it turned out, was yes but it took some time
for the command to be certain that this was the case.

An ROTC assignment was a dangerous career proposition for the non-
branch qualified captain. This was because, in order to become branch-quali-
fied and hence eligible for promotion, an officer had to command a company.
There were no companies to command in the ROTC world. Even if the non-
branch qualified captain was assigned to a tactical unit (where there were plenty
of companies to command) after he completed his ROTC tour, his problems
would be far from over. In fact, they would have just begun because the con-
temporaries of the non-branch qualified captain would have arrived at the tac-
tical unit at least two years previously, and would be at the head of the com-
mand “queue”—i.e., the list of captains waiting for a command. The non-
branch qualified officer would have to take his place at the end of the queue
and wait another two or three years before being given such an opportunity.
By the time he did arrive at the head of the queue, it would be too late. He
would have already been rejected for promotion. His career would be for all
practical purposes at an end.

To protect the career prospects of the non-branch qualified officers in his
command, Lyle took two steps. First, he guaranteed that all of these officers
would attend the resident phase of the Combined Arms Service Staff School
upon completion of their ROTC assignment. Like company command, this
school was prerequisite for promotion to major. He also extracted a verbal
agreement from the DCSPER that, for command purposes, time spent in an
ROTC battalion would count as time in the command queue in a tactical unit.
This would mean that the non-branch qualified captains would be on an equal
footing with their contemporaries who were posted directly to a tactical as-
signment. How effective the verbal agreement will prove to be will not be
known until the late spring of 1996 when the first non-branch qualified cap-
tains begin to show up at tactical units.*'

Personnel Turbulence

Personnel turbulence exacerbated the problems caused by officer short-
ages. Cadet Command’s high turnover rate of over 400 officers per year (rep-
resenting over 35 percent of assigned officer strength) placed a tremendous
burden on the remaining ROTC faculty and disrupted the continuity of many

172



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Objections to Scholarship Tiering

Many believed that an ROTC pullback from elite educational institu-
tions would have dire consequences for both the Army and the nation. Eliot
Cohen, professor at Johns Hopkins University, viewed the continued ROTC
presence at these schools as key to the maintenance of a healthy state of civil-
military relations. Because the graduates of these elite universities comprised
a significant portion of our national leaders, he reasoned, it was desirable that
they be given the opportunity to learn something about military affairs in their
undergraduate years. The knowledge they thus acquired would permit them
to be less dependent on their uniformed military experts when they attained
positions of great responsibility.”

Cohen’s argument was by no means a new one. A version of that argu-
ment had been advanced in the late 1950s when the Navy announced its inten-
tion to reduce the number of scholarships allocated to expensive, private in-
stitutions (see page 188) and had been subsequently reiterated almost every
time someone seriously questioned the wisdom of spending such a large pro-
portion of the scholarship budget on these schools. The assumption that four
years of ROTC followed by a brief stint in a reserve component would equip
the future civlian leader with an experiential base sufficiently broad to enable
him to intelligently critque the plans and recommendations of senior military
leaders, however, seems problematic at best.

Others advanced a more fundamental objection. They saw scholarship
tiering and the resultant movement away from prestigious universities as low-
ering the overall quality of officer accessions and ultimately the officer corps
as a whole. Cadet Command, they charged, was sacrificing quality for quan-
tity. Some uniformed critics feared that scholarship tiering would in the long
run severely reduce the Army’s ability to understand and guide technological
development. With fewer MIT and Cal Poly graduates in its ranks, their argu-
ment ran, the Army would become vulnerable to manipulation by civilian
techno-warriors, who, in the main, would lack tactical expertise and have no
understanding of the officer ethos. Tier II and IV schools, in their estima-
tion, could not produce the type of technologically sophisticated officer the
Army needed to lead it into the next century.”

Defenders of Tiering

On its part, Cadet Command did not view its pullback from elite schools
as in any way harmful to the long term health of the officer corps. The forces
behind this “anti-elitist” sentiment were numerous and complex. In the

211



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR
RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS (DCSROTC)

DCSROTC
ADCSROTC
ADMIN |
OFC
| I I l
MANAGEMENT | | OPERATIONS EDUCATION RECRUITING
SERVICES DIVISION DIVISION: PUBLICITY
DIVISION DIVISION

Figure 1-4. Deputy Chief of Staff for
Reserve Officers' Training Corps (DCSROTC)

STANDARD ORGANIZATION FOR
HEADQUARTERS ROTC REGIONS (1973)

COMMANDING
GENERAL
AREA RESOURCE
COMMANDERS MANAGEMENT
OFFICE
| l
PERSONNEL & OPERATIONS ADVERTISING &
ADMINISTRATION DIVISION INFORMATION
DIVISION DIVISION

Figure 1-5. Standard Organization for Headquarters, ROTC Regions (1973)

39



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

to bring his battalion on-line with the provisions of the training regulation,
and another step taken to eliminate the localism that had pervaded the ROTC
throughout the first seven decades of its existence."®

Field training exercises also became a much more important part of
the ROTC training regimen with Wagner and Cox at the helm. In the 1960s
and 1970s, field exercises in many detachments resembled mini-Boy Scout
Jamborees more than they did Active Army training exercises. The pace of
the exercises was slow, the mood was lethargic, and the emphasis was on the
acquisition of basic military skills. Few detachments went to the field more
than one weekend a semester. Even with the limited demands the ROTC
program placed on the cadet during this era, there were critics, it is interesting
to note, both within ROTC and without, who complained that ROTC took up
too much of the cadet’s time and detracted too much from the cadet’s academic
pursuits.

Cadet Command introduced a field training regimen of an intensity and
rigor unprecedented in the history of ROTC. Although the PMS was required
by regulation to conduct only one field exercise a semester, pressures to pre-
pare cadets for Advanced Camp (especially since the advent of TMI) virtually
mandated that supplemental field training sessions be held. Soon, ROTC cadre
added “mini-camps” lasting from three to six days (and sometimes longer) to
the schedule in an attempt to ensure that their cadets reported to camp with
every possible advantage. At these mini-camps, which were usually conducted
near the end of the spring semester, the atmosphere as well as the events of
Advanced Camp were replicated for the purpose of preparing cadets psycho-
logically for the test they were about to face. All this meant that ROTC cadets
now received from one to two weeks of field training each academic semester.
Critics who scored the ROTC for taking too much time now had, what ap-
peared to be at least, a valid basis for their complaints.

To increase the pace and intensity of on-campus training even fur-
ther, the Cadet Command Commander extended the Ranger Challenge pro-
gram throughout the entire command. Participation in the program was
limited, in most cases, to those cadets who sought a more demanding train-
ing experience than was otherwise available. Under Wagner, it also came
to be almost a prerequisite for obtaining a Regular Army commission in
one of the combat arms.

Under the Ranger Challenge program’s provisions, each battalion formed
a team. These teams practiced a number of team-oriented military events—
rifle marksmanship, rope-bridge construction, a 10-mile road march,

108



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

officers. In its original form, LAP behavioral situations featured garrison
rather than field settings. The ROTC cadre were trained to look for and evalu-
ate the critical performance indicators of each dimension.*”

The programs set in motion by the RETO Board undoubtedly represented
a step forward in precommissioning education and training, at least on the
theoretical plane. Their practical value was, however, strictly limited. Like
previous efforts to reform collegiate military training, these programs were
essentially task-oriented. That is, they focused on the mastery of basic mili-
tary skills and the acquisition of certain bits of knowledge and neglected the
far more important area of leadership development.

ROTC’s unconventional organization prevented even uniformity in
task-oriented training from being realized. As in most endeavors, the key
lays in the execution, and in this critical respect, the program continued to
come up short. The overhaul of the ROTC would have to wait until an
organizational architecture was in place to tap the potential of initiatives
like Military Qualification Standard I. In the next chapter, we will see
how just such a structure was built.

44



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

than scholarship cadets in the ROTC program. This realization stimulated
some representatives to question whether the policy of subsidizing virtually
the entire education of some cadets while paying only subsistence allowance
to others was the best way of boosting enrollment. As a result, the House
asked the Defense Department to conduct a study to determine whether a
more effective officer procurement program could be obtained by raising the
subsistence allowance for all cadets and reducing the number of scholarship
students.

In an attempt to save money, the House appended to Public Law 92-
166 a provision mandating that at least 50 percent of ROTC scholarship ca-
dets must qualify for in-state tuition rates at their respective institutions and
that they receive tuition benefits at that rate. During the congressional hear-
ings on the bill, it was brought out that the in-state tuition rate of the Univer-
sity of California was $500 per semester while the out-of-state rate was $1,500.
Most House members agreed that the government would get more for its money
by limiting the number of students who could attend out-of-state schools. Such
a limitation, it was believed, would not impose an undue hardship on either
the student or the service.

This provision, however, had little practical effect. When the law was
passed, 50 percent of award recipients were already being reimbursed at in-
state rates so that no adjustment to the scholarship distribution matrix was
necessary. In any case, in-state tuition was a meaningless term at high cost
private universities where four-year scholarship recipients tended to seek ad-
mission.

Congressional sentiment in favor of extending benefits to two-year
“non-progression” cadets was strengthened by the testimony of Defense De-
partment witnesses who pointed out that by 1980, more than half of the stu-
dents enrolled in institutions of higher learning would be in junior and com-
munity colleges. Something, it was obvious, had to be done to get at this
growing market.**

More Scholarship Varieties

The passage of the two aforementioned laws did not slow diversifica-
tion. Women were made eligible for ROTC scholarships in May 1972. Due
to the experimental nature of female participation in Army ROTC, however, a
strict limitation was initially imposed on the number of scholarships that could
be awarded to women.”> A two-year scholarship program for active duty en-
listed personnel was approved by the Army in June 1973 and took effect at the

195



RECRUITING CADETS

answer these questions demanded more money—a resource that Cadet Com-
mand possessed only in limited quantities. Consequently, the command’s
marketing research agenda had to be kept within narrow bounds and tempo-
rally extended."*

To answer some of the basic questions mentioned above, Young and
Rubicam in 1987 undertook a “strategic research study” to ascertain how best
to represent the ROTC product—officership—within the selected market,
which Young and Rubicam identified as college-bound juniors and seniors in
high school. Not surprisingly perhaps, given the acquisitive spirit that ap-
peared to pervade the decade of the 1980s, findings indicated that “personal
success” and “career advancement” were slogans that exercised powerful in-
fluences on these youths. The theme eventually adopted for 1987—’ROTC
leads to personal success”—was a none too subtle attempt to exploit the re-
cruiting potential of these messages. Nineteen hundred and eighty-eight wit-
nessed the completion of a Young and Rubicam survey of college-bound high
school students (which was called a “concept research study”). This effort
resulted in Cadet Command’s adoption of the advertising theme “Army ROTC,
the Smartest College Course You Can Take.” The latter message was not as
direct as the 1987 slogan but it was much more effective, at least in the esti-
mation of the command’s marketing experts who retained it as one of their
central slogans in the years after its adoption in 1988."°

Finally, Young and Rubicam undertook a so-called “copy research study”
in 1989 to evaluate the effectiveness of ROTC advertising in communicating
the officership message to the target audience. It found that the themes that it
had helped the Cadet Command staff to devise were highly effective. Given
the agency’s obvious interest in continuing a profitable relationship with the
Army, its conclusions came as no surprise. Cadet Command could not, how-
ever, translate Young and Rubicam’s findings into more advertising dollars.
The rub was, as indeed it had always been in the ROTC advertising arena, that
no conclusive quantitative proof could be adduced to link advertising cam-
paigns with increased enrollment or production.’

Although they may have been difficult to quantify, the benefits that came
out of this extended research effort were undeniable. An uncharacteristic uni-
formity ran through ROTC advertising at all levels. Cadet Command Head-
quarters, the regions, and individual battalions now pushed a single theme—
personal success—and adopted almost identical packaging for all advertising
products. The contrast with the old way of doing business was glaring.

129



APPENDIX C

SCHOOL YEAR NUMBER OF UNITS. ENROLLMENT
1966-67 400 87,338
1967-68 476 97,339
1968-69 519 102,003
1969-70 562 105,497
1970-71 585 99,113
1971-72 595 93,843
1972-73 628 94,418 (12,823)
1973-74 646 110,839 (22,984)
1974-75 648 114,012 (33,438)
1975-76 650 142,781 (35,428)
1976-77 643 108,706 (34,643)
1977-78 642 107,706 (34,858)
1978-79 645 105,890 (34,689)
1979-80 664 105,143 (34,918)
1980-81 666 109,170 (36,469)
1981-82 699 113,823 (37,901)
1982-83 Tit 119,629 (40,665)
1983-84 760 127,501 (43,153)
1984-85 818 131,493 (45,140)
1985-86 863 135,081 (45,140)
1986-87 865 136,502 (45,341)
1987-88 864 135,461 (46,143)
1988-89 865 132,904 (47,622)
1989-90 865 129,859 (48,099)
1990-91 853 128,917 (49,620)
1991-92 856 126,292 (49,008)
1992-93 856 125,700 (50,236)
1993-94 1142 155,340 (63,320)
1994-95 1242 178,271 (74,719)

Female cadets in parenthesis

303


U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

necessary continuity. The call for the appointment of a general officer as the
commander of each camp and the recommendation for the establishment of a
full-time, year-round planning staff at each camp site were both incorporated
into the final Steadfast plan.”

While the new organization represented progress of a sort, it was not the
organizational panacea many had hoped it would be. The new head of the
program—the DCSROTC—was, after all, just another staff officer within
TRADOC Headquarters. He possessed neither the status nor prerogatives of a
commander. Instead of commanding the ROTC regions, he exercised “opera-
tional control” over them.” The DCSROTC, like all staff officers, possessed
only the authority he derived from his commander—a situation that made the
health of the program to a high degree dependent on the personal rapport that
existed between the two men.

The new organizational setup meant that summer camps, like virtually
every other aspect of the ROTC program, would continue to operate in a frag-
mented and highly diversified manner. True, the presence of a permanent staff
at each camp site provided for better coordination and greater continuity but
the goal of bringing an across the board uniformity to the Advanced Camp
system remained a distant goal.

Efforts to Boost Production

Certain steps were taken during this era to spur recruiting and attract a
student of a high caliber in the ROTC. In 1971, Congress raised the cadet
subsistence allowance from $50 to $100 per month and increased scholarship
authorizations from 5,500 to 6,500. Nine years later (1980), with the ROTC
still falling short of its assigned production objectives, Congress boosted the
number of scholarships again—to 12,000.”

Not all new incentives were monetary. Some took the form of special train-
ing programs designed to make the program more exciting. Cadets attended Air-
borne School for the first time in 1970. A two-day Reconnaissance and Com-
mando Doughboy (RECONDO) Course was incorporated into Advanced Camp
in 1971. Inthe same year, selected cadets were permitted to attend Ranger School
in lieu of Advanced Camp. The Army Orientation Training Program (renamed
Cadet Troop Leader Training in 1979) was introduced the following year. Based
on the Military Academy model, it allowed cadets to serve as apprentice junior
officers in Active Army units. Later, the Air Assault and Northern Warfare Courses
(1979), Flight Orientation/Training (1982), and the Russian Language Course
(1983) were added as training options.

40



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

must take three hours of ROTC per week during the junior and senior years.
Congress took a step in the same direction in 1964 when it passed the ROTC
Vitalization Act, which removed the legislative requirement to devote a speci-
fied number of hours to military training. This was done to make the curricu-
lum more “flexible” and reduce the amount of time a student had to spend on
ROTC related activities. The so-called Option C Curriculum, introduced in
the early 1970s, had a similar intent. These measures, like the Allocation
Program, were only partly effective for after their adoption, the Army still did
not bring high quality engineering and physical science students into the ROTC
in the desired numbers.”

The Scholarship "Cap"

The relaxation of international tensions that began during the second term
of the Reagan Administration ushered in an era of steadily declining military
spending. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent dismember-
ment of the Soviet Union only strengthened the resolve of Congress to cut the
defense budget and to reduce the Army to a size commensurate with the threats
it would likely face in the post-Cold War world. The 35 percent drop in Army
end strength between 1990 and 1995 clearly demonstrated that resolve.

Cadet Command had to absorb its share of the cuts. Limiting the amount
spent on scholarships was one obvious way of economizing. Rapidly escalat-
ing tuition levels and associated educational costs in the 1980s had made the
Army ROTC scholarship program, in the minds of many observers, prohibi-
tively expensive. Accordingly, the total number of scholarships in effect had
been steadily trimmed back from 12,000 in 1986 to only 8,600 by 1993.*
This, it was hoped, would bring scholarship outlays on line with diminished
production requirements and in consonance with the spirit of the Gramm-
Rudmann Act.

Nevertheless, it became apparent early on that reducing the total number
of awards was not an effective means of achieving the desired economies.
The problem was that an Army ROTC scholarship covered the recipient’s
complete costs of tuition, books and fees as well as provided for a small
subsistence allowance. Rising tuition rates combined with the propensity of
scholarship recipients to take their awards to high-cost, private institutions to
nullify the savings effected by reducing the number of scholarships. It took
more money to produce fewer lieutenants and the system defied effective

206



Training at summer
camps, Ranger
Challenge, and field
training exercises
were revamped to give
cadet training more of
a Regular Army flavor.



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

and in April 1978 approved a legislative proposal to boost the number of au-
thorized scholarships to 12,000. On 24 September 1980, President Carter
signed H.R. 5766 which (in additional to authorizing several new categories
of scholarships) authorized the increase requested by the Chief of Staff. The
number of annual awards was to be increased each year until the prescribed
limit was reached in FY 1983.

In an attempt to ensure that the funds expended on the expanded scholar-
ship program had maximum effect, the new law also required scholarship re-
cipients who voluntarily terminated their involvement with ROTC to reim-
burse the government for monies received. Thus, the suggestions made by the
General Accounting Office auditors in 1973 and 1977 were finally accepted.*?

Along with the scholarship authorization increase came a rise in the num-
ber of scholarship applications. Indeed, the number of applicants shot up 20
percent between School Year 1981-1982 and School Year 1982-1983 alone.
The DCSROTC attributed this rise to the cumulative expansion of scholarship
types, diminished employment prospects in the civilian job market, the in-
creased prestige of the military within society, the Army’s emphasis on re-
cruiting “hard skill” disciplines into the officer ranks, and a more broad-based
approach to recruiting.

Increasing Importance of Scholarships

The Army’s dependence on ROTC scholarships to maintain officer pro-
duction at the desired level increased sharply after 1980. In the early 1980s,
about a third of contracted cadets were on scholarships; by 1993, this portion
had climbed to over two-thirds. See Figure 7-2.

The chart revealed a great deal about economic and employment trends,
changing student perceptions about the viability of a military career, and stu-
dent motivation for joining the ROTC. It also reflected the steadily declining
propensity of college and college-bound students to serve in the military after
1990. Increasingly, financial incentives had to make up for what the attrac-
tion of a stable and secure career once provided.

Raising the Eligibility Age
In a report published in May 1983, the House Armed Services Commit-
tee (HASC) noted that “a growing number of ROTC participants” were taking

longer than four years to complete their baccalaureate degrees. This reflected

200



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

34.
35.

36.

37.

38.

39.
40.
41.

42.
43.

44,
45.

46.
47.

48.

49.
50.

51.

52.

326

DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 October 1982 - 31 March
1983), p. 26.

House of Representatives, Department of Defense Authorization Act, 1984, Report of
the Committee on Armed Services, No. 98-107, May 11, 1983, p. 213.

(1) Mary Crystal Cage, “Fewer Students Get Bachelor's Degrees in 4 Years, Study Finds,”
The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 15, 1992, p. A29. (2) Annual Historical Report
(1 January - 31 December 1993), ATOB-T, LTC Alton P. Latimer, Jr., HQ, Second Region
(ROTC), 6 April 1994. (3) Author interview with LTC J. Janele, 5 April 1994.

(1) Author interview with LTC J. Janele, ATCC-MO, 5 April 1994. (2) USACC
Annual Command History, 1 January to 31 December 1993, p. 17. (3) Author
interview with LTC Kendall Smith, ATCC-M, 12 April 1995.

(1) Annual Historical Summary (1 January - 31 December 1993), ATCC-PM, LTC Victor
R. Coffenberry, Il, Deputy Director, Personnel and Administration Directorate, undated,
p. 2. (2) Letter, Senator Robert F. Bennett to MG Lyle, 7 December 1993. (3) Letter,
MG Lyle to Senator Bennett, 16 December 1993. (4) Fact Sheet, Mrs. Nancy Parker,
ATCG-PC, 30 May 1995, subject: Change to Title X-Scholarship Age.

DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 October 1982 - 31 March
1983), p. 28.

Review of Education and Training for Officers (RETO), Appendix C, p. 2.

John W. Masland and Laurence |. Radway, Soldiers and Scholars: Military Education
and National Policy (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1957),
pp. 213-214.

Masland and Radway, Soldiers and Scholars, p. 231.

(1) Report of the Special Committee on ROTC to the Secretary of Defense, Annex 1 to
Inclosure 2, Rationale—Concept of ROTC Curriculum, 1 September 1970, p. 4.
(2) Report of the Special Committee on ROTC to the Secretary of Defense, Inclosure 2,
Development of Track B Curriculum, 1 September 1970. (3) Memorandum, ATCC-PA,
MAJ Richard V. Luczak, 31 May 1988, subject: Input to Cadet Command Quality
Task Force.

USACC Annual Command History: 1 January to 31 December 1993, p. 18.

(1) Memorandum, MG Robert E. Wagner, ATCC-PS, thru DCSPER (ATTN: DAPE-ZA),
for ASA (M&RA), 23 January 1988, subject: Change to Army Senior ROTC Scholarship
Cadet Contract. (2) Memorandum, BG R. L. Dilworth, DAPC-OPP-P, 27 April 1988,
subject: Payments of Tuition and Fees for Senior Army ROTC Scholarship Cadets.

(1) Author interview with Mrs. D. Cooper, 17 July 1995. (2) Memorandum, LTC Kevin J.
McAvoy, ATCC-RR, 16 June 1988, subject: Reducing Costs in the Scholarship Program.
(1) Author interview with Mrs. P. Grizzle, 17 July 1995. (2) Annual Command History:
1 January to 31 December 1993 , p. 17.

(1) Briefing Slide, ATCC-PS, “Scholarship Offers-Past, Present, Future,” Commanders
Mini-Conference, February 16, 1995. (2) Briefing Slide, ATCC-PS, “Scholarship
Allocation.” Commanders Miniconference, February 16, 1995. (3) Briefing Slide, ATCC-
PS, “Scholarship Allocation Plan,” Commanders Miniconference, February 16, 1995.
Author interview with LTC H. Critz Hardy, 6 December 1995.

Letter, Edward T. Foote II, President, University of Miami to MG James M. Lyle,
November 13, 1995.

Eliot A. Cohen, “Making Do with Less, or Coping with Upton’s Ghost,” Strategic
Studies Institute, USAWC, May 26, 1995, p. 21.

S.L.A. Marshall, “Leaders and Military Leadership,” in Robert L. Taylor and William E.
Rosenback, ed., Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence (Boulder, San Francisco,
and Oxford: Westview Press, 1992), p. 33, 34, and 38.

(1) Ibid. p. 36. (2) Masland and Radway, Soldiers and Scholars, p. 195.

S.L.A. Marshall, “Leaders and Military Leadership,” p. 33, 34, and 38.

Masland and Radway, Soldiers and Scholars, p. 195.

Louis Martin Sears, ‘The Structure of Government and War,” an Address delivered on
May 18, 1934, before the Regional ROTC Conference at Lafayette, Indiana, contained in
Military Instruction in Educational Institutions, (Washington, D.C.: Civilian Military
Education Fund), p.1.



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

budgeting. The Army and Cadet Command were, in a sense, at the mercy of
those university officials who established tuition and fees. By the late 1980s,
the ROTC scholarship program had become, in short, a managerial nightmare.

To redress what had become an almost intolerable situation, Cadet Com-
mand devised a plan to “cap” tuition and fees paid to ROTC scholarship ca-
dets. Under the plan, the amount of money awarded to scholarship recipients
was not to exceed $7,000 or 80 percent of annual tuition, whichever amount
was greater. Maximum rates for fees, textbooks and classroom supplies were
also established. The latter measure was occasioned by a management study
conducted by the Resource Management Directorate which showed that avia-
tion fees (some of which were in excess of $20,000 per year), hair cuts at
military schools, post office boxes, country club fees, and private music lessons
had been paid for with scholarship funds. Upon full implementation of the cap, it
was estimated, an annual savings of more than $2 million would be realized.

Some worried that the cap would substantially reduce Cadet Command’s
presence on the campuses of elite, expensive schools. These fears were dis-
missed by command analysts who pointed out that reducing the scholarship
funding to the 80 percent tuition level would not be a significant disincentive
to ROTC participation for students attending expensive colleges. There were
some within the command who did not view a diminished ROTC presence in
elite universities as an entirely bad thing.”

The cap became effective at the beginning of School Year 1990-1991.
The constantly rising costs of higher education soon forced Cadet Command
to raise its tuition ceiling. It was boosted to $7,500 (or 80 percent) in School
Year 1991-1992 and to $8000 (or 80 percent) the following academic year.
After this last increase, certain congressmen let it be known that, in their opin-
jon, not enough was being done to hold down scholarship costs. They floated
a motion to limit the amount of an award to the out-of-state tuition charged by
the most expensive public university in the state. This proposal was never
adopted but it did send shock waves through ROTC battalions located on the
campuses of some expensive, private institutions. By mid-1993, it was clear
that the particular type of tuition cap then in place did not offer a long-term
solution to the scholarship problem. The program was becoming increasingly
intractable as tuition rates soared.‘”

207



CHAPTER II

THE ESTABLISHMENT
OF CADET COMMAND

The ROTC was no longer the agency that
produced reserve officers to be called up in case of
mobilization; it was now responsible for
turning out leaders for America's first line of defense.

The restructuring of the ROTC program in the Fourth Region caught the
attention of the Army Chief of Staff, General John A. Wickham, Jr. When in
the autumn of 1985 consideration was being given to the question of who was
to succeed Major General Prillaman as head of the ROTC, Wagner was an
obvious but controversial choice. He had by this time (ie., the fall of 1985)
been selected for promotion to major general and was thoroughly familiar
with the ROTC program. Wagner himself would have preferred to command
the Armor School at Fort Knox, Kentucky, but Wickham considered him too
abrasive and outspoken for that sensitive post. A fear that Wagner would use
the Armor School as a bully pulpit to impose his warfighting ideas on the
Army apparently militated against his appointment. Besides, Wickham was
anxious to see some of the initiatives introduced by Wagner in the Fourth
Region implemented on a wider scale. General Richardson shared the Chief’s
assessment of Wagner’s suitability for the new command.!

The decision to make the ROTC an independent command under TRADOC
was not a universally popular one; neither for that matter was the decision to
appoint Wagner the commander of the new organization. Resistance to the
two decisions was particularly intense within the Office of the DCSPER. This
resistance was in part a response to the manner in which Wagner had op-
posed past attempts to place ROTC under the DCSPER.? As Fourth Region

69



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

FACT SHEETS AND INFORMATION PAPERS

Fact Sheet, subj: Alternative Strategies, 25 June 1992, ATCC-MO, Marketing,
Operations and Public Affairs Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: Cadet Challenge History, November 1989, ATCC-HS, High
School Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: Camps Planning and Execution Cycle, 1 May 1990,

LTC Jimmie Hattaway, ATCC-TT, Training Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: Change to Title X—Scholarship Age, 30 May 1995, Mrs. Nancy
Parker, ATCC-PC, Personnel and Administration Directorate,

HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: English-as-a- Second Language, 9 March 1989, Mr. Roger
Spadafora, ATCC-TE, Training Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: Historical Background for AR 145-2 and Cadet Command
Reg 145-XX, 14 November 1989, SGM Dry, ATCC-HS, High School
Directorate, USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: Implications for Army ROTC of the Policy on Homosexual
Conduct, 30 March 1995, LTC Kendal Smith, ATCC-MP, Marketing,
Operations and Public Affairs Directorate, HQ USACC.

Fact Sheet, subj: Leadership Assessment Program (LAP) Integration into
TRADOC Leader Development Course, 6 September 1989, Dr. Larry
Brown, ATCC-TE, Training Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: National Science Center, 15 January 1993, Mrs. Carver,
ATTG-CD.

Fact Sheet, subj: OBC Failures, 5 December 1989, ATCC-TE, Training
Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: Selection Rate for Promotion to Colonel, 25 August 1986,
CPT Patricia |. Harvey, ATCC-PM, Personnel and Administration
Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: The Historically Black Colleges and Universities Task Force
(HBCU-TF), 15 February 1989, COL Wynder, ATCC-ZR, Reserve
Advisor, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: The Junior ROTC Improvement Plan (JRIP), 13 May 1987,
Ms. Marks, ATCC-TJ, Training Division, HQ USAROTCCC.

Fact Sheet, subj: U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command Enhanced Skills Training
(EST) Program, 6 September 1989, ATCC-TE, Training Directorate,

HQ USAROTCCC.

Impact Paper, subj: Congressional Action Eliminating the Assignment of Full
Time Army National Guardsmen and Army Reservists to ROTC Units,
n.d., HQ USAROTCCC.

Information Paper, subj: Active Guard Reserve (AGR) Assistant Professors of
Military Science (APMS) in Cadet Command, 30 October 1990,

LTC Kitchen, DAPE-MPO-D.

Information Paper, subj: Army JROTC Program Instructor Qualification, n.d.,
Mr. Cal Foster, ATCC-HS, High School Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Information Paper, subj: AUSA Draft Resolution #1(6)-2-91, n.d.,

LTC Kitchen, DAPE-MPO.

Information Paper, subj: Gold Bar Transition, 1 November 1987, Dr. Larry Brown,
Training Directorate, HQ USAROTCCC.

Information Paper, subj: Operation Capital History, 10 May 1990,

CPT Moorer, ATCC-HS, DC JROTC Facilitator, HQ USAROTCCC.

345



Training assumed a
| new intensity with the

establishment of
Cadet Command.



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

The New Command

When it was established on 15 April 1986, Cadet Command had a
new name and a new relationship with TRADOC, but it inherited only the
personnel and material assets and the narrow mission of the old DCSROTC
staff. On 9 May 1986, Cadet Command representatives met with General
Richardson for the dual purpose of charting a new course for the command
and of determining precisely what was needed for the command to pursue this
course, At this meeting, they pressed home several points. First, they lobbied
to get more people assigned to the headquarters. At least 44 additional posi-
tions, they told the TRADOC Commander, were needed for the command to
function as a truly independent entity and become something more than the
old DCSROTC with a new name. Richardson agreed and gave Cadet Com-
mand 38 of the 44 positions requested.”

They also pressed to have the command’s mission broadened. In addi-
tion to directing ROTC training, they insisted that Cadet Command should
assume the responsibility for monitoring the training of the other commission-
ing sources (the Military Academy, Army OCS, and National Guard OCS) as
well. Only in this way, they argued, could the many inefficiencies and redun-
dancies inherent in the extant system of precommissioning training, with its
diversity of standards and objectives, be eliminated.

Surprisingly, in light of the jurisdictional squabbles such an arrangement
was bound to produce, General Richardson agreed. Richardson’s support was
due primarily to his desire to bring the various state National Guard OCS
programs under closer TRADOC scrutiny. He doubted that these state-ad-
ministered programs were meeting the requirements of the Military Qualifi-
cation Standards (MQS) I and believed that Cadet Command would provide a
valuable service in overseeing their operation. In December 1986, General
Richardson formally designated Cadet Command as his “functional proponent”
in overwatching the implementation of the MQS I by West Point, Federal OCS,
and National Guard OCS programs and the “instrumentality through which
TRADOC (fulfilled) its precommissioning training responsibility.””?

The decision to entrust Cadet Command with this responsibility had a
number of fateful consequences, not all of which materialized in the short term.
In 1993, seven years after being appointed as TRADOC’s overwatch instru-
mentality for precommissioning training, Cadet Command, now under the com-
mand of Major General James M. Lyle, incorporated a two-week National Guard
OCS “module” into ROTC Advanced Camp at Fort Lewis, Washington. The

79



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

time supporter of the ROTC, to chair the committee.

Even before the report of the Benson Committee was published, the Army
introduced a fourth curriculum option—called the Military Science Core Cur-
riculum or Option C. Many of the old ideas about collegiate military training
advanced by Lyons and Masland in the 1950s were reflected in the new option.
Two widely voiced criticisms of the ROTC curricula were that they were too
vocationally oriented and that they were not challenging enough academically.
ROTC texts, one student commented, were written “by and for cretins.” Op-
tion C, it was hoped, would eliminate these problems by integrating military
instruction more closely with that of regular academic departments and rel-
egating to summer camp those subjects undeserving of academic credit.%

Option C went further toward diluting the military content of the
ROTC than any previous initiative. It reduced the required number of
military contact hours in the Advanced Course to 120—down 43 percent from
the 210 hours mandated in the Modified General Military Science curriculum
introduced in 1960—and specified that 180 out of the total 390 hours of the
program could be filled with regular academic subjects believed to be of value
to the future officer. As might be expected, the new liberal approach to
precommissioning training quickly caught on among institutions that hosted
ROTC units. General William C. Westmoreland, the Army Chief of Staff,
gave expression to the direction that the ROTC was taking in a letter he wrote
to the CONARC Commanding General in May 1969:

Many—to include some senior officers as well as junior—will
find it difficult to accept the fact that we no longer expect ROTC
to provide trained platoon leaders. Instead, we expect the pro-
gram to produce well-educated men with high moral standards
who are motivated toward the military service and who have only
a minimum of military training (but) who have the potential to
become junior officers of high quality.”

The deemphasis of the “purely military” aspects of ROTC instruction
may have made the program more acceptable to some of its critics on cam-
pus, but it did nothing to improve the ROTC cadet’s orientation to the
military profession. In fact, the demilitarization of the curriculum placed
ROTC cadets in a more disadvantageous position vis-a-vis their more thor-
oughly indoctrinated OCS and West Point counterparts. Even before the
advent of Option C, CONARC historical records tell us, the ROTC did not

34



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Schoo! of Cadet Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia

Notwithstanding the last minute complications, everything was ready for
the official opening of the School of Cadet Command on 20 January 1987.
The TRADOC Commander, General Carl E. Vuono, and Major General Wagner
presided over the ribbon cutting ceremony and welcomed the inaugural class
of 40 ROTC cadre members, composed of both officers and noncommissioned
officers, from all four regions.

Over the ensuing years, several major additions and revisions were made
to the school’s curriculum. In 1988, a guest speaker program was established

120



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

reconsideration of how it and its subordinate region headquarters went about
allocating personnel and resources to the camps. During School Year 1986-
1987, a series of meetings were held at which region representatives met with
their Cadet Command counterparts to resolve resource and personnel alloca-
tion issues. Between meetings, Cadet Command staff officers kept in close
contact with the four region headquarters to avert potential problems. In ad-
dition, the Evaluation Team visited the camp sites and gave its assessment of
and perspective on what should be done to obviate inter-camp resource and
personnel disparities.

These efforts culminated in the publication of a Camps Staffing Model
during School Year 1987-1988. In this model, standard requisitions for am-
munition, equipment, manpower, and other materials necessary to conduct sum-
mer training were prescribed. By the summer of 1988, the desired leveling
effect had been achieved.

The new model helped resolve a personnel utilization and distribution
issue that had plagued Advanced Camp operations for some time. The issue
had to do with the fact that, due to the heavy emphasis at summer camp on
tactical training and the employment of various weapons, combat arms offic-
ers and noncommissioned officers were always in great demand. Unfortu-
nately, there had been a perennial shortage of this type of leader assigned to
ROTC duty. Every summer, camp commanders battled each other to get their
fair share of these people. Because there was no mechanism to ensure an
equitable distribution of these personnel among the camps, some Advanced
Camps suffered. The staffing model helped change this by providing a
device by which the distribution of combat arms officers could be regu-
lated. Even with the model, the balancing of combat arms personnel among
the camps was still a source of inter-regional tensions. Although the bick-
ering continued, the gross personnel allocation discrepancies of the past
were largely eliminated.

A New Intensity

The standardization of training and the administrative reform of the camp
system were not the only significant steps taken to improve ROTC summer
training. Cadet Command’s injection of rigor and an Active Army intensity into
Advanced Camp also had a profound impact. In order to understand why this was
so, it might be useful to comment briefly on the nature and conduct of ROTC
summer training prior to the establishment of Cadet Command.

104



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

President Gerald R. Ford signed Public Law 94-361, which raised the autho-
rized number of JROTC units from 1,200 to 1,600. The Army received 200 of
these new units. Due to the lack of funding, however, only 20 new units were
actually brought on line before 1980,"

During this same period, women won the right to enroll in the JROTC.
A court ruling in the summer of 1972 declared the exclusion of females from
JROTC to be “discriminatory.” As a result, the first female cadets entered the
program at the beginning of School Year 1972-1973. Over the next two de-
cades, female representation in the JROTC grew steadily. By 1993, female
cadets comprised over 40 percent of the corps.

The beginning of the 1980s witnessed another flurry of official activity
relative to the JROTC. It was at this time that the Army Recruiting Command
Commander, desiring to tap the new-found enthusiasm of American adoles-
cents for military service, directed his subordinates to work closely with JROTC
cadre members to identify recruitment prospects. This step underlined once
again the Army’s traditional view of the JROTC as a source of enlisted re-
cruits. Moreover, in September 1980, Congress passed Public Law 96-342,
which lowered the mandatory JROTC unit enrollment level from 100 to an
amount not less than 10 percent of the host institution’s enrollment, thus pav-
ing the way for increased institutional participation in the program.

The measures outlined in the preceding paragraphs reversed the post-
Vietnam slump in program growth. By 1983, enrollment stood at more than
5,600 above its 1974 level. These promising results encouraged Army leaders
to proceed with the expansion provided for in Public Law 94-361, enacted
during the Ford Administration. Over the next two years, 120 additional units
were brought into the JROTC fold. Enrollment experienced a proportional
increase.

Unfortunately, JROTC growth proceeded in a haphazard fashion. No
clear design or idea guided the expansion process. Indeed, the JROTC did not
even have a mission statement. Units were brought on line with a minimum
of prior planning and the results clearly showed it?

Many of the program’s ills were due to inadequate staffing levels, a re-
flection of the low priority the Army attached to the JROTC. There was no
permanent staff to select new units, supervise or inspect the cadre, or look
after the resource needs of the junior division. In the Office of the DCSROTC,
one full-time civilian (GS-9) supervised the entire operation. Some ROTC
regions did not have a JROTC management cell.

262



CADET TRAINING

five-week intensive language training courses during the summer. All lan-
guage training followed the American Language Course of Instruction, and
the institute’s staff used the English Comprehension Level test to assess
progress.

Officer Basic Course results testified to the success achieved by the HBCU
and Puerto Rican initiatives. After 1987, the minority Officer Basic Course
failure rate was low, less than one percent, in fact. The key to the Cadet
Command success lay in the early diagnosis of basic skill problems. Once a
general diagnostic system was in place, the rest followed naturally. An even
fuller test of the efficacy of the skill enhancement project and the English-as-
a-Second-Language program would come in the late 1990s when Cadet
Command’s products would begin to enter the field grade ranks.

The Leader Development Study

Shortly after its establishment, Cadet Command also became involved in
promoting an officer professional development project of a different sort. In
August 1986, the TRADOC Commander, General Carl E. Vuono, chartered a
special study group and appointed Brigadier General Gordon R. Sullivan, the
Assistant Commandant, Army Command and General Staff College, as its chief.
Its mandate was to formulate a leader development strategy for guiding the
TRADOC officer education system into the next century. The group was to
put particular emphasis on the education and development of junior officers.
To help Sullivan shape his strategy, school commandants were told to review
their curricula to determine their effectiveness in instilling desired leadership
traits in officers, while Cadet Command was tasked to evaluate the linkage
between MQS I and MQS II training. The special study group began work on
what was to become the Leader Development Study after the strategic plan
prepared by Sullivan and his assistants had been completed.”

The Cadet Command Commander wanted to use the forum provided by
this study to change the focus of leadership development both within the ROTC
and the Army. In the officer education system then in existence, he be-
lieved that there was too much theoretical classroom instruction and not
enough hands-on training in the field. Wagner took it as his mission to steer
the discussion of officer professional development along more practical lines.
To further this end, he put forward the Leadership Assessment Program as a
model which should be used in all phases of officer development.

To make the program truly useful in the expanded role envisaged for it, it

113



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

SCHOLARSHIP ENROLLMENT
AS PERCENTAGE OF CONTRACTED CADETS

FY 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

Figure 7-2. Scholarship Enrollment as Percentage of Contracted Cadets

a wider trend within the community of higher education—a trend that was
particularly apparent in the engineering disciplines. At the time of the report’s
publication, fewer than 40 percent of college graduates were completing their
undergraduate studies in four years. The average time for engineering majors
was 4.7 years.

The committee recommended that scholarship benefits and subsistence
allowance payments be extended ten additional months to accommodate
cadets caught up in this trend. However, it was stipulated that the beneficiary
of this extended assistance was to incur an additional service obligation
commensurate with the amount of additional aid received. These
recommendations were, in fact, incorporated into Public Law 98-94, the
Defense Authorization Act of 1984.°°

201



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

product, many officers associated with the program felt that the further de-
militarization of the ROTC was something that ROTC cadets and the Army
could not afford.”*

It was not long after the establishment of the Orientation and Enrollment
Program in February 1984 that TRADOC began to make adjustments and ad-
ditions to the curriculum of the ROTC School and thus triggered yet another
round of course proliferation—the prevention of which had been one of the
original purposes behind the school’s founding. In July 1985, for example,
the ROTC School introduced the Instructor Training Course. The inspiration
for this course, which had been designed by the Fort Benjamin Harrison Staff
and Faculty Development Division, came from General Richardson. After
becoming TRADOC Commander in 1983, he made a series of visits to ROTC
detachments across the country and came away convinced that the quality of
ROTC instruction had to be elevated. Because of faculty and facility con-
straints at Fort Benjamin Harrison, the Instructor Training Course was taught
by civilian educators under contract by the U.S. Army. Therein lay the major
problem with the course and the reason for its subsequent abolition; the In-
structor Training Course geared instruction to the educational philosophies
current in the academic world but neglected the unique instructional needs of
the ROTC cadre member.

In an attempt to remedy the deficiencies of both Orientation and Enroll-
ment Course and the Instructor Training Course, the ROTC School replaced
them with two other courses. The ROTC Leader’s Course consisted of three
weeks of lecture and practical exercises on enrollment and retention, the Lead-
ership Assessment Program, English composition, and instructional techniques.
The ROTC School also developed a similar two-week ROTC Commander’s
Course for Area Commanders and PMSs. All “inbound” cadre attended one
or the other of these new courses en route to their ROTC assignment. The
first iterations of the Commander’s Course and the Leader’s Course began on
5 May and | October 1986, respectively.

It was at this juncture (i.e., when the Commander’s Course and Leader’s
Course were instituted) that Cadet Command became involved in cadre train-
ing. Wagner came to Cadet Command with a three part plan at the ready to
restructure the way ROTC instructors were prepared for their assignment. The
first plank in the restructuring effort, which Wagner borrowed from Prillaman,
called for a change in setting. Like his predecessor, he wanted to exercise a
direct personal influence on the school and its day-to-day operations and real-
ized that in order to achieve this end the ROTC School would have to be

118



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

during which time the Army was supposed to “work closely with the (affected)
institutions to seek measures which would make the ROTC units fully pro-
ductive.” Disestablishment procedures were to be initiated if the unit failed
to meet prescribed standards by the end of the evaluation period.

The intended effect of the directive, however, was diluted by the inclu-
sion of a paragraph that permitted the Army to apply “other criteria” when
evaluating unit viability. These “other criteria” included: cost per officer pro-
duced; quality of officer produced; institutional support; and retention rate of
graduates by institution.”

Defense Department and Army Concerns

By December 1971, the Department of the Army had become so con-
cerned about the problem that it directed CONARC to survey all Senior ROTC
programs that had been in operation for at least four years for the purpose of
identifying those that did not meet officer production objectives, as defined in
the 1971 edition of Department of Defense Directive 1215.8. CONARC’s
response, which listed six units as substandard, was forwarded to the depart-
ment in March 1972. Another survey was conducted the following year. This
time, 12 units were deemed marginal.”

Outside agencies soon took up the question. A General Accounting
Office report, published in February 1973, took the Army to task for re-
taining “unproductive” units. It found 22 Army Senior ROTC detachments in
School Year 1970-1971 that did not meet minimum Defense Department pro-
duction criteria. The same report criticized the Defense Department, along
with the three services, for calculating unit viability on the basis of a four-
year production average rather than on annual output.”

Stung by this criticism, the Army made a show, at least, of getting tough
with nonproductive units. Strict guidance was issued to the field demanding
that the viability criteria contained in the Department of Defense Directive be
strictly adhered to and its provisions about placing substandard units in an
evaluative status be enforced.” Detachments failing to meet production stan-
dards by the end of their two-year probation, it was reiterated, were to be
disestablished.”

In 1974, the Defense Department again addressed the problem by pub-
lishing new and more stringent viability criteria for ROTC units. The depart-
ment mandated that four-year programs must contract a minimum of 17 and
two-year programs a minimum of 12 MS III cadets. Substandard units were
to be placed on probation for one year during which time the local military

224



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

class that I am dealing with intelligent persons whose feet are on
the ground. If I were in an academic school, I might encounter
more of these pseudo-intellectuals prone to go off half-cocked.**

There was no doubt about which type Sears believed would make the more
effective officer.

There were those within the command who were even more skeptical
than Wagner about the suitability of expensive, prestigious universities as cen-
ters of precommissioning military training. Many in this group bristled at the
suggestion that these schools had cornered the market on academic excel-
lence. To them, America's private, distinguished colleges represented privi-
lege and exclusiveness—qualities that they felt should have no place in the
officer procurement process.

Major General Lyle’s coolness toward elite universities stemmed prima-
rily from his concerns about cost-effectiveness. According to available infor-
mation, these schools tended to produce relatively few officers and the offic-
ers that they did turn out usually stayed in the Army only a short time. The
fact that a disproportionately large number of four-year scholarship recipients
took their awards to these universities compounded the problem. The picture
that thus emerged was not, in most respects, a very attractive one. The ROTC
programs situated on these campuses produced at great expense to the gov-
ernment a relative handful of officers who left the Army at the earliest avail-
able opportunity.”

The pattern just described was not of recent origin. Indeed, it had char-
acterized the Army scholarship program since its inception in 1964. The Army
had never been able to get a significant number of the graduates of these insti-
tutions to stay in its ranks. One reason for this was that many of these indi-
viduals had more financially rewarding career opportunities available to them.
Also at play was the fact that many alumni of these institutions were not suited
by temperament or inclination to excel at the routine tasks that were an inte-
gral part of the daily life of most junior officers.

Lyle dismissed fears that scholarship tiering would result in a qualitative
debasement of the ROTC product. He did this because he, like the military
sociologist Morris Janowitz, gauged the elusive concept of quality differently
than some others. With Janowitz, Lyle felt that success as an officer depended
as much on motivation and training as on intellectual ability and analytical
skills. Thus, in the Commanding General’s estimation, performance scores

213



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

to ensure maximum fill on their flights) and be assured that most scholarships
were used.”

An even more difficult problem was the one posed by the tremendous
dropout rate of four-year scholarship winners. The ROTC Study Group Re-
port, dated May 1986, set the historical retention rate for four-year scholar-
ship cadets (MS I to commissioning) at 57 percent. According to Defense
Department policy, a scholarship recipient could drop ROTC after his first
year in college without incurring a service obligation or repaying the finan-
cial assistance already received. Many students, in fact, accepted an ROTC
scholarship fully intending to drop ROTC after one year.”

To reduce such waste and abuse—it could not be eliminated because the
four-year scholarship provided the Army with, in the words of the ROTC Study
Group, “an inroad to the high quality, high school market” it otherwise would
not have had—Colonel Cretella devised the mechanism of an Advanced
Designation Scholarship of both a three-year and two-year variety. These
scholarships, which were awarded to high school students, did not become
effective until the awardee attained sophomore or junior status and had suc-
cessfully completed at least one year of ROTC. Under the terms of the Ad-
vanced Designation Scholarship, no grace period was extended to the recipi-
ent. He incurred a service commitment and an obligation to pay back the
funds upon enrollment in ROTC.”

Officer Accessioning

The Personnel and Administration Division was given the task of first
restructuring and then managing the cadet accessioning system. Cadet
accessioning referred to the process by which cadets were given a particular
type of commission (Regular Army or reserve), chosen for active duty or for
assignment to one of the reserve components, and assigned to a particular
specialty or branch (i.e., infantry, armor, artillery, quartermaster, etc.). When
Cadet Command was established in April 1986, this process was a joint re-
sponsibility of the Army DCSPER and the Commander, U.S. Army Military
Personnel Center. It was not until September 1987, after observers on the
Cadet Command staff had a chance to become familiar with the existing sys-
tem, that Cretella took control of the process.

Under DCSPER/Military Personnel Center auspices, accessioning was
handled by a single annual board, which met in November. This board de-
cided who would get a Regular Army commission and who would not, who

142



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Major General Arnold (left) and Major General Wagner (right) at the
Change of Command Ceremony in April 1990

strength from 750,000 to 580,000 by 1995. This was not ambitious enough
for Congress. It set the goal at 520,000. Later, this number was lowered
again—to 495,000.

To meet the congressionally-imposed end strength objectives, the Army
had to reduce the flow of new officers and enlisted people into its ranks. Ca-
det Command, principally because it was the Army’s largest commissioning
source and possessed no costly physical infrastructure, had to absorb the bulk
of the officer reductions. In May 1990, the DCSPER slashed the command’s
FY 1991 production mission from 7,800 to 5,800. Over the next several
years, the command’s mission fell further—to 4,600. By 1998, the DCSPER
told Cadet Command in September 1995, the ROTC production mission
would stand at only 3,800.7

Major General Arnold's Emphasis on Quality
Major General Arnold viewed the post-Cold War demobilization in which
the command was caught up as an opportunity to raise commissioning stan-

dards and produce a better junior officer for the Army. Fewer lieutenants, the

146



57.
58.

10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.

ENDNOTES

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 19 January 1995.

(1) Author interview with LTC Kendal Smith, 15 February 1995. (2) William P. Snyder,
“Officer Recruitment for the All-Volunteer Force: Trends and Prospects,” Armed Forces
and Society, (Spring 1984), p. 410. (3) Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier (New
York: Free Press, 1971), pp. 104-107 and 125-45.

CHAPTER VIII

(1) Pollard, Military Training in the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, p. 47.
(2) Public Laws of the United States of America, 39th Congress, Session |, Ch. 299,
1866, p. 336.

Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1904,
(Washington: GPO, 1904), I: 2 and 224.

John C. Sparrow, History of Personnel Demobilization in the United States Army
(Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1951), p. 9.

(1) Barthmus, Early College Military Training and the Establishment of R.O.T.C., p. 22.
(2) Pollard, Military Training in the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities p. 47.

Annual Reports of the War Department from the Fiscal Year Ended June 30,
1904, |: 312.

(1) Public Laws of the United States of America, 66th Congress, Session II, Ch 227,
1920, p. 777. (2) William P. Synder, “Leaders for the Volunteer Force: The Problems
and Prospects of ROTC,” in Lawrence J. Korb, ed., The System for Educating Military
Officers in the U.S., Occasional Paper No. 9, International Studies Association, 1976, p.
88. (3) NOTE: Certain “technical” and specialist units, i.e., medical dental, signal, etc.
had to maintain an enrollment of only 50 students.

OCAFF, Annual History (1 January - 31 December 1948), pp. 34-35.

OCAFF, Annual History (1 January - 31 December 1949), p. 10.

(1) Reserve Branch AGO, R.O.T.C. Graduates of 1948. (2) Reserve Branch,
AGO, R.O.T.C. Graduates of 1949.

Harold W. Dodds, “Your Boy and the ROTC,” The Atlantic Monthly, 1953, p. 25.

Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, p. 58.

Ibid.

Reserve Branch, AGO, R.O.T.C. Graduates of 1957.

COL Robert F. Evans, Chief, ROTC Division, Office of Reserve Components, State of
ROTC Program, 1964, p. 3.

Report of the Department of the Army Board to Review Army Officer Schools,
(Washington D.C.: HQDA, February 1966), Hl: 307-8.

(1) William P. Snyder, "Leaders for the Volunteer Force", pp. 71-72. (2) COL
Baxter M. Bullock, A White House Conference on ROTC, USAWC Student
Essay, 16 October 1973, p. 8.

(1) Letter, Thomas D. Norris, ASD (Manpower) to Secretaries of the Military Departments,
9 December 1965, subject: Disestablishment of Uneconomical ROTC Units. (2) Briefing
Notes, BG C.P. Hannum, Director of ROTC Affairs, DCSPER, DA, for CG, USCONARC,
9 January 1969, subject: Academic Credit for ROTC Courses. (3) The Memorandum
identified an ROTC detachment as “uneconomical” if, in the case of 4-year units, its
average annual production was less than 26, or in the case of 2-year units, it was below 12.
DOD Directive 1215.8, Policies Relating to Senior Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps (ROTC) Programs, June 19, 1971, p. 4.

DCSIT, USCONARC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 July - 31 December 1971, p. 2.
U.S. General Accounting Office Report B-146947, February 28, 1973, p. 2.

DCSIT, USCONARG, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 January - 30 June 1973,pp. 2-3.
DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 January - 30 June 1974, p. 4.
DOD Directive 1215.8, May 1, 1974, pp. 4-5. Actually the DOD Directive, stated that
4-year programs must commission between 17-20 MS Ills and that 2-year programs must

327



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U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

the proviso that closure announcements be made as discreetly as possible so
as not to arouse opposition in the affected areas.) In a contract closure, the
inactivation process officially begins with Cadet Command exercising the ter-
mination clause in the ROTC-university contract. That contract allows either
party to eliminate the ROTC program by issuing a notice of intent one year in
advance. In this case, the closure notifications were to be delivered to the
affected university presidents on 1 July 1992 and all closures were to be com-
pleted by 30 September 1993.”

Accordingly, notification letters were drawn up and officers detailed to
deliver them to college presidents. On 1 July 1992, with officers standing by
ready to deliver the notices, the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Richard Cheney,
unexpectedly ordered an indefinite hold on the closure actions. He gave no
explanation for his decision, but the fact that the proposed inactivations would
be unpopular in an election year escaped the attention of almost no one in-
volved. The decision not to close the schools targeted in Alternative Strate-
gies illustrated once again that it has not always been the Army or ROTC
program administrators that have stood in the way of eliminating ineffective
and uneconomical units.”

The Defense Department’s failure to go through with the inactivations
resulted in a dramatic decrease in the size of the average ROTC unit. Indeed,
during this period, that average sank below 100 for the first time in ROTC
history. It was a trend that did not bode well for the future of the program.
See Figure 8-2 on page 222.

The Drawdown Continues

After the election of 1992, pressure to further reduce the size of the
ROTC program resumed with an even greater intensity. Part of this pressure
was bound up with personnel reductions. In FY 1992 alone, Cadet Command
lost 25 percent of its assigned officer strength (346 out of 1348 officers). Con-
sequently, Major General Arnold decided in January 1993 to shut down an
additional 15 extension centers.

In compliance with instructions received from the Department of the
Army, these inactivations were “sold” as Effective Management Program
(EMP) closures. Many officials in the department, it seems, considered
the EMP a useful political device because it gave affected schools ample
advanced warning of the impending action, operated according to a regu-
lar methodology, gave protesting congressmen and university officials less

240



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The Five Year Plan

Nineteen ninety three was a landmark year in the post Cold-War demobi-
lization, for it was in that year that budgetary and personnel cutbacks became
palpable throughout the Army and at every level within the Army. What had
been principally a concern of Pentagon planners became a source of anxiety
at even the small unit level. Travel funds, phone bills, reproduction expenses—
everything, in short, upon which units and headquarters depend to conduct
day-to-day operations began to be subjected to an ever increasing scrutiny.

To Cadet Command and the ROTC, the new operating environment called
for a thorough and long-range reassessment of structure and organization. The
essentially reactive approach to unit closures adopted by the framers of the
Horizon plan could not guide the command toward a stable end state. The
idea of a massive and discrete chop had to be replaced with a comprehensive
scheme that outlined a smooth yet flexible “glidepath” toward achieving in-
stitutional stability. Without such a scheme, the ROTC stood in danger of
being superseded, in whole or in part, by other precommissioning programs—
like college option OCS or an Army version of the Marine Corps’ Platoon
Leader’s Course. Indeed, in July 1993, almost coincident with Major General
Lyle’s assumption of command, the Chief of Staff of the Army directed
TRADOC to study the feasibility of adopting these precommissioning alter-
natives.®°

Between July 1993 and February 1994, the Cadet Command staff put
together a downsizing plan. Part of the plan involved adjustments to the vi-
ability algorithm. The 1991 General Accounting Office critique of Horizon
had suggested that all was not right with the way the command selected units
for elimination. Units with higher viability ratings were inactivated before
units with significantly lower ratings. Cadet Command analysts discovered
that a defect in the algorithm partially explained this anomaly. The quality
factor, it seems, was not a true independent variable, being too closely linked
to quantity. The algorithm was then changed to make the quality factor statis-
tically independent.”

Major General Lyle ordered an even more fundamental adjustment.
Alarmed by the command’s growing enrollment and officer production short-
falls, he directed that greater weight be attached to quantity in the algorithm.
One can “shape” quality, he told ROTC cadre members, after one had en-
rolled sufficient quantity.

The new formula, and all that it implied for the daily operation of the

244



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS

their area of responsibility on a regular basis. A military rating system was
instituted to reflect this new organization. The rating chain ran from ROTC
brigade commanders through senior ROTC battalion commanders down to
individual JROTC unit leaders.”

Developing a new mission statement was another priority of Cadet Com-
mand. The one finally adopted (1987) was: “To Motivate Young People To
Be Good (later changed to Better) Americans.”*° This mission statement was
intended, initially at least, as much to deflect political criticism as it was to
express the actual purpose of the program. From the very inception of the
JROTC, there had been critics who viewed it as little more than an attempt by
the Army and the federal government to militarize American adolescents and
loudly voiced this view. While the new mission statement may have worked
to counteract the political sniping from that quarter, it exposed the program’s
flanks to its enemies in the Pentagon, who began to question anew why the
Army should support an undertaking which was not designed to put soldiers
in its ranks.

Improving instruction was another facet of the command’s campaign to
upgrade the JROTC program. Although the JRIP program of instruction had
been adopted in 1985, it had never been fully implemented. Part of the prob-
lem lay in the instructional materials used in its support. JROTC instructors
had to make due with an odd assortment of manuals and instructor guides that
did not correlate with the textbooks they used. Workbooks had been devel-
oped to correct these inconsistencies but, because of their poor quality, failed
to do so. Funds had been identified to publish better instructional materials
but they had been diverted to improve the program of instruction. Only when
General Richardson, on the urging of Cadet Command, put his foot down and
refused to publish the JRIP program of instruction without the supporting in-
structional materials did Lieutenant General Elton finally free up the $1.7
million needed for their publication.”!

It was deemed essential that the new JROTC literature be pertinent to
both the environment and the educational objectives of the average secondary
school student. Accordingly, the JRIP took educational publications geared
toward soldiers and Senior ROTC cadets and reworked them for use in the
JROTC. For example, students were introduced to map reading through the
use of local city maps before being exposed to military maps. The new train-
ing materials were also “flexible” publications that allowed each instructor to
tailor them to his or her specific needs.”

269



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

ona mission. The commanders formalized these adjudicated missions at the
conclusion of the conference through the signing of contracts, which were
subsequently used as a gauge of success or failure.”

Cadet Command’s Operations Directorate (it was elevated from a Divi-
sion to a Directorate in January 1988) measured the accomplishment of re-
gional missions through “mission sets.” A mission set corresponded to all
cadets commissioned or scheduled to be commissioned during a particular
fiscal year. For example, those MS III cadets contracted for Advanced Course
participation in the fall term of School Year 1987-1988 belonged to “mission
set 89.” Normally, the regions were expected to contract at least 40 percent of
each year’s MS II class for the new mission set and to retain 80 percent of that
number for commissioning. The rest of a mission set was filled out by enroll-
ing cadets through Basic Camp or by awarding advanced placement credit to
cadets with prior military training. The goal was for each battalion to achieve
the cadre-to-commissionee ratio of 1:6—a goal that had been originally es-
tablished in 1984.”

The Department of the Army insisted that in addition to meeting overall
production goals, Cadet Command should turn out officers with the requisite
blend of academic backgrounds to meet the needs of the Army. To measure
the command’s success in achieving this latter goal, the Army Staff used the
device of the Academic Discipline Mix ratio. In 1986, discipline mix goals
were set as follows: Engineering - 20 percent; Social Studies - 20 percent;
Physical Sciences - 20 percent; Business - 30 percent; and other disciplines -
10 percent.”

To manage the Goldstrike Management System, the Operations Direc-
torate developed an administrative tool called the Goldstrike Blitz Report.
Every PMS in the command had to complete this monthly summary of the
enrollment status of his battalion. The Blitz reporting cycle started with bat-
talion reports, due to the region headquarters on the 10th of each month. The
regions had to consolidate these reports and forward a regional compilation of
the results to Cadet Command by the last working day of the month. Each
battalion and region reported on three mission sets: the future MS III mission
set—the year group about to be contracted; the current MS III mission set—
the year group about to become the MS IV class; and the current MS IV mis-
sion set—the year group about to be commissioned. Due to differences be-
tween schools in the opening and closing of academic years, the September Blitz
Report was the base from which the various mission sets were computed.

The report gave the command the capacity to identify impending

136



CADET TRAINING

the MQS I and the LAP were available—at least as theoretical constructs.
The problem was, as the preceding paragraphs have perhaps intimated, that
the application of these programs was uneven and, in many cases, faulty; this
was especially true with the LAP. Much of this was due to the decentralized
structure of the Army ROTC. No two regions and no two detachments admin-
istered these programs or used their results in the same way. The uniformity
and standardization that the MQS and the LAP were supposed to introduce
remained unrealized goals."

The Cadet Training Arch

Upon assuming command of Cadet Command, Major General Wagner
began the task of standardizing and streamlining cadet training using the MQS
and the LAP as methodological plumblines. A restructuring of the ROTC
Advanced Camp system took top billing on his training reform agenda. He
gave the mission of effecting this restructuring to Colonel Robert S. Cox, an
officer with an extensive training background who Wagner had sought out to
be his training director. Cox arrived at Fort Monroe in June 1986 and, almost
before he had a chance to unpack, was sent on a whirlwind fact-finding tour
which included visits to all four summer camps. The purpose of this trip was
to determine precisely where the command’s system of summer training stood
and what was necessary to bring all camps in line with the Fourth Region
model.'°

After his return to Fort Monroe in August, Colonel Cox started a process
designed to bring about the uniformity in camp conduct demanded by Wagner.
Through a series of conferences and other coordination mechanisms, the re-
gions were included in this process. The metaphor that Cox liked to apply to
this standardization and reorientation effort was that of constructing a “train-
ing arch” through which all cadets had to pass on the way to commissioning.
Heretofore, the heterogeneous ROTC training system had allowed for mul-
tiple and often diverging paths toward a commission in the Army. The imple-
mentation of the training arch idea would mean that there would be a conver-
gence of these paths at Advanced Camp and, therefore, an evenness of prod-
uct quality.

In April 1987, Major General Wagner made the first of a series of visits
to see how or if regions were making the requisite adjustments to their sum-
mer programs. During these visits, he observed many classes, walked virtu-
ally every committee station, and spent many hours talking with cadets and

97



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Department of the Army, 21, 22, 26,
28, 29, 32

Deputy Chief of Staff for Individual
Training (DCSIT), 28, 30, 31

Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel
(DCSPER), 28, 30, 31, 69,
70, 73

Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
and Plans (DCSOPS), 49, 54

Deputy Chief of Staff for ROTC
(DCSROTC), 29, 30, 32, 37-41,
45, 46, 48, 50, 55, 72

Scholarship Analysis, 198

Depuy, Gen. William E., 60

Development Dimensions
International, 95

Dining-In, 76

Distinguished Institutions, 12

Distinguished Military Graduate, 21,
25

Distinguished Military Student, 26

Division 86 “heavy division” project,
45

Dornan, Representative Robert, 279

Drum, Gen. R. C., 216

“dual hat” command, 46

E

Early Commissioning Program (ECP),
41, 149-152

Effective Management Program, 177,
230-232

elite colleges and universities, 33,
211-214, 220

Elton, Lt. Gen. Robert M., 48, 51, 57,
73, 265,269

engineer, 15

English-as-a-Second Language, 112

Enhanced Skill Training Program, 112

Enrollment and Retention Course,
115

“excepted activities,” 170

Exclusionary Policy (DOD), 167, 168

Executive for Reserve and ROTC

Affairs, 18, 21, 185

Expand the Base (ETB), 41, 45

Experienced ROTC Instructor
Course, 116

extension centers, 41

Evans, Col. Robert, 220, 221

352

F
Feasibility Study (TRADOC), 53, 54
Field Artillery School, 58
financial squeeze for cadets, 167
First Nebraska Infantry, 12
First ROTC Region, 251
five chances to say yes, 174-177
Five Year Plan, 244-249
Flight Orientation/Training Program,
40, 60
Foote, Edward T. Il, 208, 209
Fordham University, 95
FORSCOM, 36
Ford, Gerald R., 262
Ford, Senator Wendell H., 250-252
Forman, Lt. Gen. Robert H., 74
Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana,
115-117
Fort Benning, Georgia, 65, 95
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 80
Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, 65
Fort Gordon, Georgia, 281-283
Fort Knox, Kentucky, 53, 69
Fort Lewis, Washington, 54, 55
Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, 65
Fort McPherson, Georgia, 17
Fort Monroe, Virginia, 54, 70-77
Fort Riley, Kansas, 241, 242
Foster, Sgt. Maj. Calvin, 76, 77
Foster Flag, 76, 77
Fourth ROTC Region, 55-72
Franks, Gen. Frederick M. Jr.,
170, 239
French, Maj. Gen. Daniel W., 43,
50, 115
Fryburger, Vernon, 124
functions, 88-90

G
General Accounting Office, 179, 200,
215, 224-226, 229-232, 244-219
General Military Science Program,
23, 93
General Staff, 13, 16, 18, 21
Georgia Tech University, 221
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 13
Glenn, Senator John, 154
Goers, Brig. Gen. Melvin A., 35
Gold Bar Transition Program, 114
Golden Cannoneers, 75
Goldminer Team, 62, 137, 138



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS

public awareness of and interest in science, mathematics and technology. The
JROTC program, embedded as it was in school systems across the country,
was the primary medium through which this command publicized the Mo-
bile Discovery Center.**

The Army Chief of Staff’s pilot program for educational outreach also
included several provisions that fell almost exclusively within Cadet
Command’s domain. One provision directed the inclusion of mathematics
and science workshops into five 1993 JROTC summer camps. These math
and science modules are now included in every summer camp training sched-
ule. Another prescribed the inclusion of these workshops into the JROTC
curriculum and in the Cadet Command sponsored Career Academies (discussed
in the next section).°”

Career Academies

The year 1992 also witnessed the establishment of the JROTC Career
Academies program, a joint venture between the Defense Department and the
Department of Education, designed to provide “at risk” students with leader-
ship, academic and vocational training. The academies operated as “schools
within schools” and were jointly funded by both agencies mentioned above. In
accordance with a formal interagency agreement signed by the two departments,
the Department of Education transferred $1 million to the Defense Department to
begin the implementation of the career academies initiative in FY 1993.

In addition to providing academic and vocational instruction, the career
academies attempted to install in their charges confidence, discipline and a
sense of responsibility—personal attributues that equip students for success
in life. JROTC, of course, had been in the business of character development
since its inception in 1916 and was ideally suited to undertake this task. Army
Junior ROTC Career Academies were established in urban school districts
throughout the United States.°!

JROTC Expansion Goals Refined

Soon after Major General Lyle took command, he modified and refined
the JROTC expansion goals set by his predecessor. Concerned about the
JROTC’s absence in many northern regions of the nation, he set an objective
of establishing at least five units in every state. Lyle made this the command’s
first priority. The Commanding General was also anxious to boost the
command’s presence in medium-sized cities with populations between 100,000

283



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

multi-Service requests from individual schools will be made at
the DOD level through a joint working group under the supervi-
sion of (the) Director of Accession Policy.*”

The final draft of Cadet Command’s campaign plan was approved for
execution on 13 November. To help subordinate units implement the plan,
elements of Cadet Command Headquarters conducted a logistics conference
from 15-17 November 1992 at Fort Monroe for the purpose of developing
“push packages” for the establishment of new JROTC units. These push pack-
ages were designed to provide the prospective unit with all the administrative
and logistical guidance it would need to complete the application process and
to get the new unit off the ground.”

Operation Young American, the Cadet Command code name for the
JROTC expansion, was a two-phased enterprise. Phase I, which called for the
establishment of 200 new units throughout the nation, was to be completed by
October 1993. Slated to run from the beginning of FY 1994 through the end
of FY 1997, Phase II projected a regular annual addition to the number of
units until the goal of 1,682 was met. Later, however, that goal had to be
adjusted downward. Bowing to post-Cold War fiscal realities, the Department
of the Army in March 1995 instructed Cadet Command to halt the expansion
at its existing level, which was 1400 schools.” See Figure 9-1.

In the expansion, special provisions were made for the financial support
of institutions which, according to Defense Department and Army criteria,
qualified as educationally or economically disadvantaged schools. Under these
provisions, schools agreeing to host a JROTC unit could receive up to five
years of financial assistance (three years at the 100 percent level and two years at
the 75 percent level). Many inner-city schools qualified for this assistance. In
fact, since the expansion kicked off in 1992, approximately 35 percent of the
schools that have joined the program have received this assistance.”°

Young American had very ambitious distribution objectives. JROTC, it
was decided, should have a presence in every state. On the eve of the expan-
sion, the program was geographically unbalanced. The Northeast was greatly
underrepresented — there were no units in Vermont, New Hampshire, and
Connecticut — while the Southeast was overrepresented. To correct this geo-
graphic imbalance, Cadet Command placed special emphasis on establishing
units in New England and the Mid-Atlantic states. Major General Arnold
personally took a hand in the effort to penetrate this untapped market as did
his successor in command, Major General Lyle. Lyle himself was a 1958

278



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

became increasingly uneasy about the methodology for the conduct of camp,
especially for the evaluation of cadet performance.

Once summer camp got underway, he was appalled at what he saw. In-
struction and camp organization both left much to be desired. The cadets
reported to camp in two increments of about 1,400 each. All cadets did not
undergo the same developmental progression. Some started with basic indi-
vidual skills, while others jumped right into collective training (squad or pla-
toon tactics). According to CONARC ROTC Conference reports, this “im-
proper sequencing” of summer camp training had plagued the ROTC since
the early sixties. But because of certain flaws in the command structure and
the low priority attached to the program, the problem never entirely went away.
The standardization of instruction and evaluation procedures and the adop-
tion of a more logical training sequence, Wagner recognized, were essential
for pulling the ROTC summer training program out of the rut into which it
had fallen.?’

During his first summer in the region, the new Fourth Region Commander
also wanted to get a measure of the general level of intellectual attainment of
cadets participating in Advanced Camp. Perhaps his interest in this matter
was sparked by a letter he received in May 1983 from Major General Prillaman
informing him that 60 ROTC cadets in the Fourth Region, all of whom were
contracted and a majority of whom were either MS IV or “completion” ca-
dets, had grade point averages below 1.5 (nationally, 600 contracted cadets fit
into this category). Through a discussion with Major General Robert M. Elton,
the Commander of the 9th Infantry Division at the time, he got the idea of
using the Test of Adult Basic Education—a test employed throughout the
Army to gauge the math and reading skills of soldiers—as the assessment
mechanism.

The results of the test disturbed him. The test was given to 2,400 cadets.
Fully 30 percent of them scored below the 12th grade level (10 percent at the
11th grade level and 20 percent at or below the 10th grade level) in the evalu-
ated areas. The Ordnance School had conducted similar tests the previous
year on newly commissioned lieutenants and got almost identical results. These
unsettling statistics only confirmed his belief that serious problems existed in
the ROTC and that ROTC cadets were not being properly trained or screened
prior to enrollment in the Advanced Course.”*

His experience at the Fourth Region’s camp prompted Wagner to take a
look at how summer training was being conducted in the other three regions.
He did not like what he discovered. There was a multiple Advanced Camp

57



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

General, Lieutenant General William R. Richardson, complained to the
DCSROTC, Brigadier General Daniel W. French, about low ROTC commis-
sioning standards and expressed the hope that with recent gains in enrollment,
TRADOC could be “more careful” in its “selection for commission.”

Attempts at Reform

After the Vietnam War, there was a general consensus among senior Army
leaders that something had to be done to improve training. To further this end,
the Army introduced the systems approach to training in the 1970s. Essen-
tially, the new approach consisted of “performance based instruction” in which
subjects were broken down in a number of specific tasks, each of which had to
be performed to a prescribed standard. The old lecture-demonstration-prac-
tice training format was thus replaced by one which was performance oriented
and required hands-on involvement on the part of the student.

Other initiatives that concentrated strictly on officer development were
also undertaken in the post-Vietnam era. In 1978, the Review of Education
and Training for Officers (RETO) Board convened to develop a uniform
system for educating and training Army officers. The RETO group
discovered that the four commissioning sources (Military Academy, ROTC,
OCS, and National Guard OCS) followed very different agendas and shared
few common standards. To remedy this condition, the group recommended
the adoption of the Military Qualification Standards system by all four
sources. This system specified the basic knowledge and skills each officer
was to possess at each stage of his professional development. By the early
1980s, the Military Qualification Standards I, which essentially was a
revised version of the 1970 Option C Program, became the single common
curriculum for the entire precommissioning education and training
community.**

The RETO Board also determined that the ROTC desperately needed an
assessment instrument that could objectively measure cadet leadership ability.
TRADOC introduced the Army Precommissioning Assessment System (PAS)
in the early 1980s to address this need. The PAS consisted of nine interrelated
parts and formed the basis of a screening and selection process that began
prior to enrollment and extended through commissioning. An important com-
ponent of the PAS was the Leadership Assessment Program (LAP). Intro-
duced in 1980, the LAP measured 12 leadership dimensions (which Cadet
Command later expanded to 16) by having cadets participate in a variety of
behavioral simulations that replicated situations they might encounter as Army

43



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

He would have to, despite his predilection to the contrary, attack its problems
in the same way he did those of the senior program.

Centralizing and standardizing JROTC operations he identified as the
first order of business. When Wagner arrived at Fort Monroe, a single desk
within the Training Division oversaw the entire JROTC program, which at the
time encompassed almost 900 schools and 135,000 cadets. Labeling this or-
ganizational arrangement inadequate would be a gross understatement of the
case. To turn things around, a new high school division (expanded to a direc-
torate in 1988) was created. This division included an operations branch (later
division), which directed the administrative and personnel aspects of the jun-
ior program and a training branch (later division), to monitor and manage
JROTC educational programs and encampments. The functions of this later
division were gradually expanded and by December 1987 included policy for-
mulation, curriculum development, and resource management.”’

Upgrading the quality and appearance of JROTC instructors was another
objective high on Cadet Command’s list of priorities. In the past, far too
many JROTC cadre members had been overweight (sometimes grossly so),
out of shape, and lethargic in their approach to their duties. The general im-
pression was that many of them had become JROTC instructors because they
could not find employment elsewhere. The command moved to correct this
situation by raising the qualification standards for instructor certification and
enforcing these standards more stringently. Army Regulation 145-2, Junior
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and National Defense Cadet Corps Organi-
zation, Operations, and Support was revised to reflect the new conditions for
employment. Every instructor applicant, the regulation directed, had to meet
Army height and weight standards and undergo an interview by regional au-
thorities before being hired. The new regulation also emphasized that JROTC
cadre members had to answer both to local school authorities and the Army—
a fact that had been lost on some instructors. Unsatisfactory instructors could
and would be “decertified” (i.e., in effect, fired).”*

Major General Wagner also sought to bring the JROTC under central-
ized control by linking it closely with the Senior ROTC. Captain Charles
Dollar, an action officer in Cadet Command’s Training Directorate, devel-
oped a management system to accomplish this end. Under this system, which
was dubbed the Umbrella Management System, every JROTC unit was placed
under a senior battalion in its geographic proximity. Cadre members from
senior units were required to inspect, visit, and assist JROTC programs in

268



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

the drop-off in “propensity” (or inclination to join the military) “alarming” and
warned: “It’s getting worse, and there’s no indication it'll get better right away.”

Being killed or being posted to some remote corner of the earth might
have been a factor in this decline in propensity but, according to the results of
the tracking survey, it was by no means the dominant one. The negative im-
age created by downsizing and cutbacks seemed to have been a much more
powerful force. Base closings, forced early retirements, involuntary separa-
tions, and reductions in Army end strength all did their part in convincing
many young Americans that the Army no longer offered the prospect of a
stable and long-term career. Neither did press reports featuring former or
retired service members who were finding it difficult to get a permanent job
after separating from the service help matters. Such stories had a particularly
strong effect on college students who were anxious to launch their careers.
Talk about the changing roles of the Army and the pervasive, if erroneous,
notion that the Army was becoming obsolete in the post-Cold War era rein-
forced the perception of irrelevancy and instability brought on by the draw-
down.*”

Many saw the transformation that the Army had undergone over the past
several years as ushering in a period in which the status of the military officer

MISSION & PRODUCTION OVER TIME

9000

—E- DA Nission
ooo | Be _7800 =Lk Production

8217 mG
7000 \
5000 \ 5800

5000 4500 ___ 4500 4500

\ Se
4000 ing

3912* 3924 3963

3000
89 90 91 92 93 94 95

*Due to curtailment of Early Commissioning Program and 2716 migrations

Figure 6-3. Mission & Production Over Time

164



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

independent decisions and taking independent action in the absence of de-
tailed orders from above.”

When the Chief of Staff convened the study group, the U.S. Army did
not have a system capable of producing enough leaders of the desired quality
and competency to fulfill the Army’s needs. The Review Group’s mandate
encompassed assessing officer professional development at all levels, from
precommissioning to senior service college. In the precommissioning educa-
tion and training arena, the group focused its attention on the most prolific
and heterogeneous commissioning source—the ROTC. It clearly did not like
what it found. ROTC detachments, the committee felt, spent too much time
and energy on recruiting and not enough on training. Moreover, the Army had
gone “too far,” in its estimation, in demilitarizing the program, or in the words
of the study group, “in making ROTC programs more popular and palatable
than proper and professional.” The Review Group’s analysis of officer pro-
fessional development needs along with its conclusions about what should be
done to bring officer education and training on line with Army requirements
were summarized in a document entitled “Review of Education and Training
for Officers (RETO).” Two derivatives of the RETO Study were especially
significant—the Military Qualification Standards I (precommissioning require-
ments) and the Leadership Assessment Program. These two initiatives pro-
vided the theoretical foundation on which Cadet Command constructed its
precommissioning training edifice.

Military Qualification Standards

With the RETO Study as its guide, TRADOC at the beginning of FY
1980 started the construction of what would become the Army’s Military Quali-
fication Standards (MQS). The purpose was to establish a baseline of skills
and knowledge for all Army officers. Through the MQS system, TRADOC
planners hoped to establish an integrated and comprehensive framework for
professional development that combined self-study, resident schooling, and
on-the-job experience. In its final form, the system had three phases identi-
fied as MQS I, IJ, and III, which laid out the tasks and subjects officers needed
to master at each stage of their career.

By 1984, the first phase—MQS I or the precommissioning phase—of the
MQS system had been fully articulated. It had three components—military
skills, professional knowledge subjects, and professional military education
requirements. Military skills were the basic soldiering tasks that every

92



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

region headquarters at Forts Bragg and Lewis and eliminate the Second Region
Headquarters at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It proposed that the Second Region’s
command, control, and administrative functions along with its Basic Camp
responsibilities be split between the remaining two regions. The name “split
camp option” was attached to this scheme because it entailed holding a
combined Advanced/Basic Camp at both Bragg and Lewis, thus splitting Basic
Camp between two posts.

The plan to close Second Region met resistance from a number of quar-
ters. At the Pentagon, the Judge Advocate General expressed concern about
the format of the plan while engineers questioned the adequacy of billeting at
Fort Bragg. At the same time, Senator Wendell H. Ford and Representative
Ron Lewis from Kentucky put up a determined fight against the closure. They,
along with many of their constituents, were worried that the closure of Sec-
ond Region Headquarters would destroy the viability of Fort Knox as an Army
post. Lewis and Ford amended the 1995 defense appropriations bill in both
the House and Senate to include language that prohibited the movement or
closure of Army ROTC regional headquarters or camps. Section 8074 of the
Senate version (10 July 1995) specifically forbade the elimination of Second
Region and the removal of First Region Headquarters from Fort Bragg un-
til the Comptroller General had reviewed the data and findings of the Army’s
closure investigation.”

The two congressmen inserted the provision about the First Region into
the legislation because they feared that the move of that region headquarters
to Fort Benning, Georgia—a move that was and still is being seriously con-
sidered by the Army—would diminish Fort Knox’s chances of retaining an
ROTC presence. To understand this rather complex connection, one must be
aware of the effort made by FORSCOM Headquarters in 1995 to kick the
ROTC region headquarters off Fort Bragg. FORSCOM, in fact, had wanted
Cadet Command to vacate Bragg before General John H. Tilelli, Jr. took over
as FORSCOM Commander in the summer of 1995, That headquarters re-
ceived an apparent nod of support when the Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen-
eral Dennis Reimer, who had been Tillelli’s predecessor as the FORSCOM
chief, ordered TRADOC Headquarters to study possible alternatives to Bragg
as an ROTC summer training site.

FORSCOM’s concern was that the presence of an ROTC regional head-
quarters and Advanced Camp at Fort Bragg hurt the readiness posture of the
Army corps stationed at that post—the 18th Airborne Corps. The hundreds of
soldiers needed to support and assist in the conduct of an ROTC summer camp,

250



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

The War Department held the commanders of the nine separate corps
areas responsible for supervising the ROTC at the intermediate level. Each
year, corps commanders were expected to conduct summer camps and inspect
every detachment within their area of responsibility. Unfortunately, the staff
element at corps headquarters that watched over the ROTC program was usu-
ally very small. In some corps, a single officer performed this duty. Not sur-
prisingly, many detachments received only a superficial annual inspection while
other detachments got none at all.

The chiefs of the 15 principal branches also played a part in overseeing
the ROTC program at the intermediate level. While the corps staff concerned
itself with all aspects of the program, the branches focused on curriculum de-
velopment and summer camp instruction. The organizational dividing lines
between the branches and the corps were not always clearly delineated. Over-
lap and “underlap” were both problems.”6

At the lowest level, the PMS&T ran day-to-day operations. He answered
to both the president of the institution to which he was assigned as well as the
corps commander. The PMS&T conducted his business with an officer-to-
cadet ratio that would have horrified his counterparts of a later era (roughly
1:100 in 1923 versus about 1:20 in 1990).27

The organizational arrangement outlined above did not have a mecha-
nism for upholding minimum training and commissioning standards nor did it
have at its head an individual positioned to protect the program’s interest in
high Army councils. What was needed, some felt, was a centralized command
structure dedicated to the administration of the ROTC and capable of enforc-
ing uniform standards. But creating such a command structure and imposing
uniform standards on such a disparate set of institutions as those represented
in the ranks of America’s colleges and universities would be, it was recog-
nized, difficult in the extreme. Colonel Ralph C. Holliday, PMS&T at The
Citadel in the late 1930s, thought it would be next to impossible. At the 1937
regional ROTC conference held at Fort McPherson, Georgia, he noted,

...It must be remembered that Senior units are not alike. What
is done at The Citadel, others can not do. The War Depart-
ment cannot afford to undertake the straightening out of all
these things. It is not a good policy to undertake to do that
which you cannot do.**

In 1941, the Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, tried to

17



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

would have resorted to what is today euphemistically called involuntary re-
lease programs. These programs, however, would have involved breaking
commitments to students and would not have been popular with the public,
the congress, or with the university community. The problem was partially
solved with the passage of the Reserve Forces Act of 1955, which allowed
ROTC graduates to serve a six-month stint of active duty, usually at a branch
school, instead of an extended tour.

Disposing of excess units, however, presented a thornier set of difficul-
ties than disposing of excess production. The Army’s predicament at the end
of the war revolved around two factors: there were many more units after the
war than there had been before it; and officer production requirements were
decreasing. To complicate matters still further, it was projected that this down-
ward trend in the production mission would continue in the near future. Un-
less appropriate actions were taken to balance the ROTC institutional base
with production objectives, there would inevitably be a proliferation of small
uneconomical units."'

ROTC UNITS (Host + Extension Centers)

450
400

350 | L
300 I
250 ia

w wy
- foe w w
200 uv a a4
© =
JE 3 2 w 3
159 | aes oN, Su z z 34
at V 3 US G Q 8
ZB s = im
100 = = w |
3 <——3
S i a
50
0

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990

Figure 8-1. ROTC Units (Host + Extension Centers)

219



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

Congressional Criticisms of the Closure Process

Congress also weighed in on the issue of uneconomical ROTC units
in the 1970’s. Congressional concern, in turn, heightened service interest
in the problem. In 1976, a member of the House Appropriations Commit-
tee observed:

...We have 31 Army (ROTC) units that for five consecutive years
have not produced 15 graduates. We have one Navy and six Air
Force units in that category. The numbers of units not hitting 15
in any one year during the past five years is a high percentage of
the ROTC detachments.*!

Another congressman noted that the cost of an OCS graduate was about 1/10th
the cost of an ROTC graduate and insisted that unproductive ROTC units would
have to be eliminated.”

As a result of its dissatisfaction with the way Defense Department was
handling this issue, Congress, in 1977, added Section 855 to P.L. 95-111. This
legislation prohibited the expenditure of funds for any ROTC detachment that
had failed to meet the MS III enrollment standard for four successive years
(except that at least one detachment was to be maintained in each state and at
each state operated maritime academy). The same provision was inserted
into the National Defense Act every year through 1984. These repeated
legislative assertions of congressional intent, however, had little, if any,
practical effect.

In 1978, the House attempted to further tighten up the closure process by
reducing from four to three the number of years that an ROTC unit could operate
below the Department of Defense standard. The Senate, however, rejected this
measure. Its collective position was that the standard prescribed in the Defense
Department Directive, since it used enrollment as the principal measure of a unit’s
value, was too simplistic. Consequently, the Senate urged that:

..a more systematic and objective set of factors should be drawn
up by the Department (of Defense) to evaluate the performance

and cost effectiveness of ROTC detachments.**

The Department of Defense standard drawn up in 1974, though, had many
congressional and military supporters. They felt that it was a useful device

227



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

The Creation of the ROTC

The years immediately preceding America’s entry into World War I wit-
nessed increased Army interest in collegiate military training. The General
Staff devoted considerable attention to it. That body believed that America’s
institutions of higher learning were the source from which the United States
should draw the bulk of its reserve officer corps. But to obtain the desired
qualitative results, the General Staff felt, the system of collegiate military
training had to be standardized, which in turn necessitated centralized direc-
tion. “Central control,” it wrote in one report, “is needed...to insure efficiency
and standardization.”'’ Imposing such a uniform program of military instruc-
tion on the nation’s highly diversified system of higher education, it also real-
ized, would be difficult in the extreme.

The Army Chief of Staff at the time, General Leonard Wood, put forward
some definite ideas about how to improve the existing system of military train-
ing at colleges and universities. In addition to upgrading on-campus instruc-
tion, Wood wanted to introduce a system of summer camps to provide cadets
with practical training and to require every lieutenant to perform a short tour
of active duty upon commissioning.'®

In 1913, General Wood tested his summer camp prototype when he spon-
sored two experimental Student Military Instruction Camps for high school
and college students at Pacific Grove, California, and Gettysburg, Pennsylva-
nia. Except for tents, rifles and personal equipment, which were provided by
the Army, students paid the entire bill. The training lasted five weeks and
included drill, marksmanship, squad patrolling, and other tactical subjects. Two
years later, with the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania as a backdrop, Wood opened
an additional summer camp at Plattsburg, New York, for some 1,200 attend-
ees, ages 20 to 40, with contributions from business and professional men.
Within weeks, national interest in Wood’s camps escalated into the Plattsburg
Movement. Utilizing the Plattsburg model, Wood hosted two more camps that
same summer; one attracting 3,000 participants and the other 16,000. These
camps prepared 90,000 officers for service in World War I and served as mod-
els for the ROTC summer training program that followed after the war.”

While Wood was busy pushing his program, representatives from The
Ohio State University—led by President William O. Thompson and Dean Ed-
ward Orton, Jr—advanced one of their own. At the 1913 annual convention
of land-grant colleges, Orton recommended legislation instituting minimum
national standards for collegiate military training and education. At the very
least, he wanted each military science program to include: two years of

13



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

University, Texas; University of Notre Dame, Indiana; Westminster College,
Missouri; Kansas State University, Kansas; University of Washington, Wash-
ington; and Creighton University, Nebraska. Headquarters TRADOC arranged
for the training of the ROTC cadre in the LAP methodology and evaluation
techniques at the TRADOC Orientation and Enrollment Program (TROEP)
located at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.

It was not long, however, before officials and instructors at TROEP be-
gan to question the feasibility of administering the LAP to all prospective MS
III cadets. The LAP and the various tasks it entailed were simply too expen-
sive in terms of both personnel and money, they felt, to be applied so widely.
As a result, the DCSROTC in 1983 limited LAP testing to summer compres-
sion program graduates, certain advanced placement candidates, and substan-
dard performers at Basic or Advanced Camp. Cadets with prior military ser-
vice, Junior ROTC advanced placement candidates, and certain four-year “pro-
gression” cadets were exempted.”

The Leadership Assessment Program was administered in a series of four
behavioral simulations—In-Basket; Scheduling; Counseling; and Assign-Role
Leaderless Group Discussion. Normally, a team of two or three cadre mem-
bers assessed six cadets. The cadre collected, recorded, and evaluated each
participant’s behavior observed in the simulations. After all four LAP exer-
cises were completed and the assessors compared behavior evaluations, a feed-
back session lasting 30 to 60 minutes was conducted for each cadet by one of
the assessors.

A cadet’s leadership potential was gauged according to the 12 dimen-
sions of leadership mentioned earlier. A leadership dimension was one of
many skills or abilities identified by a survey of active duty Army captains
conducted by the U.S. Army Center for Army Leadership as important for
effective performance as a second lieutenant. They included: oral communi-
cation; oral presentation; written communication; initiative; sensitivity; in-
fluence; planning and organizing; delegation; administrative control; prob-
lem analysis; judgment; and decisiveness. The cadre used these performance
indicators to produce a leadership profile for each cadet evaluated. This pro-
file was intended to help ROTC cadre members determine the participant’s
potential for commissioned service. Although the LAP could serve as a basis
for developing the leadership potential of cadets, it was primarily used in the
years before the establishment of Cadet Command as a screening tool for ad-
mission into the Advanced Course.’*

At the time of Cadet Command’s activation in the spring of 1986, both

96



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Information Sheet, subj: AGR APMS Placement Project, 2 October 1992,
LTC Crowson, ATOB-RC, HQ Second ROTC Region.

Issue Paper, subj: Congressional Action Precludes the Assignment of RC AGRs
to USAROTCCC Effective 30 September 1991, 2 November 1990,
MG W.C. Arnold, ATCC-ZA, HQ USAROTCCC.

Paper, subj: Army Officer Cadet Center, October 1983, BG Robert E. Wagner,
HQ Fourth ROTC Region.

Position Paper, subj: Implementation of the Professional Military Education
Requirement on Campus, 5 January 1982, COL Charlie W. Brewington,
Advanced Camp Division, HQ First ROTC Region.

SECONDARY SOURCES
ARMY COMMAND HISTORIES

Report of Activities, Army Field Forces. Fort Monroe, Va.: Office, Chief of Army
Field Forces, 1948 through 1954.

DCSIT USCONARC Semiannual Historical Reports. Fort Monroe, Va.: ODCSIT,
1964 through 1973.

DCSROTC TRADOC Semiannual Historical Reports. Fort Monroe, Va.:
ODCSROTC, 1973 through 1986.

TRADOC Annual Reports of Major Activities. Fort Monroe, Va.: Historical Office,
HQ TRADOC, FY 1974, 1975.

TRADOC Annual Historical Reviews. Fort Monroe, Va.: Historical Office,
HQ TRADOC, FY 1976, 1979 through 1982, 1988.

TRADOC Annual Command Histories. Fort Monroe, Va.: Office of the Command
Historian, HQ TRADOC, 1983, 1989, 1990.

TRADOC Historical Review, 1984-1986. Fort Monroe, Va.: Office of the
Command Historian, HQ TRADOC.

U.S. Army Cadet Command Annual Command Histories. Fort Monroe, Va.: Office
of the Command Historian, HQ USACC, 1990 through 1994.

U.S. Army Fourth ROTC Region Annual Historical Reports. Fort Lewis, Wa.: HQ
Fourth ROTC Region, 1983 through 1986, 1992.

USCONARC Semiannual Historical Reports. Fort Monroe, Va.: HQ CONARC,
1955 through 1973.

BOOKS

American State Papers: Military Affairs. Volumes IV, V, VI, VIl. Washington,
D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832-1861.

Crossland, Richard B. and Currie, James T. Twice the Citizen: A History of the
United States Army Reserve, 1908-1983. Washington,
D.C.: OCAR, 1984.

Ellis, William A. Norwich University, 1819-1911: Her History, Her Graduates,
Her Role of Honor. Volume |. Montpelier, Vt.: Capital City Press, 1911.

Hastings, Hugh. Public Papers of George Clinton: First Governor of New York,
1775-1779 and 1801-1804. Volume VIII. Albany: State Legislative
Printer, 1899-1914.

Historical Section, Army Ground Forces. The Procurement and Branch

346



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

Elimination and Reinstatement
of the Active Guard/Reserve Force

As the demobilization proceeded in the early 1990s, the Army ROTC
program was subjected to severe personnel reduction pressures from a num-
ber of quarters. Two overarching factors made the command more vulnerable
to these pressures than most other Army organizations. One was that it was
generally considered, especially by Army personnel managers, a manpower
intensive enterprise that could be cut without affecting the quality of the
precommissioning experience. Stationing five or six cadre members at one
university was a luxury, it was believed, that the Army could no longer afford;
two or three instructors could effectively run even the largest unit. After all,
how difficult and time-consuming could it be, many asked, to teach a couple
of classes a week and conduct an occasional field training exercise? Cadet
Command found itself constantly battling these antiquated and erroneous no-
tions of ROTC instructor duty. A second reason for its vulnerability was re-
lated to the lack of an ROTC constituency within the ranks of the Army’s
senior leaders. Unlike Military Academy graduates, ROTC graduates did not
band together or present a common front on issues affecting precommissioning
education and training. They tended to give their allegiance to the institution
from which they graduated, not to the ROTC. When Cadet Command faced
manpower losses, few rushed to its defense.!°

Arnold’s biggest test in the personnel arena came in 1991 when an effort
was made to take all full-time reservists out of Cadet Command. The assign-
ment of Active Guard/Reserve (AGR) officers to ROTC units began in 1981
when, as part of the Expand the Base initiative, 101 officers in the grades of
captain and major reported to ROTC Instructor Groups at selected host insti-
tutions scattered across the country. The goal of the Army at that time was to
have a National Guard or Reserve officer at each of the extant host colleges
and universities (314 at the time), a goal that was achieved by School Year
1983-1984. During that year, TRADOC, in response to an Army directive to
boost ROTC officer production, ordered an increase in cadre strength and es-
tablished a production efficiency target of six commissionees to one cadre
member. To accomplish this end, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army ap-
proved the assignment of an additional complement of 314 AGR officers to
the ROTC program. This new complement was to be phased in during FY
1985 and FY 1986. By the end of the latter year, there were to be two reserv-
ists at each host campus (one Army Reserve, one National Guard) and the

153



APPENDIX B

SENIOR ROTC
ENROLLMENT 1919 - 1995

ADVANCED.
SCHOOL COURSE OFFICER
YEAR TOTAL TOTAL PRODUCTION
1919-20 57,282 133
1920-21 54,137 934
1921-22 59,995 7,916 2,465
1922-23 68,580 9,796 3,786
1923-24 75,076 11,056 4,048
1924-25 82,761 13,460 4,884
1925-26 56,520 13,551 5,728
1926-27 81,584 13,480 5,839
1927-28 84,742 13,806 6,030
1928-29 85,750 13,629 6,139
1929-30 86,486 13,134 5,890
1930-31 88,104 13,561 5,984
1931-32 85,802 14,384 6,450
1932-33 76,437 14,205 6,686
1933-34 73,373 13,907 6,322
1934-35, 81,827 13,009 5,502
1035-36 92,688 12,819 5,584
1936-37 101,728 13,409 5,837
1937-38 106,027 13,702 4,964
1938-39 111,614 16,023 5,376
1939-40 117,853 17,855 6,709
1940-41 125,647 18,996 7,352
1941-42 125,439 20,050 *9,991
1942-43 135,513 24,035 *7,485
1943-44 31,714 116 *2,281
1944-45 36,570 87 “1,042
1945-46 38,520 86 None
1946-47 55,094 10,949 423
1947-48 94,887 18,666 4,354
1948-49 98,351 18,384 9,222
1949-50 105,173 22,729 8,928
1950-51 123,336 32,047 9,205
1951-52 135,471 35,648 12,993
1952-53 153,257 836,900 14,490

300



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

cadre members established close working relationships with local reserve units,
thus permitting ROTC cadets to take advantage of training resources, equip-
ment and professional development opportunities otherwise not available. The
training programs of some battalions were almost totally dependent upon re-
serve support. Last, AGR officers were uniquely qualified to instruct and
advise cadets on reserve component issues and concerns such as home station
drill periods, annual training, mobilization planning and personnel manage-
ment systems. Few active component officers were sufficiently familiar
with the complexities and peculiarities of the reserve system to explain
them to cadets.”

Cadet Command also emphasized the wider implications that the AGR
withdrawal held in store. It would, in the words of one full-time reservist,
take the “R” out of ROTC and give the program even more of an active duty
orientation than it already had. Moreover, the AGR ban would entail a man-
power loss that, together with the already scheduled drawdown of active duty
cadre, would result in the closure of an estimated 100 heretofore productive
ROTC units (a 29 percent reduction in the national total).

In the end, the arguments advanced by Cadet Command and its allies at
the Department of the Army and in Congress carried the day—at least par-
tially. The FY 1993 Defense Authorization Act repealed the AGR ban and
recognized the contribution that full-time reserve officers made to the ROTC
program. Major General Arnold requested a total AGR authorization of 275,
which equated to one reservist for each host college and university. This was
far below where the authorization had stood two years before but it was much
better than zero. The Congress gave Arnold 200 of the reservists he had re-
quested.

Over the course of the next year, Cadet Command pressed to get the
additional 75 AGR officers it felt it needed. Again, the command got its way
with Congress. The FY 1994 Defense Authorization Act raised the AGR au-
thorization level to 275. But Cadet Command soon learned that victory in
Congress did not necessarily mean victory in the field. The National Guard
and Army Reserve, who were also feeling the effects of demobilization, told
Cadet Command that they did not have the 75 additional officers authorized
by Congress available for assignment. The command would simply have to
make do with the 200 full-time reservists it currently had.?*

156



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Lyle Takes Command

On 17 June 1993, Major General Arnold handed over the command of
the U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command to Major General James M. Lyle.
Arnold left Fort Monroe to become the Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for
Personnel in Headquarters, Department of the Army. He could leave with a
feeling of satisfaction because he had accomplished most of the major goals
he had set for the command. The Junior ROTC was booming (see Chapter 9),
product quality had never been higher, and the proportion of four-year pro-
gression cadets in the Advanced Course had increased by 10 percent (from 50
to 60 percent).

Lyle had been commissioned in 1962 from the ROTC program at Will-
iam and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia. He came to Cadet Com-
mand from the Pentagon where he had been the Director of Training, Office
of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans. Prior to that, he had
been the Commander, Combined Arms Training Activity, Deputy Command-
ing General for Training, Combined Arms Command, and Commander, 3d
Armored Cavalry Regiment.

His long experience as a trainer had prepared Major General Lyle for the
precommissioning training responsibilities that he inherited. However, as Lyle
himself soon discovered after his arrival at Fort Monroe, it was not the
command’s training function that was having problems. It was recruiting. In
fact, in the early 1990s, the effectiveness of the ROTC training program and
the high quality of the Cadet Command product were recognized throughout
the Army. Testimonials from general officers, branch basic course perfor-
mance date, and input from the field all testified to the command’s success in
this area.

Unfortunately, recruiting and officer production were altogether differ-
ent stories. The new Cadet Command Commander was frankly startled when
he found out about sinking officer production.*' It had plummeted by almost
50 percent and total enrollment by over 40 percent since the late 1980s. Ana-
lysts on the Cadet Command staff warned him that, under the prevailing con-
ditions, the command faced the distinct possibility of being unable to produce
enough officers to accommodate the stated needs of the Active Army, let alone
meet its reserve officer production goals, in the near future.*

During the Arnold years, ROTC production shortfalls occurred but they
were not a source of major concern. The production missions, or objectives,
that the Army had given Cadet Command had been “soft,” that is, the Army

160



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

found itself with a surplus of ROTC officers awaiting active duty. The
Reserve Forces Act of 1955 represented an attempt to address this problem. It
stipulated that Army ROTC graduates could be given a six-month active duty
tour before being placed in one of the reserve components. Using this piece of
legislation, the Army was able to gradually pare its glut of junior officers and
at the same time give most ROTC graduates a taste of active duty.“

The Turbulent Sixties

By the early 1960s, signs pointing to the new importance of ROTC were
clearly discernible although not generally recognized by the American public
or its Army. The Distinguished Military Graduate Program, approved by
Congress in 1948, was now producing twice as many Regular Army offic-
ers annually as West Point (and had been since the mid-fifties). Moreover,
fully 75 percent of the yearly contingent of active duty lieutenants came from
the ROTC. It was also during this period that the first four-star ROTC gener-
als appeared: Generals George H. Decker (Army Chief of Staff), Herbert B.
Powell (Commander, Continental Army Command), and Issac D. White (Com-
mander-in-Chief, U.S. Army Pacific Command).””

Nevertheless, the ROTC was still not living up to expectations. The
Secretary of the Army Stephen Ailes declared that the Army ROTC pro-
gram was on a “downhill slide.” Many questioned the quality of the product
it was turning out, but its most serious shortcoming was seen as its inability to
produce enough officers to meet demands. Army leaders wanted 14,000-15,000
new ROTC lieutenants annually, but ROTC could produce only 11,000-
12,000.48

ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964

To resolve the ROTC production shortfall, Army leaders came forward
with an incentives package designed to attract more high quality cadets into
the program. Its major features were: a scholarship program; a larger subsis-
tence allowance for cadets enrolled in the Advanced Course; and an abbrevi-
ated curriculum option intended to accommodate those students who did not
enroll in ROTC as freshmen but who subsequently developed a desire to do so.
This last feature, it was believed, would allow the Army to tap a heretofore
unexploited segment of the student market—namely, the junior and commu-
nity college population of the United States.

25



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Fewer advertising dollars, of course, made the task of keeping the face
of the Army and ROTC before the American public much more difficult. Wide
and frequent public exposure was increasingly critical in an era when the
military was steadily losing popularity as a career option. Complicating things
still further, Cadet Command market analysts noted a declining benefit from
past advertising campaigns.*° All this meant trouble for a program that needed
to garner all the positive publicity it could to hold its own in an increasingly
competitive academic marketplace.

Increased Market Competition

The intense competition that the Army ROTC encountered in the aca-
demic marketplace also took a toll on enrollment. Capable students were in
great demand. Corporate America as well as the other military services were
doing everything in their power to lure these students into their ranks, includ-
ing offering them attractive scholarship packages. Colleges and universities
themselves were willing to provide highly qualified applicants with financial
incentives far more lucrative than anything the Army could offer.

Attracting talented minority students into the program posed particular
difficulties. In addition to the competition it faced from the academic and
business communities, the command had to contend with the resistance of
some Afro-American leaders who no longer viewed the Army as a path for
upward social mobility. In fact, many of these leaders discouraged young
black Americans from pursuing a career in the military. Rather than devote
their talents to national defense, young blacks were urged to enter fields and
professions that offered greater financial rewards and were afforded greater
societal respect.*!

Increased Time to Graduate

The fact that by the early 1990s it took longer for the average student to
complete a baccalaureate degree also hurt enrollment. College was not, and
for many had not been for some time, a four-year proposition. In 1993, the
average length of time for a student to complete an undergraduate degree stood
at approximately 5.5 years.”

Difficult economic times and tuition hikes certainly helped explain this
trend. Students had to work longer and harder to put themselves through school.
Reductions in federal funding for colleges and universities also had an effect.
Fewer government dollars meant fewer faculty members which in turn meant
fewer course offerings. Moreover, the faculty that did remain felt intense

166



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS

perceived as primarily a recruiting device for the Regular Army, a perception
that inevitably would have developed if the study group’s agenda had been
adopted. Thus, when the JRIP was submitted to General Richardson on 27
February, it included few of the study group’s recommendations.

General Wickham approved the JRIP on 30 April 1986. He told the
TRADOC Commander to proceed as far as he could with available resources
and directed his DCSPER to assist with those parts of the plan that were be-
yond TRADOC’s capacity. The final version of the JRIP was designed to
improve the JROTC in three ways: to enhance the program’s image by up-
grading cadet appearance and discipline and conducting summer camps; to
raise cadre quality and performance by clarifying and stiffening selection and
retention criteria; and to improve JROTC management by establishing an evalu-
ation plan and developing a computerized information system. The JRIP ini-
tiatives scheduled for implementation in 1987 included a contract for training
materials, regulations detailing cadre and cadet appearance standards, and cadre
performance appraisals and certification procedures. General Wickham’s mis-
sion statement was adopted but never really used.?°

When considered in its totality, the JRIP, as designed and implemented
by the DCSROTC, represented incremental not revolutionary change. True,
the program of instruction was revised to make the JROTC more relevant to
the needs of the Army and national defense establishment in the 1980s and
program administration was streamlined to promote greater efficiency, but
the JROTC’s bottom line remained the same. The program continued to be
viewed as it traditionally had—as a source of enlisted recruits, as a way to
create sympathy for and an appreciation of the military in the society at large,
and as a means by which adolescents could be indoctrinated with the ideals
and values of American nativist culture.

Establishing a New Azimuth, 1986-1990

When Major General Wagner took over Cadet Command in May 1986,
the JROTC did not figure prominently in his plans. The new Commanding
General, in fact, shared the misgivings harbored by many Army officers about
the program. To him and to them, Cadet Command was primarily about pro-
ducing “warrior leaders,” not about providing high school students with an-
other extracurricular activity.”°

Nevertheless, the realization soon dawned upon the new commander that
he could not divest himself or the command of responsibility for the JROTC.

267



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

to cast its institutional net wider and thereby broaden its production base. It
was a course of action that the Army had adopted during the Korean Crisis
and was to repeat on an even grander scale in the early 1980s during another
build-up. As the number of units increased, however, the size of the average
unit decreased. Figure 8-2. Most of the schools that gained new ROTC units
during the late 1960s were small to medium-sized state institutions located in
the South or Mid-West. They were, in the main, schools without a tradition of
political activism and, according to some worried Defense Department officials,
without a reputation for academic excellence."

During the Vietnam War, the Army’s unit disestablishment policy was
based on a memorandum, dated 9 December 1965, from the Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Manpower to each of the service secretaries. This document
set a production minimum of 15 for four-year units and 10 for two-year

ENROLLMENT PER UNIT

Compulsory ROTC —

Draft

1000

900

800 I
vo | | ha
600 / Jt

laa J 3 3
on
500 / = i < 24
a W _ = g s
= z Ww i
oO Ww 3 <x = a
400 = z z z= 34
) 4 rm a ?
x oO = = K
300 z= = < g
5 s— 31
9° { Ww n
200 = Wr
100 ae
0

1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991

Figure 8-2. Enrollment Per Unit

222



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

behavior were thoroughly and systematically assessed. The new way of gaug-
ing officer potential was an abrupt departure from the old with its narrow
focus on technical competence and mission accomplishment and its extremely
subjective evaluation instruments.

At the end of camp, performance appraisals were reviewed and a platoon
order of merit list developed. A cadet’s rank in this list depended upon dem-
onstrated leadership ability, not adeptness at basic military skills. The top 10
percent of this list received the highest score of 5; the next 20 percent were
given 4s; most of the remaining 70 percent got 3s—unless they failed camp,
in which case they received either a 2 ora 1.

Moreover, under Cadet Command, the Advanced Camp score became a
critical factor in determining who would be assigned to active duty and who
would not. As a rule, cadets who got a 4 or 5 at camp could be assured of
active duty; the prospects for a cadet who got a 3, on the other hand, were
problematic. Cadets with aspirations for a career in the military often became
teary-eyed when their platoon tactical officer informed them at the end of
camp that they had received a 3 rating.

The resultant pressure to excel placed great stress and demands on ca-
dets. This pressure, however, was not of the artificial or concocted variety
that one associates with basic training, Marine Corps boot camp, or freshman
year at a military college. Hazing and other forms of abuse were not permit-
ted because they were not necessary. The stress at Advanced Camp was inher-
ent in the training and evaluation process, not externally induced.

The Cadet On-Campus Training Program

The standardization of summer training Jed inevitably to the standard-
ization of on-campus instruction. Before the advent of Cadet Command, as
Colonel Cox had discovered to his dismay on his initial fact-finding tour in
the summer of 1986, PMSs conducted training and gave instruction pretty much
as they pleased. No two battalions prepared their cadets for commissioning or
for summer training in exactly the same manner. Newcomers to the ROTC
expressed astonishment at the “wide variety of programs which vary so greatly
in scope, content and activity.” PMSs had MQS I but no guide for its uniform
application."

Disturbed by this lack of standardization, Wagner directed Cox to re-
structure the on-campus program along the same lines as he had remade the
ROTC system of summer training. Taking the procedural manuals developed

106



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

for precommissioning military training and leader development, three factors—
the number of units, the number of cadets, and the number of cadre—had to
be in balance. The relationship that each of these factors had with the others
can be conceptualized using the metaphor of a three-legged stool. If one leg
of this stool was shorter or longer than the other two, then the entire structure
became unstable. One of Major General Lyle’s most enduring contributions
to Cadet Command and the ROTC will likely be the recognition and articula-
tion of the relationship that exists among the three factors.” See Figure 8-7.

THE THREE - LEGGED STOOL

High Quality Training & ining &
quality 72" hy
Leader Development vetopment \
Economic Efficiency A Leader P sficiencY
~ cS, ~ Economic We!

g 2
= 3
3 i)
3 r
Fy 3
3] 2
5 E
2 Zy

256

Figure 8-7. A) Units, Cadets, Cadre in Balance,
B) Units, Cadets, Cadre off Balance



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

during that era was by no means certain) and that the Naval ROTC would
function as a major source of active duty naval officers. The Navy further
strengthened its case when it successfully argued that the professional devel-
opment of a naval officer was necessarily different from that of an Army of-
ficer. This meant, advocates of Naval ROTC scholarships insisted, that the
naval service had unique and, the obvious implication was, more stringent
commissioning standards. In fact, many did view the Navy’s program as be-
ing on a higher professional plane than the Army ROTC — a perception that
was reinforced by the clustering of naval units on the campuses of the nation’s
“best” universities.

The Army, on the other hand, proceeded more tentatively. It instituted
an interim ROTC program after World War II, awaiting congressional action
on the Universal Military Training (UMT) Bill (which the Truman Adminis-
tration was then in the process of preparing) before it made final ROTC ar-
rangements. If the UMT bill passed, as many felt it would, the specter of an
inescapable military obligation would serve as a powerful inducement for col-
lege students to enroll in ROTC, or so it seemed to some observers. Scholar-
ships, in that case, would not be needed. When the Congress rejected the
UMT legislation, Army leaders had to scrap existing plans and begin again”

There was much more behind the Army’s failure in the scholarship issue
than its tactical miscalculation about the UMT legislation, of course. One of
its major problems was that its ROTC program, in contrast to that of the Navy’s,
continued to be viewed as primarily a producer of reserve officers. Because
of this reserve orientation, the Army ROTC found it difficult to compete with
the Naval ROTC for funding, being unable to justify the higher per capita
costs of a system of subsidized military education. The larger size of the
Army also worked against it. The Naval program had only to produce 1,500
ensigns per year to meet the modest needs of the Navy. The corresponding
figure for the Army was 20,000.

Moreover, not everyone within the Army was in favor of Army scholar-
ships. To be sure, the Army’s G-1 urged that the ROTC be considered an
integral part of the overall officer procurement plan and warned that if the
Army failed to provide scholarships to ROTC cadets, it would lose the cream
of America’s college students to the Navy. The Office of the Executive for
Reserve and ROTC affairs, however, took a contrary position. This office,
which was responsible for protecting the interests of the reserves within the
Army, was understandably wary of any initiative that would refocus the ROTC
away from its traditional mission of producing reserve officers. In testimony

185



17.
18.
19.

20.
21.
22.
23.

24.
25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.
31.

32.

33.

35.

36.

37.

38.

ENDNOTES

(1) The Junior ROTC Manual (Washington, D.C.: HQDA, February 1939). (2) The Junior
ROTC Manual: ROTCM 145-4-1; ROTCM 145-4-2, and ROTCM 145-4-3 (Washington,
D.C.: HQDA, 1948, later eds., 1955, 1958, 1962, 1968, and 1972). (3) CONARC Annual
Historical Reviews: FY 1970, pp. 265-66; and FY 1971, pp. 259-60. (4) Junior Division
Program of Instruction, Army ROTC, “Junior Green Book,” (Fort Monroe, Va.: HQ,
TRADOC, October 1970).

HQ USAROTCCC, Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Improvement Plan(JRIP),
February 1986.

(1) TRADOC Annual Report of Major Activities, FY 1974, pp. 134-135. (2) “History of the
Junior ROTC Program.” (3) Memorandum, DACA-FPZ-A, CPT Engelbrekteson, DAPE-
MPA to Mr. Kennedy, DACA-FPZ-A, 3 October 1985, subject: Funding for Junior ROTC
Camp. (4) Letter, Mr. Reres, DACA-FP, Deputy Assistant Comptroller of the Army to
DAPE-MPA, 15 November 1985, subject: Funding for Junior ROTC Camp.

First ROTC Region Historical Review, 1984-1988, “Junior Division,” p. 11, HRDC.

Ibid.

(1) Letter, DAPE-MP-ROTCSG, LTG Elton, Army DCSPER to Cdr, TRADOC,6 January
1986, subject: JROTC—Improvement Package. (2) Junior Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps Improvement Plan (JRIP).

Ibid.

(1) ROTC Study Group Report, I: 1. (2) Letter, ATCC-TT, GEN Richardson to GEN John
A. Wickham, Jr., 1 April 1986, subject: The Junior ROTC Improvement Plan (JRIP).
ROTC Study Group Report, \\: 17.

Ibid., p. 19.

Ibid., p. 30.

Letter, ATRO-TT, GEN Richardson thru LTG Elton, DCSPER to COS, 11 March 1986,
subject: The Junior ROTC Improvement Plan (JRIP). (2) Letter, GEN Wickham to GEN
Richardson, 30 April 1986.

Author interview with Mr. Paul Kotakis, 21 April 1995.

Fact Sheet, ATCC-TJ, Ms. Marks, High School Branch, 13 May 1987, subject:
The Junior ROTC Improvement Plan (JRIP).

Fact Sheet, ATCC-HS, SGM Dry, High School Directorate, 14 November 1989, subject:
Historical Background for AR 145-2 and Cadet Command Reg 145-XX. (2) Draft Army
Reg 145-2, Junior Program and NDCC Organization, Administration, Operation, and
Support, 11 August 1988. (3) Information Paper, ATCC-HS, Mr. Calvin Foster, High School
Directorate, undated, subject: Army JROTC Program Instructor Qualification.

Draft Cadet Command Reg 145-XX, The JROTC Management System: Operation Young
Citizen, 20 August 1988.

Fact Sheet, ATCC-HS, Ms. Marks, 14 November 1989, subject: JRIP.

Letter, DAPE-MP-ROTCSG, LTG Elton, 6 January 1986, subject: JROTC—Improvement
Package.

Lee S. Harford, Jr., A Comprehensive History of the Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Corps,
1827 thru 1991, HQ, USAROTCCC, unpublished manuscript, January 1992, p. 25.
Draft Cadet Command Reg 145-XX, pp. 1-1 to 1-2.

(1) Staff Study, Beverly F. McNair, Project Manager, Instructional Systems Development
to Contracting Procurement Officer, TRADOC, 5 April 1988, subject: U.S. Army JROTC
Project Milestone Plan. (2) Letter, Ms. Donna Marks, High School Directorate to Mr.
William Maxwell, President, Tech Data Management, 4 November 1988.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-HS, High School Directorate, November 1989, subject: Cadet
Challenge History. (2) Letter, ATCC-HS, MG Wagner to Region Cdrs, 10 March 1988,
subject: Cadet Challenge.

(1 Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994. (2) Cadet Command
Reg 10-5, Operation and Functions (O&F) U.S. Army Cadet Command, 31 December 1987.
(1) Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995. (2) Author interview with Mr.
Calvin Foster, 3 October 1995.

(1) Memorandum for Record, ATCC-HS, LTC Lawrence A. Bollen, Jr., Director, High School
to COS, Cadet Command, 29 November 1989, subject: Trip Re-port, 27 November 1989,
DC SAI Briefing on Operation Capital. (2) High School Directorate Semiannual

331



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Vietnam Conflicts and, as we have seen, effective action against substandard
units was not taken. Indeed, the number of units actually increased during
these periods.”

Even more significant than the command’s success in paring down the
institutional size of the program has been its articulation of a desirable ROTC
end state. Previous to the completion of the Five-Year Plan, ROTC downsizing
blueprints were essentially reactions to fiscal pressures. Budgetary and po-
litical exigencies dictated the pace and scope of unit deactivations. The
downsizing strategy was to hold on to as many units as the Defense Depart-
ment and Congress would permit.

The approach to restructuring changed with the publication of the Five
Year Plan. In the plan, Major General Lyle provided a vision of what, in his
estimation, ROTC programs should look like in the future. At the macro level,
the Commanding General envisioned a stable institutional base of from 230 to
270 “robust” units. A base larger than this, the command’s analysis of the
problem indicated, would result in the maintenance of units too small to sus-
tain effective training or to be operated on a cost-effective basis. A base smaller
than this would so shrink the collegiate foundation that other precommissioning
alternatives would have to be employed to supplement officer production even
in peacetime.

The Five Year Plan also provided for a “ramp-up” capability, albeit of a
new type. In the past, a “ramp-up” capability was achieved by retaining more
units than necessary to meet officer production requirements. In the event of
a crisis, the idea was, there would be enough “flex” in the system to satisfy
increased demands. If the crisis was a prolonged one, more units could be
created. This model has the ROTC program expanding and contracting like
an accordion in an effort to adjust to fluctuating objectives. One of the many
problems with this model is that (if experience is a valid guide) it is always
easier to expand the accordion than to contract it.

The “flex” in the new plan came from regulating the output of already
established units by offering more or fewer incentives (scholarships, subsis-
tence pay, etc.), raising or lowering commissioning objectives, expanding or
diminishing the advertising effort, etc. It reflected the recognition that the
ROTC is essentially a four-year program that is structurally unfitted to sud-
den and dramatic changes—either increases or decreases—in its institutional
base. For not only do such swings eventually produce fiscal inefficiencies,
they also create instability and, in most cases, degrade training.

254



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

AVERAGE NUMBER OF OFFICERS PER UNIT

5.5

5 b}-—— Sa

a5 Doo Ze

4 {Minimum (Per Unit)to train a
EFFECTIVELY

asi | | | [| | | | | | | | I

FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY FY
82 83 84 85 86 78 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Figure 8-6 Average Number of Officers Per Unit

the basis of a contract violation on the part of the university but was pre-
vented from doing so by the intervention of Senator Danforth. As a result of
the Senator’s efforts, a provision requiring the Army to place all host battal-
ions and extension centers on probation for the full evaluation period was
incorporated into the FY 1995 defense appropriations bill.” Although Cadet
Command experienced tactical failure in this case, it achieved a kind of op-
erational success since the procedure it had developed to disestablish uneco-
nomical units was now supported by law.

Major General Lyle does have one major concern about the Effective
Management Program, however. This concern centers on the program’s ap-
parent unsuitability for effecting large-scale closures of the type envisaged in
the Five Year Plan. The long probationary period and the requirement to ac-
tively assist uneconomical units might deflect outside pressures but it also,
the feeling is, slows down the disestablishment process. Whether the com-
mand can use the Effective Management Program to accomplish the remain-
der of its restructuring agenda is still to be determined.”

General Accounting Office Critique

In its audit of the President’s FY 1995 budget, the General Account-
ing Office had again criticized the services for maintaining unproductive
units. There were 111 ROTC units, it reported in the summer of 1994, that
at the end of the last fiscal year did not meet the congressional enrollment
criteria of 17 MS IIIs. It suggested that the Congress might want to trim

248



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

The diffuseness of the JROTC management structure compounded
JROTC’s troubles. It allowed the regions to run the program in essentially
any manner they saw fit. The result was that no two regions staffed, orga-
nized, or administered their JROTC divisions (if, indeed, they had one) in the
same way. They adopted different job titles and authorized different grades
for the same position, allocated personnel differently, and substituted civilian
for officer positions differently. JROTC staffing and administration became
so confused that the Chief of Staff of the Army’s ROTC Study Group could
not determine the “real” staffing levels at region headquarters.

The Program of Instruction

From World War I through the 1970s, JROTC textbooks reflected the
program’s emphasis on military training. Interwar editions of JROTC manuals
differed surprisingly little from those published in the 1960s and 1970s in
their basic thrust. The 1939 edition of the Junior ROTC Manual, for example,
contained chapters on the organization of the infantry, military sanitation,
drill and command, the rifle and rifle marksmanship, scouting and patrolling,
map reading, combat principles—rifle squad, and musketry. An edition of the
manual published some 30 years later included such topics as the characteristics
and principles of military organization, small unit tactics, technique of fire of
the rifle squad, tactics of the rifle squad, crew-served weapons, the 40-mm
grenade Jauncher, the 3.5-inch rocket launcher, and the 66-mm HEAT rocket
M72. Both editions could have been used as a primer in basic training.'*

The first really significant change in the JROTC curriculum occurred in
the mid-1980s with the adoption of the JROTC Improvement Plan (JRIP).
The central plank in the JRIP’s program of instruction was a recommendation
that at least 50 percent of the JROTC curriculum be devoted to the field of
technology. The intent of the recommendation was to motivate high school
students to become scientists and engineers, both of which the Army desperately
needed in its officer corps, and attract more “academically-oriented” students
and schools into the JROTC, which historically had been concentrated in “poor
schools that did not send people to college.” The emphasis that the JRIP
placed on science and technology meant that purely military training was
relegated to a lesser though still prominent place in the curriculum.”

Closely related to the regular JROTC program of instruction was the
encampment program. In 1973, the JROTC had received the authorization to

263



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Pre-World War Il

Eliminating marginally productive ROTC units has been a perennial prob-
lem for the U.S. Army. Indeed, the problem existed long before the formal
establishment of the modern ROTC program in 1916. As early as 1883, the
Army’s Adjutant General, R. C. Drum, had urged that Army officers be with-
drawn from campuses where the military enrollment fell below 150, the en-
rollment standard set by Congress in 1866. Drum’s successors made similar
requests in 1893 and 1895. If these requests had been carried out (which they
were not), the agricultural colleges of 20 states (representing about 25 percent of
extant collegiate military units) would have lost the Army officer assigned to them.'

The Army redoubled its efforts to eliminate military training programs at
colleges with small military enrollments in the demobilization that followed
the Spanish American War. Personnel and resources were both in short sup-
ply and readiness was a major concern. Collegiate military training, many
believed, was an expensive luxury and diverted people and money away from
more pressing tasks. One senior army leader complained that the detail of
officers to college duty “depletes the line and deprives the troops of the ser-
vices of...excellent officers when they are most needed.”?

Despite these protests, only a handful of active duty officers were re-
called from detached duty on college campuses.’ Even in the few cases where
regulars were withdrawn, units continued to function because retired officers
were invariably appointed to take their place. The difficulties the Army expe-
rienced in divesting itself of non-productive programs stemmed primarily from
the vigorous and effective opposition it encountered from the association of
land-grant colleges and the association’s supporters in Congress. The politi-
cal clout of the land-grant institutions was simply too much for the Army to
surmount. It is interesting to note that many institutions evidenced no par-
ticular interest in their military training programs until the War Department
threatened to withdraw its support — a fact which many cadre members rec-
ognized and tried to use as leverage to get more institutional support for their
military training programs.*

There was another, albeit less significant, obstacle to closing units be-
fore World War I. It had to do with the problem of measuring enrollment. At
some agricultural schools, for example, attendance dropped off dramatically
at the end of the academic year when many students returned home to help out
on the family farm. In 1904, drill attendance at one institution sank from 541
at mid-year to only 80 at the close of the year. And farm chores represented

216



RECRUITING CADETS

while ad agency representatives were to serve as advisers and provide techni-
cal assistance. In short, the soldiers were to replace the civilians at the helm.
Colonel Alexander Woods and Major Allen R. Resnick, both of whom had
completed the Army’s extended Training With Industry Program, were the
two officers brought in to head up the command’s marketing and advertising
functions."

In June 1986, the headquarters was reorganized to facilitate the adoption
of a more uniform approach to recruiting—the necessity of which Jugenheimer
and Fryburger had pointed out two years before. The Marketing and Adver-
tising Branches were split off from the Operations Division and formed into a
new Marketing Division with Colonel Woods as its chief. The new division
retained responsibility for all advertising and marketing research and, in addi-
tion, assumed control of the advertising budget as well as the automated Lead
Expediting and Dissemination System. Virtually all programs and capabili-
ties that affected the command’s ability to recruit were now concentrated in a
single staff section.

The new Marketing Division moved at once to break the localism and
regionalism that had in the past splintered ROTC recruiting effort into liter-
ally hundreds of discrete and disconnected parts. This drive reached a culmi-
nation in September 1987 with the publication of Cadet Command Regulation
145-4, Marketing, Advertising, and Publicity to Support Enrollment. This
document proscribed many former ROTC marketing practices. The use of
cartoons, for example, was eliminated from the advertising repertoire of re-
gions and battalions, and the distribution of promotional items, along with the
funding to buy them, was severely curtailed."

The shift of responsibility for the advertising budget from the Resource
Management to the Marketing Division streamlined the decision-making pro-
cess relative to the allocation of advertising funds. Streamlining was neces-
sary because marketing and advertising opportunities often materialized on
short notice. To exploit these fleeting opportunities, funds had to be identi-
fied and obligated quickly—something that was now, with the reorganization,
possible.

The headquarters’ reorganization also cleared the way for the adoption
of a regular and time-sequenced marketing planning procedure for the ROTC.
Under the provisions of Cadet Command Regulation 145-4, within which the
new planning procedure was outlined, Cadet Command Headquarters pub-
lished its marketing guidance in January, the regions published theirs in March,
and the battalions completed their “marketing action” plans by June. This

127



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

asking about a recruit’s sexual orientation but at the same time barred homo-
sexual service members from declaring their sexual preference or from en-
gaging in homosexual conduct. Certain academic officials, faculty members
and student groups on campuses across the nation viewed the policy as a form
of discrimination based on sexual orientation and as a violation of institu-
tional policy. In many instances, the ROTC program became the focus of
opposition to the rule.*°

In 1994, the issue sparked controversy at a number of Army ROTC-af-
filiated colleges. Spirited debate about or protests against the exclusionary
rule took place at the University of Arizona, the University of Connecticut,
the University of New Hampshire, the University of Northern Iowa, Texas
Tech University, the University of California at Berkeley, California State
University at Sacramento, and San Jose State University. In the autumn of
1994, a Rutgers University dean proposed that the university terminate its
association with the ROTC because it discriminated against homosexuals. A
panel was put together to consider the proposal. At the University of Califor-
nia at Los Angeles, the Defense Department’s homosexual policy brought forth
a similar motion to sever the university’s relationship with the Army. If UCLA
and Rutgers eliminated the program, they would have been following the lead
of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the California State University at
Chico, and the California State University at Sacramento—institutions that
had already or were on the verge of banning precommissioning military train-
ing from their premises.*’

All schools that had difficulty with the policy did not take such drastic
action. Some merely disassociated themselves with the exclusionary rule by
placing special statements in university catalogues and associated documents.
The effect of all this on recruiting was problematic, but Major General Lyle
estimated in 1995 that the program was “fragile” on about 20 percent of ROTC-
affiliated campuses as a result of this question.**

Cadet Command sought to be relieved of the Department of Defense
imposed requirement to brief all non-contracted Basic Course cadets on
the exclusionary rule. It took this stance because non-contracted MS Is
and MS IIs did not incur a military obligation when they enrolled in ROTC
courses and the requirement, it was believed, was a disincentive to partici-
pation in the program. The move was, in fact, in consonance with a larger
effort spearheaded by the Commanding General to remove all unnecessary
barriers to enrollment.”

168



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The U.S. Congress also contained JROTC critics. Representative Rob-
ert Dornan of California was among the most vocal. He questioned the wis-
dom of funding JROTC expansion at a time when drastic cuts were being
made in Army end strength. Thus far, a sufficient number of his colleagues
have recognized the benefits bestowed on the nation by JROTC to keep the
program and the expansion on track. The most recent threat to the JROTC
program occurred in August 1995 when the Senate Armed Services Commit-
tee proposed a 10 percent cut in JROTC funding for FY 1996. Through the
combined efforts of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Senator Sam Nunn of Geor-
gia, who took the lead in defending the JROTC in the Senate, the provision
was removed from the defense appropriations bill.

Penetrating the inner city schools of the Northeast has also presented
difficulties. Why it has been so difficult is not entirely clear but, certainly,
tradition and political culture in this region do not foster in the population an
affinity for military service. To counteract the pervasive negative market forces
at work in the region, Cadet Command developed an awareness campaign
designed to explain to targeted school systems the advantages of JROTC. The
campaign employed all the standard marketing tools as well as enlisted the
personal involvement of successive commanding generals. It has enjoyed
some success. The beginning of School Year 1995-1996 saw JROTC units at
certain public high schools in New York City and Buffalo that had in the past
been resistant to the program.”*

Retiree Recall

As it began preparations to implement Phase I of the expansion program,
Cadet Command discovered that it needed additional manpower. On 27 Oc-
tober 1992, it requested permission from the Department of the Army to recall
25 retired officers to active duty to assist in the expansion. Three retirees
were to be employed in the Cadet Command Headquarters (two in the High
School Directorate and one in the Training Directorate), two in each region
headquarters, and one in each of the 16 brigades of the command. The re-
quest received formal approval on 24 December. In granting his approval for
the recall, Mr. William D. Clark, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of
the Army (Manpower and Reserve Affairs), cautioned that the recall was only
for a limited period of time and was meant to handle the immediate “surge”
staff support requirements of JROTC expansion; it was clearly not a long-
term solution to personnel shortfalls.

280



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

80.

No

©@

10.
11.

330

Dr. Bert Huggins, ATCC-MO, Market Research Branch, Operations Division, MOPP, 5-10
Closure of Second Region Headquarters, unpublished manuscript, December 1995,
HRDC.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

USACC Annual Command History, 1 January - 31 December 1994, p. 7.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 26 June 1994.

Ibid.

See (1) Remarks by BG Milton E. Key, Chief, CONARC ROTC Directorate in Report of
theTenth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference, p. 7 and (2) Remarks by COL(P) Robert
C.Yerks, ODCSPER in Report of the Tenth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference, pp. 24-25.
Snyder, “Leaders for the Volunteer Force,” p. 83.

Briefing Slides, ATCC-P, “Personnel,” Commanders’ Mini-Conference, 21 February 1995.
Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1993), pp. 115-116.

Author interview with CPT Rachel Elkins, 6 July 1995.

Author interview with COL Thomas Maclver, 22 January 1996.

CHAPTER IX

(1) The United States Statutes at Large, Vol XXXIX (1915-1917), Part I, pp. 189-191.
(2) Army General Orders 49, 20 September 1916. (3) Leavenworth High School in
Kansas was the only public high school with a Junior ROTC unit during World War |; it
was established on 19 January 1917, and disestablished on 10 October 1917 in
accordance with War Department policy which then limited JROTC units to essentially
military schools, automatically excluding high schools.

BG L.R. Gignilliat, “Students and National Defense,” The World Tomorrow (October,
1926), pp. 148-150.

Proceedings of the Regional R.O.T.C. Conference, October 28-30, 1937,
Ft. McPherson, GA (Washington, D.C.: Civilian Military Education Fund, 1937), p. 22.
Military Training in High Schools of the United States, R.O.T.C. (Washington,
D.C.: Civilian Military Education Fund, 1936), p. 5.

(1) Report, Third Army JROTC Advisory Council Meeting, 14 January 1972, TAB D,
“JROTC History.” (2) “History of the Junior ROTC Program,” n.d., HRDC.

Ibid.

(1) U.S. Congress, House Subcommittee Number 3 and Committee on Armed Services
Hearings, ROTC Program, H.R. 4427, H.R. 4444, H.R. 8130, and H.R. 9124, Committee
Paper Number 33, 88th Congress, 1st Session, 1963, pp. 6517-6584 and pp. 6833-6836.
(2) Report, Ad Hoc Committee for JROTC, meeting in session from 30 April through 7
June 1963, subject: Future Operation of the Junior Division ROTC and National
Defense Cadet Corps Program.

The United States Statutes at Large, Vol LXXVIII (1964), pp. 1063-64.

(1) Press Release, Office of the White House Press Secretary, 14 October 1964,
Statement by the President. (2) “History of the Junior ROTC Program,” pp. 4-5.
Report, 3rd Army JROTC Advisory Council Meeting, p. 4.

(1) DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Staff Historical Reports, July thru December 1972,
Tab A, pp. 2-3; January thru June 1973, TAB A, pp. 1-2; and July thru December 1973,
p. 10, HRDC. (2) The United States Statutes at Large, Vol LXXXVII (1973), p. 660.
(3) United States Statutes at Large, Vol LXL (1976), p. 933.

(1) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1979-30 September 1980, pp. 263-64.
(2) Fact Sheet, n.d., subject: "Junior ROTC Enrollment, 1961 thru 1989." (3) The United
States Statutes at Large, Vol LXLIV (1980), p. 1087. (4) TRADOC Historical Review,
1 October 1983-31 December 1986, pp. 66-67. (5) ROTC Study Group Report, Il: 1-5.
ROTC Study Group Report, II: 11-13.



Bres, Maj. Gen. Edward S., 186
Brown, Frank D., 171

Brown, Dr. Larry, 75

Bureau of the Budget, 187

Bush, George, 275

business majors, 203

Businessman commercial, 131, 132

c
Cadet Battalion Operation Guide, 122
Cadet Cannonade, 75
Cadet Challenge program, 271
Cadet Command
cadet training arch, 97-101
camps, 97-105
concept of, 44-68
functions, 88-90, 157-159
image, 70-78
name change, 178
on-campus training program,
106-109
organization, 80-85
recruiting, 123-144, 174-177
region closures, 241-243,
249, 250
restructuring, 230-256
scholarship program, 140, 141,
201-214
school closures, 232-256
subordinate organizations,
83-87
Cadet Creed, 75, 76
Cadet Evaluation System, 179-182
Cadet Park, 74, 75
California Polytechnical Institute, 211
California State University at Chico,
168
California State University at
Sacramento, 168
Cadet Troop Leader Training, 40, 60
Camp Adventure, 63, 98
Camp Challenge, 102, 103
Camp Robinson, Arkansas, 116, 121
Camps After Action review
conference, 98
Camps Evaluation Team, 98
Camps Staffing Model, 104
Career Academies, 283
Carney, Lt. Gen. Thomas P., 277
Carter, Hazo W., 170
Carter, Jimmie, 196

INDEX

cavalry, 15

Central State University, 95

Chalgren, Col. Edward, 31

Cheney, Richard, 240

Chicago Tribune, 84

Chief of Naval Personnel, 189

Chief of Reserve Components
(CORC), 28, 30

Church of Latter Day Saints, 203

Civil War, 8, 9, 12

Claremont Colleges, 33

Clark, Gen. Mark C., 23

Clark, William D., 274, 280

Clarke, Gen. Bruce C., 230

Clinton, George, 7

Cohen, Eliot, 211

Cold War, 11, 21, 22

College of William and Mary, 55, 160

Collins, Robert F., 85, 86

Colorado State University, 85

Columbus College, 171

Combat Training Centers, 170

Combat Service support, 93

Combined Arms Command, 160

Combined Arms Service Staff
School, 173

Combined Arms Training Activity, 160

command and control, 93

Command and General Staff College,
113,170

Comptroller General of the Army, 26,
27, 29, 30, 37, 53

Congress, 21

Continental Army Command

(CONARC), 28-32, 35, 36

Organization for Managing the ROTC,
26-33

Scholarship Study, 193, 194

Continental Park, 73

Cornell University, 221

Counterpart Battalion, 138

Cox, Col. Robert S., 97, 106-108

Creighton University, 96

Cretella, Col. Joseph G., 141-143,
158

D
Danforth, Senator John C., 247, 252
Decker, Gen. George H., 25
Defense Language Institute, 112
Department of Defense, 33

351



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

problem. As a result, an ROTC-HBCU cooperative arrangement was estab-
lished. It was called the Enhanced Skills Training Program and was designed
to improve the reading, writing, and mathematical skills of cadets found want-
ing in these areas.’

Richardson also pushed to have more competitive officers assigned to
ROTC duty. Army personnel managers in the past had tended to shunt top
performers away from ROTC units. General Richardson attempted to reverse
this tendency by insisting that only successful line unit commanders be placed
in ROTC detachments. He enlisted the support of the Army Deputy Chief of
Staff for Operations and Plans, Lieutenant General Carl E. Vuono, in this ef-
fort. Vuono, like Richardson, understood that the presence of a suitable role
model counted for far more than curriculum content in the development of
aspiring officers.

Many university officials were clearly not happy with what Richardson
was trying to do. Their idea of “quality” apropos ROTC cadre, it seems, dif-
fered markedly from that of the TRADOC Commander. Whereas academics
tended to view this elusive concept in terms of grade point average and aca-
demic attainment, General Richardson looked at it in terms of military perfor-
mance. The best officers, he believed, did not always possess a graduate de-
gree or have a sterling undergraduate record.'°

The call for more academically qualified ROTC instructors had become
louder in the academic community during the final stages of the Vietnam War.
The Army responded to this call. Thanks to the Advanced Degree Program
for ROTC Instructor Duty and similar initiatives, the Army boosted the per-
centage of instructors with advanced degrees from eight to 64 between 1968
and 1974, This pleased college and university officials but not all ROTC
program administrators.''

The emphasis on graduate studies, many believed, damaged the program
in two ways. First, it strengthened the tendency of personnel managers to
assign “non-competitive” officers to ROTC. A graduate degree, which at some
universities became a prerequisite for assignment to its ROTC unit, was no
guarantee of military competence. Second, it tended to distract cadre mem-
bers from their military responsibilities. Senior ROTC administrators com-
plained loudly and often in the mid-1970s that widespread cadre participation
in graduate programs was hurting ROTC units and cadets. Annoyed by
this criticism, the TRADOC DCSROTC, Brigadier General Wilfrid Smith,
reminded these critics that the Army had encouraged these officers to pursue
advanced studies and added: “we cannot be too high-handed or critical when

49



CADET TRAINING

The next phase of training, Operation Gunfighter, taught basic weapons
skills. During Gunfighter, cadets learned to fire the M-16 rifle, the M-60
machine gun, the M-203 grenade launcher, and sight and detonate the M-18A1
claymore mine. They also acquired a basic knowledge of how these weapons
were to be employed on the battlefield. The adventure training phase, Opera-
tion True Grit, was normally conducted during the first two weeks of camp. It
included swimming, rappelling, stream crossings with one-rope, two-rope, and
three-rope bridges, the negotiation of obstacle and confidence courses, and
short classes in the principles of military leadership. Operation Future Chal-
lenge was held just prior to squad tactical training and taught cadets about the
operation and composition of the combined arms team.

Operation Bold Challenge, Basic Camp’s capstone exercise, served as
the vehicle for evaluating both cadet leadership ability and competency in
military skills. It consisted of four phases: squad offensive tactics; squad
defense tactics; a field leader’s reaction course (which tested the leadership
abilities of cadets by requiring them to solve various problems in a field envi-
ronment); and patrolling.

Camp Challenge also attempted to instill an esprit de corps in cadets and
acquaint them with the customs and traditions of the Army. To promote these
ends, it hosted its own guidon presentations and graduation ceremonies to
activate and deactivate the cadet regiments and issue awards to those cadets
who excelled at camp. Like Advanced Camp regiments, Camp Challenge ca-
det battalions were affiliated with an Active Army regiment (46th Armored
Infantry Regiment) and became part of that regiment.

Administrative Reform of Camps

When Major General Wagner took over Cadet Command, he found ma-
jor problems not only in the conduct of camps but in their administration as
well. Glaring disparities in the amount of resources and the number of per-
sonnel that it was taking to run the various summer programs raised questions
about the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of camp operations and undermined
the process of standardization that the command was so vigorously promot-
ing. Concerns about cost-effectiveness weighed heavily on the command be-
cause introduction of the tiered training concept had extended the period of
camp operations and increased camp costs.

In an effort to level camp expenses and promote administrative and fis-
cal efficiency, Cadet Command Headquarters initiated a detailed review and

103



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

the “Cougar Battalion” and the “California Brigade.” For the Fourth Region
itself, the nickname “Goldstrike” was selected.*!

A new standard organizational setup accompanied these name changes.
In each battalion, there were to be two staffs: a cadre administrative staff and
a cadet staff. The structure of the cadet staff was to mirror that of a regular
military battalion and consist of a commander, an executive officer, S-1, S-2,
S-3, S-4, and S-5. Cadet companies were headed by a commander and execu-
tive officer and cadet platoons by platoon leaders. The size of the unit was to
determine the number of platoons in a company and the number of companies
in a battalion. Heretofore, most battalions organized themselves as they had
seen fit.

The new organizational scheme established a definite chain-of-com-
mand—something that in the past had not always been discernible. A Fourth
Region directive, dated 20 December 1983, emphasized the importance of the
new organization:

The effective organizational structure of a unit directly influences
mission accomplishment and morale. The members of any orga-
nization must recognize their individual responsibilities and their
place on an integrated team geared toward common objectives.
Our goal is to standardize the cadet corps organization for the
benefit of our cadets and cadre.

The Ranger Challenge program represented yet another way in which
the Fourth Region Commander attempted to instill an esprit de corps and an
Active Army intensity into cadets in the region. The program was very rigor-
ous and consisted of individual and team competition in such military skills
as orienteering, marksmanship, combat patrolling, and rope bridge construc-
tion, as well as a test of physical endurance in the form of a 10-mile road
march. It was envisaged that this competition would one day evolve into a
true varsity sport in which cadet battalions would be pitted against one an-
other at the inter-collegiate level. It never progressed quite that far but it did
become an important tool for recruiting students and retaining them in the
program.**

The push to imprint an identity on ROTC in the Fourth Region did not go
down well with all cadre members. Some thought it frivolous, others consid-
ered it downright silly. Relatively few fully grasped what Wagner was trying
to do and why he was trying to do it. The utility of improving Advanced

67



APPENDIX D

SENIOR ROTC PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT TRAINING 1966 - 1995

ARMY

FLIGHT] ORIENTATION AIR| NORTHERN] MOUNTAIN
YEAR} TRAINING CTLT | AIRBORNE| ASSAULT, WARFARE| WARFARE
1966 704
1967 704
1968 850
1969 1,071
1970 1,156 243
1971 855 100 398
1972 594 285 631
1973 657 586 548
1974 719 575 918
1975 371 779 516
1976 393 875 1,001
1977 200 875 1,167]
1978 1,163 1,150}
1979 1,729 1,187] 500 16)
1980 1,700 1,264| 837 75)
1981 1,551 1,681 585 74|
1982 61 1,741 2,435 613 75)
1983 52 1,771 2,621 306 75)
1984 57 1,792 2,783 368 75]
1985 52 1,041 3,065 422 75)
1986 1,799 2,754 238 146
1987 1,816 2,717) 470 147
1988 1,668 2,905) 427 100)
1989 1,437 3,272) 337 99)
1990 1,305 3,181 504 100)
1991 768 2,847 275 60 30
1992 1,048 2,004 430 60 30
1993 999 2,603 297 60 30
1994 1,068 1,856) 340 60 30
1995 1,130 1,250) 396 60) 30

304



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

In quantitative terms, the contribution of these reserve officers was
indeed significant. A 1944 Army study of five combat divisions revealed that
reservists constituted 34 percent of the total officer strength: 70 percent of all
captains; 82 percent of all majors; 69 percent of all company commanders;
and 50 percent of all battalion commanders.”

But, as Lyons and Masland pointed out, the “mere availability” of 100,000
and some odd officers at the beginning of mobilization did not make the pre-
World War II ROTC program a success. Most ROTC graduates who did rise to
positions of authority owed their accomplishments to the hard school of
battlefield experience, not ROTC training. Junior officers commissioned
through the ROTC, in fact, did not prove as immediately useful to the war
effort as did OCS graduates.**

At the beginning of hostilities, the Army Ground Forces (AGF) Staff found
two principal weak points in the ROTC system. First, it did not produce officers
fast enough to meet demands. Second, its product was qualitatively inferior to
the OCS product. “The three months of intensive training undergone in an
officer candidate school under war conditions,” an AGF memo stated, “is far
superior to the full ROTC course.” Another AGF document asserted that the
ROTC graduate was neither a “first class leader” nor “tactically and technically
proficient.” One of the reasons for this qualitative inferiority, the authors of
the document maintained, was that in the inter-war ROTC program, “theoretical
training was stressed at the expense of the practical, largely because of the
lack of the necessary facilities for carrying on practical instruction.” An AGF
study of officer production problems at the Infantry OCS found that “leadership
deficiencies were far more common” among ROTC candidates than among
candidates from other sources. The study attributed ROTC leadership defects
to, among other things, the fact that ROTC candidates “had on the whole
received less practical military training than enlisted candidates” and to the
fact that “ROTC men had not been screened for leadership to the same extent
or on the same basis” as candidates from the enlisted ranks.** AGF misgivings
led to the suspension of the ROTC Advanced Course from 1942 through 1945.
It was superseded by OCS programs. Only the Basic Course remained in place
to facilitate the post-war reactivation of the ROTC.

19



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

39.
40.

41.
42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.
49.
50.
51.

52.
53.

54.

55.

332

Historical Report, 1 January-30 June 1990, TAB A “Operation Capital Activities,” HRDC.
(3) Information Paper, ATCC-HS, CPT Moorer, DC JROTC Facilitator to Command
Historian, Cadet Command, 10 May 1990, subject: Operation Capital History. (4)
Briefing Slides, Operation Capital presentation to Judge Reggie B. Walton, Associate
Director for State and Local Affairs (ONDCP), Washington, D.C., 27 July 1990.

Ibid.

(1) Ibid., (2) Letter, District of Columbia Public Schools, Office of the Superintendent, 24
October 1989, subject: Memorandum of Agreement Between MG Robert E. Wagner,
Cdr, Cadet Command and Dr. Andrew E. Jenkins III, Superintendent of Schools, Chief
State School Office, District of Columbia Public Schools.

ROTC Study Group Report, ll: 3.

Speech, President George Bush at Lincoln Technical Institute, Union, New Jersey,
24 August 1992.

Memorandum, CM-1340-92, GEN Colin L. Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
to the Secretary of Defense, 8 June 1992, subject: Expansion of the Junior Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps.

Memorandum, ATCC-ZA, MG W.C. Arnold, 31 August 1990, subject: Command
Guidance, School Year 1990-1991, HRDC.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-HS, COL Andrew L. Jackson, COS, to Cdrs, First, Second,
Third and Fourth ROTC Regions, 27 August 1992, subject: Cadet Command Task Force
on JROTC Expansion. (2) Annual Historical Summary (January - December 1992), ATCC-
HS, LTC Lawrence A. Bollen, High School Directorate, 5 April 1993, HRDC.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-HS, COL Andrew L. Jackson, to Cdrs, First, Second and Fourth
ROTC Regions, 20 October 1992, subject: Army Junior ROTC Expansion. (2) Annual
Historical Summary (January - December 1992), ATCC-HS, LTC L.A. Bollen, High School
Directorate, 5.April 1993, HRDC. (3) Congressional Record, Vol 138 (1 October 1992),
No. 138 - Part Il.

Memorandum, LTG Robert M. Alexander, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Military Manpower and Personnel Policy) for Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army
(Military Personnel Management and Equal Opportunity Policy), Deputy Assistant
Secretary of the Navy (Manpower) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Force
Support and Personnel), 29 October 1992, subject: Policy Guidance for Junior ROTC
Expansion.

Annual Historical Summary (January - December 1992), ATCC-HS, LTC L.A. Bollen,
5 April 1993,

Author interview with Mrs, Carol Hetler, 20 October 1995.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hayes, 22 January 1996.

(1)Author interview with Mr. Calvin Foster, 20 October 1995. (2) Author interview with
Mrs. Carol Hetler, 20 October 1995.

Author interview with Mrs. Carol Hetler, 20 October 1995.

(1) Author interview with LTC J. Turbish, 15 March 1993. (2) Author interview with
LTC Michael Hayes, 22 January 1996.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-RR, MG W.C. Arnold thru GEN Frederick M. Franks, Jr., Cdr,
TRADOC and LTG Thomas P. Carney, Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (DCSPER) for
Mr. William D. Clark, Principal Deputy, Assistant Secretary of the Army, Manpower and
Reserve Affairs, 27 October 1992, subject: Temporary Staffing Support for Junior
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Expansion. (2) Memorandum, T. Wilson, Assistant
Deputy for Military Personnel Policy for COL J.G. Cretella, Personnel and Administration
Directorate, Cadet Command, 15 December 1992, subject: Temporary Staffing for JROTC
Expansion. (3) Memorandum, Mr. William D. Clark, for Mr. Gary L. Purdum, Director of
Manpower, ODCSPER, 21 December 1992, subject: Temporary Staffing Support for Junior
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) Expansion. (4) PROFS Note, ATCC-P, COL
J.G. Cretella to First, Second andFourth ROTC Region Cdrs, 12 March 1993, subject:
NCO Staffing Support for JROTC Expansion.

(1) Briefing Slides, ATCC-HS, High School Directorate, n.d., subject: Operation Young
Citizen: JROTC Orientation Course. (2) Annual Historical Summary, ATCC-HS, LTC L.A.
Bolien, 5 April 1993.



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

CADET COMMAND GOLDMINER LOCATIONS

e
HQ 4ROTCR

SEATTLE

HQ 2ROTCR I

DELAWARE

TIDEWATER,

DALLAS @
FORT WORTH

HQ 1ROTCR

Figure 3-7. Cadet Command Goldminer Locations

“selling” the ROTC program on campus and representing the Army in the
local community, the PMS and staff taught and trained cadets and performed the
myriad of administrative and logistical chores associated with all military units.)

Wagner realized that an overhaul of the ROTC structure on campus could
not by itself revitalize the program. Only by raising the quality of officers
assigned to ROTC instructor duty could this happen. The battle to upgrade
cadre quality promised to be a difficult one if for no other reason than the
precedent for the ROTC being a professional dumping ground for officers had
been so firmly established. In the four decades between the end of World War
II and the establishment of Cadet Command, military periodical literature
abounded with references, both direct and indirect, to this destructive assign-
ment policy.

Tn an article published in the May 1986 issue of Military Review, Colo-
nel Robert F. Collins, at the time the PMS of Colorado State University in

85



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES

DOCUMENT COLLECTION

USACC Historical Records and Document Collection (HRDC), Office of the
Command Historian, HQ USACC, Fort Monroe, Va.

BRIEFING SLIDES

NGB, NG-ARO-TI, “94 Consolidation,” n.d.

TRADOC DCSPAL, “ROTC PMS Selection Procedures Decision Briefing for
General Richardson,” 14 May 1985.

USACC, ATCC-O, “Cadet Command Production: Mission Set 75-88,” n.d.

USACC, ATCC-TE, “Cadet Command Issue,” Collegiate Education Advisory
Committee, 30 March 1995.

USACC, ATCC-T, “Camp Statistics," Cadet Command Command Briefing,
4 March 1995.

USACC, ATCC-MO, “Command Update Briefing,” n.d.

USACC, ATCC-MO, “Enrollments and Contracts,” Cadet Command Command
Briefing, 3 March 1995.

USACC, ATCC-PA, “1994 Recap,” Cadet Command Commander’s
Miniconference, 21 February 1995.

USACC, ATCC-HS, “Operation Young Citizen: JROTC Orientation Course,” n.d.

USACC, ATCC-PA, “Personnel,” CSA Briefing, 14 January 1995.

USACC, ATCC-MO, “Reasons for Production Decline,” Cadet Command
Command Briefing, 3 March 1995.

USACC, ATCC-PS, “Scholarship Allocation Plan,” Cadet Command Commander’s
Miniconference, 16 February 1995.

USACC, ATCC-PS, “Scholarship Offers—Past, Present, Future,” Cadet
Command Commander's Miniconference, 16 February 1995.

USACC, ATCC-MO, “Structuring and Resourcing ROTC Cadet Command,”
presented to the Undersecretary of the Army, Mr. Shannon,
22 June 1992.

USACC, ATCC-MO, “Retention Goals,” Cadet Command Command Briefing,
4 March 1995.

341



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

TEADERSHIS

xii



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Camp instruction they could understand, but the importance of imbuing ca-
dets with a sense of their own history and tradition escaped them. Brigadier
General Wagner realized that many of the devices he employed to achieve the
desired moral effect (“instant tradition” as he called it) were artificial; he also
believed, however, that this mattered little. His concern centered on the minds
of cadets, not on scholarly accuracy.

68



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

ROTC COMMAND PATCH

Figure 3-3. ROTC Command Patch

founding and served a function somewhat analogous to that of the gradua-
tion parade at the service academies.

Over the next four years, the Cadet Command staff adopted a series of
other measures intended to infuse the command with elan and tradition. In
September 1986, Cadet Command adopted a musical piece entitled “A Bar of
Gold on Army Green” as its official song. At the 1987 Spring Review, Wagner
dedicated the Cadet Park, which was established on the grounds of the Cadet
Command Headquarters (Bldg #56 on Fort Monroe), to celebrate the Ameri-
can citizen-soldier tradition. To add to the “historicity” of the occasion, Lieu-
tenant General Robert H. Forman, the TRADOC Deputy Commanding Gen-
eral, and Major General Wagner planted two white dogwoods—the Virginia
state tree—with soil from the Yorktown Battlefield. (Wagner’s hidden motive
in opening the park on the grounds of the headquarters was to make it difficult
for acquisitive TRADOC staff officers, not all of whom were supporters of
the new command, from appropriating the headquarters building for their own
use. Its official designation as a national park, Wagner believed, would help
prevent this from happening.)'?

74



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

recommended. A similar program for the weeding out of
ineffective units was initiated by OCAFF in December (1949)
with the dispatch of a letter to Army commanders and Chiefs of
Technical Services on this subject.*

According to the records of the Adjutant General’s Office, at least 10 of
the 13 closures mentioned in the 1948 and 1949 historical reports of the Army
Field Forces involved medical units, most of which were located on a campus
that hosted another ROTC detachment. (The medical unit at the University of
Cincinnati Medical School closed in 1948, but the “regular” detachment at
that institution remained open.)

On the whole, the Army did not enjoy great success in its campaign to
eliminate uneconomical ROTC units in the immediate post-war period. In
1949, fully 30 percent (55 out of 182) of all ROTC detachments graduated
fewer than 10 lieutenants. Another 13 percent (24 out of 182) turned out
between 10 and 15.’ True, some of the units with low production totals were
affiliated with technical and specialty branches, which operated under differ-
ent rules. Nevertheless, it is clear that more needed to be done in the way of
closing down ineffective units than was actually accomplished.

Post-Korean War Demobilization

Because the administration did not declare full mobilization and because
of the bulk of the fighting was over in the first year, the Army chose to rely on
the ROTC with its long lead time to meet its officer needs during the Korean
War. Accordingly, the Army boosted the ROTC production goal by several
thousand and expanded the number of ROTC units from 181 to 251 (a 39
percent increase). Figure 8-1. Colleges, especially private colleges, were
eager to get ROTC units established on their campuses. Indeed, 250 applica-
tions for new units could not be accommodated. This new found enthusiasm
for ROTC was due to the increasing dependence of private institutions on
tuition income and to the fear of college presidents that unless they could
offer prospective students the benefit of draft deferment, which participation
in the ROTC program did, they would see their enrollments decimated.”

The ROTC program’s long lead time made it difficult to turn off the of-
ficer production machine once hostilities ceased. The Army thus found
itself with a huge surplus of newly commissioned second lieutenants. The
problems created by this surplus could have been quickly solved if the Army

218



CPT captain

CSA Chief of Staff of the Army

csUu California State University

CTA common table of
allowances

CTC Combat Training Centers

CTLT Cadet Troop Leader

Training
cTo company tactical officer
cy calendar year
D

DA Department of the Army
DAI Director of Army
Instruction
DARNG
Director, Army National
Guard
DASE-COOP
Department of the Army
Scientific and Engineering
Cooperative
DCG = deputy commanding
general
DCS _— deputy chief of staff
DCSIT Deputy Chief of Staff
for Individual Training
DCSOPS
Deputy Chief of Staff
for Plans and Operations
DCSPAL
Deputy Chief of Staff for
Personnel and Logistics
DCSPER
Deputy Chief of Staff
for Personnel
DCSROTC
Deputy Chief of Staff
for ROTC
DCST Deputy Chief of Staff for
Training
DMG Distinguished Military
Graduate
DMS Distinguished Military
Student
DOD Department of Defense

E

ECP Early Commissioning
Program

EED educationally and

LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABREVIATIONS

economically deprived
EMP _ Effective Management
Program
ETB Expand the Base

F
FOA field operating agency
FM field manual

FORSCOM
U.S. Army Forces
Command
FTX __ field training exercise
FY fiscal year
G

GAO General Accounting Office

GEN — general

GPA grade point average

GRFD Guaranteed Reserve Forces
Duty

H
HBCU Historically Black College/
University
HQ headquarters
HQDA Headquarters, Department
of the Army

1
IADT inactive duty for training
IAW in accordance with
1ET initial entry training

IG Inspector General
IMP Intensive Management
Program
IRR Individual Ready Reserve
ITT individual tactical
training
J

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JRIP JROTC Improvement Plan

JROTC Junior Reserve Officers’
Training Corps

JSOCC Junior School of Cadet
Command

L

LAP Leadership Assessment
Program

LAW light anti-tank weapon

335


49.
50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

56.
57.
58.
59.
60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

72.

ENDNOTES

U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. LXXVIII (1964), pp. 1065-66 and 10-70.

Deputy Chief of Staff for Individual Training (DCSIT), HQ USCONARC, Semiannual
Historical Report (1 July - 31 December 1966), p. 1, HRDC.

(1) LTC Warren W. Hansen, “ROTC: A national asset that transcends military needs,”
Army (August 1963), p. 35. (2) George Mair, “What’s Wrong with the ROTC?”, The
American Mercury (1963), p. 27.

HQ USCONARGC, Fifth Annual ROTC/NDCC Conference, 5-8 September 1967, pp. 10-
11, HRDC.

Comptroller of the Army, A Study of Organization for Management of the Army ROTC/
NDCC Program, p. 5.

Ibid.

(1) DCSIT, HQ USCONARC,Semiannual! Historical Report (1 January - 14 May 1962),
p. 12. (2) COL Robert F. Evans, Chief, ROTC Division, Office of Reserve Components,
"Status of ROTC Program", 1964, p. 2. (3) HQ USCONARC, Report of the Fifth Annual
ROTC/NDCC Conference, 5-8 September 1967, p. 4. (4) Comptroller of the Army, A
Study of Organization for Management of the Army ROTC/NDCC Program, p. 8.
Comptroller of the Army, A Study of Organization for Management of the Army
ROTC/NDCC Program, p. 73.

Ibid., p. 27.

Ibid., p. 31.

DCSIT, USCONARC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 July - 31 December 1966), pp.
1-2, HRDC.

HQ USCONARG, Report of the Third Annual ROTC/NDCC Conference, 5-8 September
1967, p. 10, HRDC.

(1) HQ USCONARC, Report of the Fifth Annual ROTC/NDCC Conference, 5-8
September 1967, p. 4, HRDC. (2) DCSIT, HQ USCONARC, Semiannual Historical
Report (1 July - 31 December 1966), p. 2, HRDC.

(1) HQ USCONARG, Fifth Annual ROTC/NDCC Conference, 5-8 September 1967, p. 15,
HRDC. (2) HQ USCONARC, Ninth Annual ROTC Conference, 15-16 September 1971,
pp. 95, 99 and 111, HRDC.

(1) HQ USCONARG, Ninth Annual ROTC Conference, 15-16 September 1971, p. 18,
HRDC. (2) “Behind the Drive to Destroy ROTC,” U.S. News and World Report,
Vol. LXVIII, (June 26, 1970), p. 20.

(1) COL Baxter M. Bullock, A White House Conference on ROTC, U.S. Army
War College, Student Essay, 16 October 1973, p. 8. (2) LTC Shuichi Miyasaki,
A Case Study of the Army ROTC Core Curriculum and Its Implementation in the
70's, U.S. Army War College, Student Essay, 14 December 1972, p. 4.

(1) Alfred F. Turner, The Army ROTC—Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,
Air War College Research Report No. 3697, May 1968, p. 45. (2) Report of the
Special Committee on ROTC to the Secretary of Defense, September 22, 1969.
(3) The Effectiveness of the (ROTC) Leadership Laboratory Program, U.S. Army
Command and General Staff College Student Thesis, August 1967, p. 17.

(1) Joseph W. Scott, “ROTC Retreat,” The American Military, ed., Martin Oppenheimer
(Transaction Books, 1971), p. 60. (2) AR 621-101, March 8, 1972. (3) Senior Division
Program of Instruction, Army ROTC (Green Book), August 1970.

Letter, GEN W. C. Westmoreland to GEN J. K. Woolnough, CG, USCONARC,
5 May 1969.

(1) Joseph W. Scott, “ROTC Retreat,” The American Military, ed. Martin Oppenheimer
(Transaction Books, 1971), p. 65. (2) George Mair, “What's Wrong With the ROTC?”,
The American Mercury (May 1963), pp. 25-28.

HQ USCONARGC, Sixth Annual ROTC/NDCC Conference, 4-6 September 1968,
p. 20, HRDC,

Ibid., p. 139.

HQ USCONARC, Eighth Annual ROTC Conference, 9-11 September 1970,
p. 2, HRDC..

HQ USCONARC, Tenth Annual ROTC Conference, 13-14 September 1972,
p. 6, HRDC.

309



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

TRADOC Consolidation and the Scholarship Program
Push to Increase Scholarships .....
Increasing Importance of Scholarships
Raising the Scholarship Age
The Army Allocation Program
Army Preference for “High-Tech” Disciplines
Failure to Reach "High-Tech" Goals
The Scholarship "Cap"...
Scholarship Tiering..........
Objections to Scholarship Tiering .
Defenders of Tiering .......

Chapter 8
RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND ...........-cccccsccsssesessesstenenenseeeenees

Pre-World War II
Post-World War II Demobilization
Post-Korean War Demobilization
The Vietnam Build-up...
Post-Vietnam Demobilization
Department of Defense Directive 1215.8
Defense Department and Army Concerns
Congressional Criticisms of the Closure Process .
DCSROTC Viability Standards
Substandard Training..
The Reagan Build-Up
The Effective Management Program.
Post-Cold War Demobilization ....
Operation Horizon
Phoenix/Alternative Strategies
The Drawdown Continues
Region Closureé.........0++
The Five Year Plan ..
General Accounting Office Critique .
Attempt to Close Second Region .
More Personnel Cuts .
Five Year Plan Results .
Cadet Command's Contribution

viii



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

73.
74,

75.

76.
77.

78.

80.
81.

82.

83.
84.

85.
86.

Oar

310

Ibid., p. 29.

(1) Author interview with Mr. William Marlin, 30 August 1995. (2) Comptroller
of the Army, A Study of Organization for Management, p. 73.

(1) DCSROTC, TRADOG, Semiannual Historical Report (1 July - 31 December 1973),
p. 4, HRDC. (2) Jean R. Moenk, Operation Steadfast Historical Summary: A History of
the Reorganization of the U.S. Continental Army Command (1972 - 1973) (ODCSOPS,
FORSCOM and the OSOS TRADOC, 1974), pp. 173 and 225.

Moenk, Operation STEADFAST Historical Summary, p. 173.

(1) DCSIT, USCONARC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 July - 31 December 1971),
pp. 7-8, HRDC. (2) DCSROTC, TRADOC ,Semiannual Historical Report (1 October
1981 - 31 March 1982), p. 9, HRDC.

Briefing Slide, ATCC-MO, “Cadet Command Production: Mission Set 75-88," n.d..
DCSROTC, TRADOC, 1975 Orientation and Briefing Files, undated, HRDC.

Fact Sheet, ATRO-ZP, LTC Pattison, DCSROTC Plans Office, 8 September 1981.

(1) DCSROTC ,TRADOC,1975 Orientation and Briefing Files, undated, HRDC.
(2) Memorandum for Record, ATRO-PST, MAJ Wood, DCSROTC PST Division,
22 October 1979, subject: Decision Briefing - ROTC Expand the Base Program—
CSA, 18 October 79.

William P. Snyder, “Leaders for the Volunteer Force: The Problems and Prospects of
ROTC,” in Lawrence J. Korb, ed., The System for Educating Military Officers in the U.S.,
Occasional Paper No. 9, (International Studies Association, 1976), p. 86.

Ibid., p. 7.

(1) Memorandum, ATDCG, LTG Richardson, for BG French, 29 October 1980, subject:
ROTC Standards. (2) Office of the Chief of Staff, Department of the Army, A Review of
Education and Training for Officers (RETO), |: V-2. (3) Letter, ATRO,MG Rogers,
to region cdrs, 20 April 1977, subject: Matters of ROTC Interest.

A Review of Education and Training for Officers (RETO), |: V-5.

(1) BG John P. Prillaman, Manning the Force—ROTC Strategy for the 80s: The Mission
and the Product, 16 August 1983, HRDC . (2) DCSROTC, TRADOC Semiannual
Historical Report (1 October 1979 - 31 March 1980), pp. 15-17, HRDC.

CHAPTER II

TRADOC Annual Command History, 1 October 1982 - 30 September 1983 (Fort Monroe,
Va.: 1987), pp. 329-50.

(1) Author interview with MG Daniel W. French, 21 September 1995. (2) Author interview
with Mrs. Nancy Parker, 21 September 1995. (3) Author interview with Mr. Cal Foster,
25 September 1995.

(1) Letter, ATRO, MG Prillaman, Cdr, ROTC Cadet Command, 14 March 1983, subject:
Assumption of Command. (2) TRADOC Annual Command History, 1 October 1982 -
30 September 1983, p. 207.

Author interview with MG Robert E. Wagner, 25 March 1995.

Author interview with Ms. Judy Taylor, 15 September 1995.

(1) Memorandum, ATRO, MG Rogers, DCSROTG, to region cdrs, 20 April 1977, subject:
Matters of ROTC Interest. (2) Memorandum, ATDCG, LTG Richardson for BG French,
29 October 1980, subject: ROTC Standards. (3) TRADOC Annual Command History, 1
October 1981 - 30 September 1982, p. 325. (4) Letter, ATRO-PP, MG French to Region
Cdrs, 29 April 1981, subject: ROTC Quality Assurance System. (5) Message, SSO
Leavenworth, LTG Richardson to SSO Sill, TRADOC, 27 February 1981, subject: Officer
Standards.

(1) Letter, ATRO-R, MG Prillaman, to HQDA (DAPE-ZA), 19 August 1983, subject: ROTC
Production Mission, 1986-89. (2) Memorandum, TRADOC Cdr to DCSROTC, 17
February 1983. (3) Letter, MG Prillaman to MG Frederick J. Brown, Commandant, Armor
School, 18 May 1983. (4) Letter, MG Wagner to MG Prillaman, 11 February 1985.
(5) Letter, ATCG-P, GEN Richardson to BG Wagner, 4 March 1985.



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

To help prospective officers pass through the “cadet training arch,” Ca-
det Command produced the Cadet Leaders How-To-Fight Manual in 1988. It
was issued to each cadet prior to the start of Advanced Camp. The manual
provided the procedural steps for accomplishing each task that the cadet was
expected to master. Critical task outlines allowed the cadet to conduct a self-
evaluation before each day’s instruction. By careful self-testing, a cadet could
identify weak areas and seck assistance before the official evaluation process
began.

Basic Camp

Basic Camp, the other part of the ROTC summer training program, was
also subjected to drastic revision and rearrangement by Cadet Command. Major
James Sutherland, a member of the command’s Training Directorate, headed
this effort to remake Camp Challenge (the operational name given to Basic
Camp) in the image of Camp Adventure. After soliciting and collecting input
from the regional headquarters, Sutherland put together a proposal to accom-
plish the restructuring. It was ready in final form by February 1987.

The restructuring of Basic Camp involved two fundamental alterations
to the traditional program. One was an expansion of the mission. In addition
to teaching basic military skills and qualifying students for enrollment in the
ROTC Advanced Course (missions that Basic Camp had had since its incep-
tion in 1964), Basic Camp was now charged with the responsibility of evaluat-
ing their leadership potential. The second alteration was the adoption of a
progressive and sequential approach to training, similar to the approach used
at the three Advanced Camps. The phases (also called operations) of Camp
Challenge were designated Pathfinder (general military subjects), Gunfighter
(weapons training), True Grit (adventure training), Future Challenge (branch
orientation), and Bold Challenge (squad tactics). Since about one-fifth of the
cadets commissioned each year were graduates of Camp Challenge, the revi-
sions to the program and training regimen introduced by Major Sutherland
and his associates were destined to have far-reaching consequences.

Operation Pathfinder familiarized the cadet with all the first-level gen-
eral military subjects required for successful participation in the squad tacti-
cal training. It included communications; first aid; individual tactical train-
ing; an infiltration course (conducted first in daylight and then at night to the
sounds of exploding munitions and machine gun fire); land navigation; nuclear,
biological, and chemical warfare; and troop leading procedures.

102



LIST OF ACRONYMS
AND ABREVIATIONS

AAP Army Advisory Panel
AAR after action review

AC active component
ACT American College Test
AD active duty

AFB Air Force Base

AFF Army Field Forces
AGF = Army Ground Forces
AGO Adjutant General’s Office
AGR_ Active Guard/Reserve
AHS Annual Historical

Summary

Al Army Instructor

AIT advanced individual
training

AOCC Army Officer Cadet
Center

AP Allocation Program

APMS Assistant Professor of
Military Science
AR Army Regulation
ARI Army Research Institute
ARNG Army National Guard
ARPERCEN
U.S. Army Reserve
Personnel Center
ARSTAF
Army Staff
ASA (M&RA)
Assistant Secretary of the
Army (Manpower and
Reserve Affairs)
AT annual training
ATP = Army Training Program
AUSA Association of the United
States Army

334

B
BASOPS

base operations
BCT basic combat training
BG brigadier general
BN battalion

c
CAC U.S. Army Combined
Arms Command
CAL Center for Army
Leadership
CAR Chief of the Army
Reserve
CAS* Combined Arms and
Services Staff School
CATA Combined Arms Training
Activity
CCAB Cadet Command Accession
Board
CCP Cadet Completion Program
CDR commander
cG commanding general
CGSC Command and General
Staff College
CJCS Chief of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff
CNGB Chief of the National Guard
Bureau
CONARC
U.S. Continental Army
Command
CONUS continental United States
CORC Chief of Reserve
Components
COS chief of staff



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The Fourth Region staff submitted a design of what it thought the new
emblem should look like to the DCSROTC. Major General Prillaman
selected it from among a number of other design proposals. On 16 August
1985, he, after making one significant alteration, forwarded up the Fourth
Region’s insignia to the U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry, the Army agency
charged with reviewing and approving all such items.”

The insignia had a background consisting of a shield divided into four
quadrants; the shield symbolizing the Army’s mission of national defense
and the four quadrants the traditional four-year course of study. In the
new design, the red, white, and blue on the old ROTC patch were replaced
by the colors of the Army—black and gold. The interior symbols con-
sisted of an upraised sword, “representative of the courage, gallantry, and
self-sacrifice intrinsic to the Profession of Arms;” a lamp, symbolizing
“the pursuit of knowledge, higher learning, and the study of military sci-
ence;” and the helmet of Pallas Athena, Greek Goddess of both War and
Wisdom, representative of the “warrior scholar.” In the Fourth Region
proposal, the inscription “Leadership Excellence” was emblazoned across
the top of the shield. See figure 3-2. Prillaman substituted “Duty-Honor-
Country” for “Leadership Excellence” before sending it on.*

PROPOSED ROTC COMMAND PATCH

LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE

Figure 3-2. Proposed ROTC Command Patch

72



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

the ROTC held both a personal and professional significance for Lyle.

Although the two men shared common training philosophies, they dif-
fered substantially in style and method. Wagner’s combative and often
abrasive manner contrasted sharply with Lyle’s almost cherubic and af-
fable demeanor. The affability of Major General Lyle, however, masked a
determination and exactitude that brought some officers up short when they
did not live up to the Commanding General’s expectations. Methodologi-
cal differences between the two men were just as pronounced as stylistic
ones. Nowhere were these differences more evident than in the discussion
that led to the revamping of the cadet evaluation system.”

Cadet Evaluation System

The cadet evaluation system, as it had evolved under Wagner and Arnold,
had three parts: grade point average, the PMS evaluation, and the Advanced
Camp score. Before a particular year group could be commissioned, the data
on each cadet had to be fed into the accessioning system. There, a national
order of merit list was developed using the three factors cited above as well as
any other factors deemed important by the head of the accessioning board.
The weight attached to each part varied from year to year, from branch to
branch, and, indeed, from individual to individual. Who sat on the accessions
board was therefore of great significance.

This evaluation system was, in certain respects, amorphous and irregu-
lar. Grade point averages, for example, were interpreted in various ways.
Some officers on the accessions board would attach greater weight to a 3.2
from a prestigious private university than 3.2 from a lesser known state insti-
tution. In the same way, a 3.2 in mechanical engineering often counted for far
more than 3.2 in history. There was no guide for the interpretation of grade
point averages. Each board member was left to decide for himself what they
meant.

The PMS evaluation was, in most cases, even more subjective in nature.
To come up with a score for this evaluation, the PMS rank-ordered all MS IV
cadets in his battalion according to their perceived potential as an officer. No
standard evaluation methodology guided this endeavor. Evaluation algorithms,
when they did exist, reflected the efforts of individual cadre members. It was
not unknown for the PMS to construct such an algorithm after he had com-
pleted his evaluation in an attempt to put a facade of objectivity on a very
subjective process.°°

179



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

cadre members. Expecting to sce replications of Camp Adventure, he was
patently disappointed by what he found. Each camp had adopted the “tiered
approach” and the regimental affiliation program, and used the same termi-
nology, but the spirit of the new training guidance was absent. Intensity, rigor,
and a uniformity of execution were missing.

In an attempt to turn things around, be formed an evaluation team com-
posed of field grade officers from each region under Colonel Kenneth “Barky”
Norman, a brigade commander in the Fourth Region and one of the original
Camp Adventure architects. The team traveled between camps during the
summer giving advice and assistance to camp administrators. When the camps
closed at the beginning of August, however, the process of remaking them
was still not as far along as Wagner would have liked.

Cadet Command held its first post-camp conference in September 1987.
All regions were represented at this gathering. A comprehensive review of
the entire summer training program uncovered the reasons why things had not
gone as planned. The opinions and proposals of Colonel Norman’s evaluation
team provided the catalyst for discussion. Through the exchange of ideas and
views that followed, a plan was developed for effecting the necessary adjust-
ments in camp operations the following summer.'°

Out of this conference emerged a standardized planning cycle—a plan-
ning methodology that has been used by Cadet Command ever since. The
cycle began in September, the month after the close of camps, with a Camps
After Action Review Conference. At this conference, participants reviewed
the problems of the previous camp and developed plans for remedying them.
The results were summarized in an executive summary. Cadet Command then
took this executive summary, combined it with other information, and pub-
lished a Camps After Action Review Report, which contained guidance to the
regions for the next year’s camp. The regions, in turn, held their own pre-
camp conferences during the fall or winter to coordinate summer training prepa-
ration at their level. In the spring, Wagner conducted a program review and
inspection at each camp to ensure his intent had been realized.

The Camps Evaluation Team served as the “directed telescope” of the
Cadet Command Commander. For the camps of 1988 and 1989, Colonel Cox
and Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Hataway headed the team. They were as-
sisted by one experienced lieutenant colonel from each region. The team as-
sembled before the opening of summer camp at Cadet Command Headquar-
ters, where the members were briefed on the commander's vision for camp
operations. Evaluation visits lasted up to a week at each camp, allowing

98



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

the Training Directorate in 1992). Yet, the expediency displayed in this
case was representative of the unconventional measures that were taken to
get the headquarters on its feet.7*

Subordinate Commands

The organization of region headquarters bore a close resemblance to that
of Cadet Command Headquarters. The major differences were the absence of
the internal review, surgeon, and information management functions on the
regional special staffs, the presence of a Junior ROTC division at region, and
the combination of the marketing and operations functions in one division at
the regional level. As the command matured, the national headquarters was
gradually reconfigured to match the organization of its subordinate regions. A
Junior ROTC Division was established at Cadet Command Headquarters in
October 1987 and the marketing and operations functions were consolidated
in March 1992 into a Marketing, Operations, and Public Affairs Directorate.

The regional commands were subdivided into cadet brigades. Originally,
there was a total of 18 brigades (that number subsequently shrank as the Army
downsized). On average, a brigade commander supervised 18 cadet battal-
ions and five extension centers and controlled all ROTC activities—to in-
clude those of JROTC units and Goldminer recruiting teams—within an area
that extended over two middle-sized states. See Figure 3-6. To bring them into
closer contact with their charges, most brigade commanders were “for-
ward deployed”—i.e., stationed in the area for which they were responsible
instead of at region headquarters as had been the practice in the past. To assist
them in carrying out their various responsibilities, which included recruiting, train-
ing, and institutional liaison chores, they were given a small staff, which normally
consisted of an executive officer and an administrative noncommissioned officer.?°

Goldminers played an especially important role within the brigade. See
Figure 3-7. One of their principal tasks was to help high school students who
had indicated an interest in becoming Army officers get in contact with the
nearest college or university hosting an Army ROTC unit. These recruiting
teams worked hard to entice into the program the “All-American Freshman”—
a well-rounded high school student who not only had a respectable grade point
average but also participated in extracurricular activities, played sports, and
belonged to service and special interest clubs. By charging the Goldminer
Teams to seek out this type of student, Wagner, as he had done as Fourth
Region Commander, attempted to draw cadets from the mainstream of univer-

83



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

the possibility of closure.”5’ Frank D. Brown, the President of Columbus
College, asserted that—

..1 do not believe there is any way to achieve the assigned mis-
sion in our ROTC activity until we have the number of officers
we are authorized...I feel strongly that we have not been sup-
ported in good faith fashion but we are moving forward with a
genuine team spirit at Columbus College.*

The President of Michigan Tech, Curtis J. Thomkins, contrasted the Army’s
support of the ROTC program with that of the Air Force:

.. Adequate staffing with quality cadre and continuity are criti-
cal elements which will have an immediate impact on the suc-
cess of Michigan Tech’s Army ROTC Program. Despite man-
power reductions in both services, the Air Force has been able to
maintain a fully staffed ROTC cadre. Unfortunately, the Army
has not done so.”

The situation would have been even more dismal had not the Personnel
Command permitted the assignment of non-branch qualified captains to ROTC
duty. These recently promoted captains, who were to serve a 24-month in-
stead of the normal 36-month ROTC tour of duty, started to arrive on campus
at the beginning of 1994. By November 1995, there were 217 of them in the
command. Prior to this, only experienced captains who had already com-
manded a company were permitted to serve as ROTC instructors. If the expe-
dient of assigning non-branch qualified officers to the command had not been
adopted, the command’s assigned officer strength would have been 34 percent
instead of 24 percent below the 1990 level. In terms of training effectiveness,
the use of non-branch-qualified captains was a success, at least in the opinion
of the Cadet Command Commander. Major General Lyle on several occa-
sions expressed his satisfaction with the performance of these, as he referred
to them, “high quality officers.”

But the employment of these junior officers represented something of a
risk—both for Cadet Command and for the officer involved. It was a risk
born of necessity. The Army in the autumn of 1993 simply did not have enough
branch-qualified captains to go around. Cadet Command Headquarters initially
had some reservations about how well these comparatively inexperienced

171



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

average (20 percent versus 65 percent). The results of the 1995 lieutenant
colonel to colonel promotion board revealed that not one of the 95 Cadet Com-
mand lieutenant colonels considered were selected for promotion.”

This is not to say that Cadet Command had a quality problem. Field
grade officers in the bottom half of their year group in 1995 had been in the
top half a few years before. Nevertheless, “at risk” officers were far more
likely to leave the service early or to retire than were officers with greater
promotion potential. As a group, they were also more likely to lose focus on
the task at hand. Cadre who recognized that their assignment to ROTC duty
probably signaled the end of their career often divided their attention between
their job and their search for follow-on employment. Recruiting, retention,
and instruction all suffered as a result.

Enrollment Increase

Despite the many impediments with which it had to contend, there
were indications by School Year 1994-1995 that Cadet Command was begin-
ning to turn the negative production trend around. MS I enrollment was one
of these positive signals. Between September 1994 and September 1995, it
shot up 23 percent. Basic Camp attendance, Cadet Command’s primary means
of lateral entry into the ROTC Advanced Course, also increased 23 percent
over the same period. Headquarters analysts began to become more optimis-
tic about the command’s ability to meet its future production missions. In the
following few paragraphs, the reasons for enrollment gains and for the opti-
mism about future officer production will be discussed.

Command Emphasis on Recruiting

One of the reasons the production picture improved after 1994 was that
Major General Lyle threw the full weight of his position behind the recruiting
effort. He used every opportunity to indoctrinate ROTC cadre with his plan
for turning things around. One point he constantly stressed was the necessity
to increase MS I enrollment. Without establishing a firm enrollment base at
this level, he reasoned, officer production would always remain a problematic
venture. One percent of the freshman class he set as the minimum MS I en-
rollment standard, but told his host battalion PMSs that 100 MS Is should be
their goal.”

The “Five Chances to Say Yes” initiative was another means by which
the Commanding General attacked enrollment shortfalls. As its name implies,

174



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

and proposals that did not go down well at TRADOC. One such proposal
advanced by Generals Thurman and Elton called for removing ROTC from
TRADOC and making it either a field operation agency (FOA) of the DCSPER
or a major subordinate command (MSC) of the proposed “Army Personnel
Command.” The advantage of this arrangement was that it would facilitate
ROTC recruiting since it would place ROTC in an organization whose prime
function was filling the ranks of the Army. It would also, however, detract
from the educational and training aspects of the ROTC program by divorcing
it from TRADOC, the command responsible for, among other things, the edu-
cation and training of Army leaders.

To establish the ROTC as an independent command in the manner pro-
posed by Thurman and Elton would have required a significant increase in
manpower. Approval for such an increase, it was realized, would be difficult
to secure because the Army at this time was attempting, through a program
called “Army Management Headquarters Activities,” to enlarge its teeth at
the expense of its tail. All major headquarters and administrative agencies
were expected to make significant personnel cuts. This had serious implica-
tions for the Office of the DCSROTC, which had the manpower assets of all
four region headquarters and every ROTC detachment charged to its account.'*

General Richardson adamantly opposed the proposed move, arguing that
the professional education of officers had no place in the accessions business.
Such an organizational realignment, he insisted, would make the ROTC even
more of a recruiting agency than it already was and would do nothing to elimi-
nate the operational disadvantages under which it presently functioned. More-
over, by severing ROTC’s organizational link to TRADOC, training support
from that command would be more difficult to obtain. Richardson’s March
1984 letter to General Thurman detailed the strongest reasons for leaving the
ROTC under TRADOC control:

..I consider ROTC to be first and foremost a crucible for leader-
ship development. I see a direct link between what the officer is
to learn before commissioning and the follow-on training pro-
vided in the TRADOC school system, and our goals for future of-
ficer professional development..... The preponderance of officer
precommissioning training is through ROTC. Both this and
subsequent training through our school system are under
TRADOC’s command. Fragmenting initial entry training for of-
ficers deprives the Army of the necessary coherence and continuity

51



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

General William R. Richardson

or organization he was addressing. In this way, he was able to gain at least a
little more respect for his office from outside agencies.>

Only three days before Major General Prillaman became ROTC’s nomi-
nal commander, General William R. Richardson assumed command of

47



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

The Civil War and After

At the start of the Civil War, the Union found that it did not have nearly
enough trained officers to lead the Army. The 20,000 officers initially re-
quired overwhelmed the supply of 1,500 West Point and Norwich graduates
available for service. By necessity, the leadership in most regiments devolved
upon military novices.* The officer crisis impelled the United States Congress
to make some provision for the education of citizen-soldier military leaders.

Representative Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, a friend and neighbor of
Alden Partridge, introduced a piece of legislation which came to be known as
the Land-Grant College Bill in December 1861. The proposed act gave every
state 30,000 acres of public land for each of its members in Congress. Funds
generated from the sale of the land were to be used in establishing and sustain-
ing at least one agricultural and industrial college in each state. The bill stipu-
lated that military tactics had to be included in the curriculum of these institu-
tions. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act on 2 July 1862, the
day after General George McClellan’s disheartening defeat in the Seven Days
Battles (June 25 to July 1).”

Soon after the passage of the Morrill Act, land-grant colleges began to be
endowed and military instruction became part of many college curricula. Pro-
fessors with Civil War military experience headed up most collegiate military
programs. They did this, however, as a sideline as they still had to perform
their full-time duties in other fields. The training offered in those early years
often left much to be desired. In most cases, it consisted exclusively of drill—
and that of the most rudimentary kind. Perhaps this was all that could be
expected from a program that had no defined objective, no authorized provi-
sion for uniforms or equipment, no syllabus, and no prescribed outline of
courses. Even had the training been better, the Union’s officer procurement
woes would not have been allayed since Morrill’s bill came much too late to
have exercised a significant impact on the course of the war.

In the post-Civil War era, the Congress enacted a number of measures
designed to improve collegiate military training and encourage its growth. In
1866, it authorized the President to detail 20 officers to teach military science
at land-grant institutions; in 1870, small arms and equipment were authorized
to be issued; in 1880, retired officers were granted permission to teach; in
1888, War Department assistance was made available to schools outside the
land-grant community, to include high schools; and in 1893, legislation raised
officer authorizations for detached college duty to 100. By the turn of the
century, some 42 institutions, including both state and private colleges, had



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

to the contention of the General Accounting Office that the Army was not
serious about enforcing the Defense Department standard. ROTC program
managers at the Pentagon came forward with a proposal to close 20 substan-
dard units. The Department of Defense approved the projected inactivations.
Before closure action could be implemented, the TRADOC Commander, at
the instigation of his DCSROTC, intervened. He first convinced the Army
Chief of Staff and then the Secretary of the Army that only two units should
be eliminated. He made it clear that he would effect a large-scale closure only
if so ordered by the Defense Department.

To understand why the TRADOC Commander acted as he did, one must
remember that the Army in the late 1970s was experiencing a severe officer
production deficit. In 1975, TRADOC had been instructed to increase annual
ROTC officer production from its existing level of about 4,600 to 10,000 by
1980. One of the ways it planned to do this was through the creation of new
units, most of which were to be a new category of unit that came to be known
as the extension center. These centers were to be considerably smaller than
host detachments and consume less manpower. Thus, far from looking to
shrink the ROTC’s institutional base, TRADOC was bent on expanding it.”

It was this attitude that prompted the Comptroller General to accuse the
services of a “lack of commitment” in their effort to rid the ROTC program of
unproductive units. The chief of the General Accounting Offfice recommended
to Congress that the services be required to inactivate immediately all units
not meeting prescribed minimum production levels, with the Defense Depart-
ment approving any exceptions.

The Department of Defense naturally took exception to this recommen-
dation. It pointed out that a unit’s value may be more accurately reflected in
its production capacity than in its past production totals. Furthermore, it ar-
gued, service requirements for certain scientific and technical skills and for
adequate minority representation in the officer corps may override purely nu-
merical standards. In any case, the Defense Department believed, the imme-
diate inactivation of substandard units without affording them a reasonable
opportunity to overcome their production shortfalls would necessitate a “con-
tinual and costly restructuring.”

The Comptroller General remained unconvinced. The services could meet
their needs for minorities and individuals with special skills, he insisted, by
means other than retaining marginally productive units. In the end, the De-
fense Department agreed to tighten up its inactivation guidelines although
little if anything was actually done along these lines.”

226



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

for the addition of budgeting and automatic data processing responsibilities,
performed the same functions.” See Figure 1-4.

Below TRADOC, army area commands were replaced by four ROTC
region commands. A brigadier general, assisted by a headquarters element of
85 people, commanded each region. This officer supervised on-campus ROTC
activities within his assigned geographical sector and conducted an annual
summer camp. Regions were further divided into geographical divisions or
areas, each of which was commanded by a colonel operating from the region
headquarters. The authors of the final Steadfast plan were convinced that re-
gion commands would provide the ROTC program with a dedicated mid-level
supervisory organ capable of effecting “a standardization of control and man-
agement” of ROTC instructor groups and an organization that could furnish
“close year-round coordination” with installation commanders for summer camp
planning.”> See Figure 1-5.

Close year-round coordination with installation commanders for summer
camp planning seemed to have been considered of particular importance. The
nature of coordination that program administrators had in mind had two as-
pects. First, it was thought necessary that the person in charge of each Ad-
vanced Camp be a general officer. The old system, in which the senior colo-
nel/PMS in the army area served as camp commander, did not work, or at least
in the opinion of many senior officers, did not work well. It would take the
presence of a general officer to give the camp the prestige and emphasis it
needed and deserved. General Westmoreland, during his tenure as Army Chief
of Staff, told the CONARC Commander that “ROTC Summer Camps are of
such major importance that we should consider selecting other than professors
of military science to be in charge of each camp....” Westmoreland believed
that “specially selected general officers” should be appointed to oversee op-
erations at each Advanced Camp site.

The second aspect of the close year-round coordination had to do with
the issue of camp continuity, of which there was very little before the 1973
reorganization of the ROTC command structure in some army areas. A
CONARC-convened Ad Hoc Committee for Basic and Advanced Camps re-
ported in October 1969 that the “lack of continuity” in the prevailing camp
system “requires that special measures be taken to preserve the experience of
each year's camp for the benefit of the next.” The maintenance of a “full-
time, permanent party Advanced Camp Planning Staff at the camp site,” a
measure that a few armies had already implemented on their own initiative
by 1969, was one means held up by the Ad Hoc Committee to ensure the

38



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

the review. The commission surveyed a cross-section of secondary school
officials, community leaders, and parents and published its findings and rec-
ommendations in a report entitled “Future Operations of the Junior Division
ROTC and the National Defense Cadet Corps,” dated June 1963.°

While the report did reiterate the Defense Department’s position that the
JROTC produced no officers and served no direct military purpose, it con-
ceded both the desirability of program expansion and the importance of the
JROTC to the nation. It also admitted that the program provided the military
and the nation with certain benefits. Foremost among these benefits was the
fostering of favorable attitudes among American youth toward military ser-
vice. An important ancillary benefit, the report went on to say, was the pro-
motion of “good citizenship.” No part of the curriculum during this period, it
is important to note, specifically aimed at instilling “good citizenship” traits
in cadets; but the military training and indoctrination received during the nor-
mal course of instruction, it was believed, inculcated in the impressionable
adolescent discipline, orderliness, respect for authority, and other character
traits conducive to the development of docile and law-abiding citizens.

The Defense Department, realizing that it could not block the expansion,
wanted to guide it along the most cost-effective lines. It was to achieve this
end that the Department of Defense commission recommended that, in the
future, greater use be made of military retirees as JROTC instructors. This
would free up 700 active duty personnel for employment elsewhere and save
a substantial sum of money. The commission’s assessment of the NDCC’s
future was decidedly less optimistic than the one it had given to the JROTC.
The lack of resources and general Army support for the program, it was felt,
were harbingers of the NDCC’s eventual demise.’

On 13 October 1963, 40 days before his assassination, President John F.
Kennedy signed Public Law 88-647, the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964. The
law required the services to increase the number of JROTC programs under
their jurisdiction and, at the same time, charged them to achieve a more ho-
mogeneous geographical distribution of units across the nation. The 1916
tule mandating a minimum enrollment of 100 U.S. citizens, ages 14 or older,
was retained for the continuation or establishment of JROTC units as were
many other of the provisions of the original legislation.

To facilitate the expansion envisaged in the Vitalization Act, a new pro-
vision was added that gave incentives to high schools that hired military retir-
ees as JROTC instructors. These retired military employees were to be paid
by the school district in an amount which, when added to their retired pay,

260



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

26.

27.

29.

30.

31.
32.

33.
34,

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.
47.

48.

308

Fund, 1937), p. 100.

LTC T. L. Sherburne, Memorandum for the Assistant Commandant, The Army War
College, March 1, 1930, subject: The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Its Value
and Problems.

Survey of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, Bulletin No. 9, p. 310.

Proceedings of the Region R.O.T.C. Conference, Fort McPherson, Ga. October 28-30,
1930, (Washington, D.C.: Civilian Military Education Fund,1937), p. 21.

(1) John D. Millet, The Organization and Role of the Army Special Service
Forces, U.S. Army in World War Il, ed. Kent R. Greenfield (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1954), p. 155. (2) Richard B. Crossland and James
T. Currie, Twice the Citizen: A History of the United States Army Reserve,
1908-1983 (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief, Army Reserve, 1984), p. 36.

Survey of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, Bulletin No. 9, p. 311.

Report on the Army, Biennial Reports of George C. Marshall, 1943, p. 41.
Composition of Officer Strength, RG 319, Entry 324, Box 29, National
Archives, Washington, D.C.

Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, p. 29.

(1) Historical Section, Army Ground Forces, Training of Officer Candidates
in AGF Special Service Schools, Study No. 31 (Washington, D.C.: HQS AGF,
1946), pp. 17-18. (2) Historical Section, Army Ground Forces, The Procure-
ment and Branch Distribution of Officers, Study No. 6 (Washington, D.C.:
HQS AGF, 1946), p. 3.

(1) Lathrop, Student Attitudes Toward Reserve Officer Training Corps Program, p. 5.
(2) Rankin, The Administration of Army ROTC Units, p. 130.

Rankin, The Administration of Army ROTC Units, pp. 90 and 95.

Ibid., pp. 69-70.

Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, p. 81.

A Report and Recommendation to the Secretary of Defense by the Service
Academy Board, 1 January 1950, RG 319, National Archives.

(1) Harold W. Dodds, “Your Boy and the ROTC,” The Atlantic Monthly (1953), p. 26.
(2) Lathrop, Student Attitudes Toward Reserve Officer Training Corps Program, p. 6.

(1) Letter, MG John A. Klein, Army Adjutant General, to ROTC PMS&T, 16 February
1955, subject: Army ROTC General Military Science Program (with enclosure
“Evaluation of the Army General Military Science Program”.), ROTC File, Cmt 1.
(2) Army Training Program (ATP) 145-60, June 22, 1953, and ATP 145-60, December
22, 1960.

(1) Letter, ATIT-SCH-ROTC, Cdr, USCONARC, 12 April 1963, subject: Conversion of
Branch ROTC Institutions to General Military Science Program. (2) Thomas J. Cleary,
“Laboratory for Leadership.” Army Digest, XX (June 1965), p. 23.

Harvard University formulated a plan to shift the bulk of ROTC summer training to the
summer months. It submitted the plan to the Army in April 1954. The Army rejected it as
impractical. See Report of a sub-committee of the Committee on Educational Policy on
some possible changes in the Army ROTC curriculum, Harvard University Archives,
HUE 75.554, April 1954.

(1) Gene M. Lyons and John W. Masland, “The ROTC on the Campus,” AAVP Bulletin,
XLIV (December 1958), pp. 720-21. (2) Lyons and Masland, Education and Military
Leadership, p. 194.

(1) ATP 145-60, December 22, 1960. (2) AR 145-5, Change 8, April 20, 1960.
(3) AR 145-30, Change 5, June 6, 1960. (4) Education Division, ROTC/NDCC Directorate,
HQ USCONARG, History of the ROTC Curriculum, 26 May 1971, pp. 5-7.

Comptroller of the Army, A Study of Organization for Management of the Army ROTC/
NDCC Program, (Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 23 March 1965) , p. 2.
Frederick M. Warren, “Army ROTC Looks to the Future,” Army Information
Digest, XV| (January 1961), p.12.

(1) HQ USCONARC, Report of the Sixth Annual USCONARC ROTC/NDCC Conference,
4-6 September 1968, p. 36. (2) HQ USCONARG, Report of the Fifth Annual USCONARC
ROTC/NDCC Conference, 6-8 September 1967, p. 8, HRDC.



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

“Quality” Problems

This massive infusion of money, time, and personnel into the program
did obtain results. Enrollment along with the number of cadets commissioned
annually rose steadily in the decade after Vietnam. Unfortunately, production
did not increase enough to meet Army requirements and much of the increase
that did occur was achieved at the expense of quality.

William Snyder, associate professor of political science at Texas A&M
University and former PMS at Princeton, gave an overview of the major
problems that beset the ROTC in an article he wrote in the mid-1970s. In
the main, his comments tell the same story as the DCSROTC historical
summaries, although his comments are less constrained. The picture he painted
was not a complimentary one.

ROTC graduates, he asserted, were less well prepared than the products
of other commissioning sources for their first assignment, being “particularly
deficient in the degree of familiarity with the overall scope of service activi-
ties.” He attributed some of the program’s shortcomings to its emphasis on
the acquisition of basic military skills and its focus on turning out large num-
bers of short service officers.

Also detrimental to the quality of ROTC training, Snyder believed, was
the small size of many ROTC units. To be sure, the existence of small and
uneconomical units had been a problem since the very inception of the pro-
gram. But the end of the draft coupled with the virtual abolition of compul-
sory programs in the early 1970s made the problem much more acute than ever
before. Indeed, by 1975, over half of all units recorded an enrollment of less
than 100. This state of affairs reduced the effectiveness of much on-campus
training and made it all but impossible for the cadet in a small program to get
“a meaningful leadership experience.” It was a situation that was to grow
worse over the next decade as the number of small, inefficient, and uneco-
nomical units proliferated under Expand the Base.

Various Active Army observers gave pessimistic appraisals of the ROTC
product. Major General Charles C. Rogers, DCSROTC from September 1975
to November 1978, was not enthusiastic about the quality of student that was
being admitted into the program. Ina letter dated 20 April 1977, he upbraided
the four region commanders for enrolling “personnel” who “clearly do not
have what it takes to be an officer.” The practice of enrolling students with a
criminal record particularly disturbed him. In 1978, a Department of the Army
sponsored study group concluded that “intelligence standards” in the
Army ROTC were “inadequate.” In 1980, TRADOC’s Deputy Commanding

42



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

past, people were taken away before structure was reduced. To avoid becoming
a “hollow” organization, Cadet Command began to reconsider the inactivation
timetable outlined in the original Five-Year Plan, with an eye toward
accelerating the pace of disestablishments.

The Effective Management Program, with its long probationary period
and provisions requiring that attempts be made to resuscitate failing units,
was not, it appeared to many in the command’s headquarters, a suitable mecha-
nism for effecting closures with the necessary rapidity. The contract closure
seemed to be better suited for the task at hand but it, if used on a scale which
circumstances seemed to dictate, would inevitably arouse a storm of protest.
The likelihood that such protests would slow or even halt the disestablishment
process was, as had been demonstrated on numerous previous occasions, great.
As of January 1996, Cadet Command was still evaluating its options relative
to carrying through with the accelerated unit inactivation timetable that it felt
it was necessary for the future health and stability of the ROTC program.“

Five Year Plan Results

The command’s effort to carry through on the Five Year Plan have so far
been a qualified success. In FY 1995 and FY 1996, Cadet Command
disestablished 18 and 15 schools respectively, ten short of its two year goal of
43. Its 77 percent success rate might appear unimpressive but, compared to
the Army’s performance in earlier demobilizations, Cadet Command’s record
with the Five-Year Plan has actually been quite good.“

There is no denying, however, that Cadet Command has encountered stub-
born obstacles in its drive to bring its institutional base in line with its human
and material resources. One of these obstacles has been the pressure that
influential supporters of certain colleges and universities have brought to bear
in the United States Congress. The case of Washington University, whose
ROTC battalion was saved from inactivation largely through the efforts of
Senator Danforth of Missouri, and of Second Region Headquarters, where
Senator Ford and Representative Lewis took a leading role in derailing plans
for that organization’s inactivation, were merely two of the most recent in a
series of such instances that stretch back for well over a century. Military and
civilian officials within the Defense and Army Departments have also proven
vulnerable to such pressures. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the
Army, and most recently, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Manpower
and Reserve Affairs, and the DCSPER have either postponed or canceled school
closings when confronted with spirited protests from the targeted institutions

252



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

Officer Cadet Center suggested. Standardizing training and operations in the
ROTC was just the first step; OCS and West Point would also eventually be
brought under the new command’s organizational purview. Officials at West
Point and Fort Benning discerned the significance of Wagner’s proposed name
for his new command and vigorously objected to it. In the end, General
Richardson intervened and engineered a compromise which resulted in the
name U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command being bestowed upon the new
organization—a compromise that did not fully please Major General
Wagner.° :

Fostering an esprit de corps within the ROTC community was another of
the new commander’s prime concerns—a concern to which he had devoted so
much attention while serving in the Fourth Region. To promote this end, he
assiduously went about acquiring flags, guidons, unit crests and other heral-
dic devices for his new command. Even before he had arrived at Fort Mon-
roe, in fact, Wagner had sought approval for a new command patch and crest
for the ROTC. Since 1973, the cadre had worn a TRADOC patch and cadets
one of two versions of an ROTC patch. See Figure 3-1. In July 1985, while
still Fourth Region Commander, Wagner had pressed Richardson and Prillaman
to adopt a single patch for ROTC when it became a separate command. The
new patch and crest should, he believed, better express the program’s purpose
than the ones then in use.

PRE-1986 SHOULDER SLEEVE INSIGNIAS FOR ROTC CADETS

Figure 3-1. Pre-1986 Shoulder Sleeve Insignias for ROTC Cadets

71





14.

15.

16.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

ENDNOTES

Tactics, Washington, D.C., 1911, p. 19. (2) War College Division, General Staff Corps,
The Standardization of Methods of Military Instruction at Schools and Colleges in the
United States, prepared as a supplement to The Statement of a Proper Military Policy for
the United States, WCD 9089-8, Washington, D.C., November 1915.

(1) Dr. Edmund J. James, President of the University of Illinois, “Our Land-Grant Cot
leges as Centers of Military Training,” Address before the Committee on Military Affairs
of the House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., February 10, 1911, p. 8 and p. 10.
(2) Proceedings of a Board of Officers Convened..for the Purpose of Making the Annual
Inspection of the Military Departments of Educational Institutions at which officers of the
Army are Detailed as Professors of Military Science and Tactics, p. 9.

U.S. War Department, Annual Reports of the War Department for the Fiscal Ending
June 30,1904, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1904), I: 224.

(1) LTC T. L. Sherburne, Memorandum for the Assistant Commandant, The Army War
College, subject: The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Its Value and Problems, 1 March
1930. (2) War College Division, Genera! Staff Corps, Study on Educational Institutions
Giving Military Training as a Source of Officers for a National Army, prepared as a
supplement to The Statement of a Proper Military Policy for the United States,
WCD 9053-121, Washington, D.C., November 1915, p. 7.

War College Division, General Staff Corps, Study on Educational Institutions Giving
Military Training as a Source for a Supply of Officers for a National Army, p.7.
Proceedings of a Board of Officers Convened...for the Purpose of Making the
Annual Inspection of the Military Departments of Educational Institutions at
which Officers of the Army are Detailed as Professors of Military Science and
Tactics, pp. 12-13.

(1) Pollard, Military Training in the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, p.3. (2) Rankin,
The Administration of Army ROTC Units, p. 11. (3) War College Division, General Staff
Corps, Study on Educational Institutions Giving Military Training as a Source for a
Supply of Officers for a National Army, pp. 7-8.

War College Division, General Staff Corps, Study on Educational Institutions
Giving Military Training as a Source for a Supply of Officers for a National
Amy, p. 12.

(1) Leonard Wood, The Military Obligation of Citizenship (Princeton, 1915), pp. 55-57.
(2) “A Report on the Organization of the Land Forces of the United States” included as
Appendix A, War Department Annual Reports, Vol. 1. 1912, (3) Gene M. Lyons and John
W. Masland, “The Origins of the ROTC,” Military Affairs, XXIIl (Spring, 1959), p. 57.

(1) Ralph B. Perry, The Plattsburg Movement (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1921). p. 72. (2)
John G. Clifford, The Plattsburg Training Camp Movement, 1913-1917, unpublished Ph.D.
dissertation, Department of History, Indiana University, n.d., p.83.

Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Association of American Agricultural
Colleges, 1913, pp. 172-83.

(1) U.S. Congress - Senate, A Bill to Establish a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, 64th
Congress, 1st Session, 1915, S. 2709 (1916, S. 3946). (2) U.S. Congress - House, A Bill
to Establish a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, 64th Congress, 1st Session, 1916, H.R.
10845. (3) The United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XXXIX (1915-17), Part I, pp. 189-91.
BG L. R. Gignilliat, “Students and National Defense,” The World Tomorrow,
(October, 1926), p. 148.

(1) AR 145-10, May 28, 1931 and 145-20, June 15, 1925. (2) Army Special Regulation
44, Part 1, June 1921. (3) The United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XXXXI (1919-21),
Part |, pp. 777-78.

(1) War Department Annual Reports, 1919, pp. 21, 292-93, and 320-22; 1920,
pp. 60-63. (2) AR 10-15, November 25, 1921, pp. 10-15.

(1) Robert L. Lathrop, Student Attitudes Toward Reserve Officer Training
Corps Program: A Survey of Freshmen at the University of Minnesota, 1962,
p. 4. (2) Proceedings of the Regional R.O.T.C. Conference, Purdue University,
Lafayette, Indiana, May 18 and 19, 1934 (Washington, D.C.: Civilian Military Education
Fund, 1934), p. 67. (3) Proceedings of the Regional R.O.T.C. Conference, Fort
McPherson, Ga., October 28-30, 1937 (Washington, D.C.: Civilian Military Education

307



RECRUITING CADETS

senior year. Consequently, they received detailed information about ROTC
financial assistance and scholarships. Senior mailings, on the other hand,
went after a more diverse audience. The minority market received special
attention in this set of mailings. The information provided to this group was
somewhat less detailed about the financial benefits associated with the ROTC
program but gave greater emphasis to the command’s personal success theme
and the leadership training available through the ROTC.”

Cadet Command also strove to integrate local advertising initiatives with
regional and national ones. It designed standard packets and booklets that
could be used by battalions in their own local campaigns. Ads focusing on a
particular aspect of the ROTC program were produced for local use. Through
such ads, the command promoted Basic Camp attendance, participation in the
Simultaneous Membership Program, and on-campus scholarship programs.
The Marketing Directorate compiled a Strategic Marketing, Advertising, and
Recruiting Tool (SMART) Kit to provide battalions with advertising materi-
als and ideas designed to build on the ads and standard packets mentioned
above. The kit contained examples, which the command expected battalions
to follow closely, of press releases, radio spots, feature stories, publicity items,
direct mail schedules, and other materials useful in conducting a local ad cam-
paign. SMART Kits were updated biannually to keep up with a changing
market. If a battalion wanted to deviate from the program set down from
above, it had to get the permission of Cadet Command Headquarters.”!

GOLDQuest

Prior to Cadet Command’s founding, a central element in the ROTC ad-
vertising scheme had been the Lead Expediting and Dissemination System.
The system functioned essentially as a clearing house for students or prospec-
tive students who requested information about the ROTC. Individuals who
indicated interest in the ROTC were sent general information about the pro-
gram via mail. The names and addresses of the respondees were forwarded to
the ROTC detachment at the college they planned to attend. If they failed to
specify a particular college, their personal information was sent to the ROTC
detachment located in the respondent’s zip code area. Local cadre were then
supposed to contact the individuals identified by the system and talk to them
in more detail about the program.

Research conducted by the ROTC Study Group showed that ROTC in-
structors did not highly value the system. They considered it too cumbersome

133



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

To improve matters, Prillaman adopted N.W. Ayer’s suggestion to draw
a sharper distinction between Army ROTC and the Regular Army. The
DCSROTC directed that henceforth all ROTC advertising and publicity mate-
rials would bear the full title “Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.” At
the same time, he ordered that all new ROTC graphics use the official black
and gold colors of the Army instead of the green customarily employed in en-
listed recruiting ads. Both steps were taken to emphasize that ROTC was a pro-
gram for producing officers and not just another means to entice young people
into the Army.*

The measures discussed in the preceding paragraphs lent ROTC recruit-
ing greater coherence and consistency at the national level, but advertising
and marketing in the regions continued pretty much as before. Each of the
regions and the 400 and some odd detachments subordinate to them retained
their distinctive marketing styles, methods and messages. On college cam-
puses across the country, one could find everything from locally manufac-
tured cartoons to ads prepared by the Recruiting Command. In some cases, it
was questionable whether the case of ROTC was helped or hurt by the ads and
posters displayed. It was certain, however, that such an uncoordinated cam-
paign could not create a genuine corporate image for the program or even put
across a consistent message.°

A New Direction

With the activation of Cadet Command in the spring of 1986, ROTC
recruiting began to move along different lines. One of Wagner’s concerns
when he took command centered on the relationship that had evolved over the
years between N.W. Ayer and the marketing and advertising staff at ROTC
headquarters. In the past, this firm had taken the lead in mapping out mar-
keting strategies, selecting advertising messages and, in general, selling ROTC
to the American people. The DCSROTC staff played a subordinate role. The
problem with this arrangement, from Wagner’s perspective, was that the Ayer’s
agents, as a group, had only an incomplete understanding of the concept of
officership. Their tendency to approach the selling of officership in the same
way that they did the selling of a Chevrolet dismayed him.

The Cadet Command Commander attempted to change the N.W. Ayer-
ROTC relationship by importing into his headquarters professional Army of-
ficers with civilian marketing experience. These officers were to supply prod-
uct knowledge, formulate marketing and advertising strategies, and set policy

126



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

essentially set their own standards and policies for deciding which cadets
were to be awarded commissions. In some regions, cadets were denicd
commissions for almost frivolous reasons; in others, cadets were
commissioned who were clearly unfit to be junior officers. When
enlistment criteria were tightened in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the
ROTC selection process led to the anomalous situation in which enlistees
sometimes possessed more intellectual and leadership potential than the
junior officers who led them.

The quality of officer assigned to the ROTC was another problem.
Typically, officers (normally colonels or lieutenant colonels) at the end
of their military careers were appointed as Professors of Military Sci-
ence (PMS). Unfortunately, many of them regarded their assignment as
a transitional one—one in which they could prepare to take their place in
the civilian community after retirement from the Army. They did not
always inject energy and intensity into the programs which they directed.
Neither were the junior officers assigned to ROTC of a uniformly high
quality. ROTC positions, it was understood, did little to ensure future
promotion, and Army personnel managers did not as a rule assign the
most competitive officers to instructor duty.

The size and structure of the ROTC program further inhibited the
precommissioning process. The existence of small and uneconomical
units wasted resources and personnel and, like the lack of standardiza-
tion, degraded training and leader development. In periods of demobili-
zation, people and resources were withdrawn before and more quickly
than unproductive units were closed. This resulted in the proliferation
of small and ineffective units and partially explained past qualitative pro-
duction problems.

An inefficient use of ROTC scholarship monies also damaged ROTC
production capabilities. A disproportionately large portion of the schol-
arship budget was channeled into high-priced, exclusive schools with
little consideration given to the long-term benefits thus gained. More-
over, a defective management system rendered the scholarship program
unresponsive to budgetary controls. University officials who set tuition
rates determined how far the Army’s scholarship dollars would stretch.

One might ask how, if the program was so inefficient, could ROTC
produce such prominent officers as General Gordon Sullivan and General
Colin Powell? The answer to this question is quite simple. If one casts



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

Since 1989, program objectives and the program of instruction have
undergone further refinement. Under Major General Arnold, the JROTC
assumed even more of a citizenship development emphasis that it had under
Wagner. Lowering school drop-out rates became a program objective and the
military skills portion of the curriculum was further reduced. Table 5 shows
the subjects included in the JROTC program of instruction in School Year
1995-1996 and illustrates the direction the JROTC took after Wagner handed
over the command to Arnold, a direction that was maintained under Lyle.

Table 5
JROTC Program of Instruction, 1995-1996

Leadership Communication
Self-esteem Physical Fitness

Goal setting Map Reading
Ethics/Values First Aid

Human Relations Technology Awareness
Citizenship Math Module

Life Skills Science Module
American History Career Opportunities
Role of the Armed Forces Management/Budget

Current Events

The Cadet Challenge program had been started by Major General
Wagner for JROTC cadets when he was the commander of the Fourth Region.
He introduced it into the rest of the ROTC community when he came to Fort
Monroe. Cadet Challenge was a physically demanding activity that was de-
signed to test the strength, speed, agility, and endurance of the high school
student and at the same time build teamwork and esprit de corps through indi-
vidual and platoon competition. It served a purpose similar to that served by
Ranger Challenge competition in the senior program.”

To improve the overall management of the JROTC, Major General Wagner
placed the High School Division under the Operations Directorate in Decem-
ber 1988. He took this step not because the High School Division necessarily
belonged there in an organization sense, but because Lieutenant Colonel
Hodson, chief of the Operations Directorate at the time, was the officer in the
headquarters who knew the most about the JROTC. The move was in keeping

271



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

schedule ensured that battalions were prepared in plenty of time for fall
semester enrollment. The regulation further directed that advertising and re-
cruiting be linked to certain critical periods and programs. Thus, there was to
be an advertising and recruiting effort aimed at getting students to attend Ba-
sic Camp. This effort was to start early enough to attract student interest and
allow sufficient time for enrollment but not so early that student interest would
wane before camp began. Similar campaigns were to be tied to the ROTC
scholarship application cycle and the general enrollment drive at the begin-
ning of the fall semester. The new procedure stood in marked contrast to past
marketing practices which, instead of being tied to specific programs or peri-
ods, were driven, like so many other things in the ROTC program prior to
the establishment of Cadet Command, largely by the impulses of the local
ROTC cadre.”

Young and Rubicam

On 1 March 1987, Young and Rubicam, an advertising agency based in
New York City, took over the Army’s advertising contract from N.W. Ayer.
The legal difficulties into which N.W. Ayer had fallen in 1986 paved the way
for this takeover. Throughout 1986, Ayer’s Vice President in Charge of Army
Film Projects had been under investigation by the Justice Department for ac-
cepting kick-backs from a subcontractor. Later that same year, charges of
time card improprieties against Ayer surfaced. Under indictment by the Jus-
tice Department, Ayer was ruled ineligible to compete for the Army advertis-
ing contract when it was put out for bid, allowing Young and Rubicam to step
in almost by default.”

Due to the time required to familiarize the agency with the ROTC pro-
gram and the myriad of regulations and restrictions connected with govern-
ment contracting and financing, Young and Rubicam’s integration into Cadet
Command’s wider marketing program was, by necessity, a gradual process. It
was because of this time requirement that Cadet Command decided to stick
with the old advertising plan for 1987. Cadet Command’s Marketing Divi-
sion did, however, start working with Young and Rubicam to come up with a
strategy for 1988. Spring Gold 88 was the title attached to this effort. Before
real progress in developing such a campaign could be made, certain basic
questions had to be answered about the target audience, the message, the end
product, the price, and the packaging. The additional research needed to

128



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

was an attainable goal. The TRADOC Commander, General Glenn K. Otis,
felt the mission was too high and, in addition, that the costs bound up with the
on-going expansion of the ROTC were excessive. In January 1983, General
Otis convoked the first of several conferences to consider ROTC’s production
problems. Attending the meetings were the TRADOC Chief of Staff, Major
General John B. Blount, the DCSROTC, Major General John P. Prillaman,
and the four ROTC region commanders.

At the urging of Prillaman and the region commanders, the group took
up a number of long-standing organizational issues that, it was agreed, bore
directly on ROTC’s production problems. What particularly concerned the
group was ROTC’s irregular command structure. Under existing arrangements,
region commanders were essentially adjuncts of the TRADOC staff. They
were rated by the DCSROTC and senior rated by the TRADOC Chief of Staff.
The DCSROTC did not command the regions but exercised “operational con-
trol” over them. It was a system that limited the DCSROTC’s ability to influ-
ence events and his access to the highest Army councils.”

A variety of alternatives were considered, to include the one of making
the ROTC a major subordinate command under TRADOC. In the end, Gen-
eral Otis decided to “dual hat” Major General Prillaman. This meant that
Prillaman, while remaining the DCSROTC, would also become the Com-
mander, U.S. Army ROTC Command, with the new appointment becoming
effective on 14 March 1983.3 Otis thus chose the organizational alterna-
tive that the 1965 Comptroller’s report had rejected because it was “prone
to conflicts of interest” and was “inconsistent with accepted Army pat-
terns of organization.”

While the “dual hat” alternative might not have been the optimal struc-
tural solution, it did have one big advantage from the TRADOC perspective—
it required no additional personnel. When Major General Prillaman assumed
his new title, he assumed little else in the way of tangible assets. He did not
even get an aide or a command sergeant major assigned to his new “com-
mand.” Moreover, the TRADOC Chief of Staff, another major general, re-
mained his rater. This meant that the focus of the ROTC chief continued
to be on staff management and that his elevation to commander had more
symbolic than real value.*

Nevertheless, Prillaman tried to exploit the worth of the new title as
best he could. He had two sets of letterhead drawn up, one for DCSROTC
and the other for the ROTC Command. Depending on the nature of the
correspondence, he selected the letterhead most appropriate for the person

46



Contents

Foreword .. iii
Preface iv
Introduction .. 1
Chapter 1

THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE... eee 7

The Civil War and After ....
The Creation of the ROTC

The Inter-War Years wee 14
Impediments to Program Effectiveness 16
World War II 18
The Post-World War Il ROTC Program, 1945-1960. 20
New Direction. . 21
Korea... . 22
The Turbulent Sixties . 25
ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964 . 25
The Comptroller's Organization for Management Stud: 26
ROTC Under Assault . 33
ROTC After Vietnam . 35
Steadfast . 36
Efforts to Boost Production 40
"Quality" Problems .. 42
Attempts at Reform . 43
Chapter 2
THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND 45
Organizational Changes ............0 . 50

Advent of Wagner .....
The Performance Gap
Reform Initiatives
A New Identity ....



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

would be steadily reduced. With the end of the Cold War and the disappearance
of the Soviet threat, military leaders seemed less vital to national security and
well-being than they once were. The skills, knowledge and perspective they brought
to national decision-making councils also appeared less relevant. Getting a com-
mission no longer seemed to be one of the primary avenues to the top.*

Declining Advertising Budget

Compounding the problems posed by a declining propensity for military
service among the young was a sharp reduction in the amount of money avail-
able for advertising. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the command
saw its advertising budget steadily shrink; after 1991, the budgetary decline
was precipitous (See Table 2). It was ironic that the advertising budget was
slashed just when advertising dollars were most needed.

Table 2
Cadet Command Advertising Budget °° 1980-1995

Year Total Advertising Total Media
(Millions) (Millions)

1980 $ 4.860 $ .948
1981 5.370 .990
1982 6.376 1.086
1983 6.376 1.042
1984 6.561 2.675
1985 9.428 2.769
1986 8.854 3.740
1987 8.813 3.140
1988 11.287 4.312
1989 11.500 4.250
1990 10.500 3.724
1991 10.400 2.262
1992 6.900 1.300
1993 5.900 1.000
1994 6.923 1.729
1995* 5.268* .215*

*Estimated totals as of 24 January 1996

165



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

not afford to lose these future advocates of naval power, or so the argument ran.

Many naval officers and officials of state and land-grant institutions took
a different view of the matter. An officer assigned to the Bureau of Naval
Personnel commented:

The mission of the NROTC...is NOT to finance higher educa-
tion, BUT to educate and train future naval officers... Those col-
leges which look upon the Regular NROTC Program as a means
of financial assistance, most assuredly have overlooked the fun-
damental mission of the Regular NROTC Program and the es-
sential purpose for which it was inaugurated.

The executive secretary of the American Association of Land-Grant and
State Universities took exception to the assumption that high-cost necessarily
equated to high-quality. He contended that the tuition charged by a particular
institution was not a suitable measure of the value of the educational services
it offered.'°

The ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964

In 1964, proponents of Army and Air Force ROTC scholarships finally
got their way. The ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964 extended to the Army and
the Air Force the benefits of the Navy’s Holloway Plan. The growing trend
among colleges and universities to abolish compulsory participation in ROTC
coupled with continuing officer production shortfalls helped generate the con-
gressional support necessary for the passage of this bill.

Under the provisions of the Vitalization Act, scholarship recipients were
to receive an amount covering the costs of tuition, fees, books, and laboratory
expenses. In addition, the act raised the stipend for Advanced Course cadets
from $27 to $50 per month and instituted a two-year ROTC program for jun-
ior college transfers and other undergraduates who, for one reason or another,
could not or did not complete the Basic Course.

According to the Assistant Secretary of the Army, Mr. Stephen Ailes, the
principal purpose for the program was to raise cadet quality, not to boost pro-
duction. Several representatives expressed surprise when Ailes indicated in
testimony before a House subcommittee that the Army did not project an in-
crease in the number of commissions granted annually as a result of the
new incentive. The Assistant Secretary assured them that quantity was not

189



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

following several paragraphs, some of the prominent forces and currents of
opinion will be briefly discussed.

Major General Wagner represented one strain of thought on this topic.
He downplayed the role of prestigious colleges as a source of junior offic-
ers because he felt that their graduates possessed personality characteris-
tics that were either inimical or irrelevant to the development of a profes-
sional soldier. Sensitivity, abundant intelligence, and creativity—quali-
ties highly valued at prestigious institutions—were not the prime prereq-
uisites for an effective military officer, at least in the opinion of Wagner
and the considerable number of other Army leaders who thought like him.
Physical stamina, decisiveness, and “massive common sense” were the traits
which lead to victory on the battlefield.

S.L.A. Marshall, the famous officer-historian, voiced similar sentiments.
To him, military leadership was not a matter of “brain trusting and whiz kid-
ding.” What was known about the greatest military leaders in the present age,
he once noted, “should discourage the idea that only a genius may scale the
heights.” While there were “niches” for the “pedant,” character was “at all
times at least as vital as intellect, and the main rewards go to him who can
make other men feel toughened as well as elevated.”

Such a view is by no means new nor is it shared only by professional
military officers. In congressional hearings on the proposed establishment of
an Air Force Academy in the early 1950s, for example, a number of represen-
tatives were adamant about not restricting entrance to the new
precommissioning institution to “bright boys” and “bookworms,” the assump-
tion being that such character types would not make very effective pilots. At
aregional ROTC conference held in 1934 at Layfayette, Indiana, Professor of
History Louis M. Sears contrasted the human material that matriculated at
Purdue and other land-grant institutions with the students at “academic schools”
on the eastern seaboard. “I am confident,” he asserted,

..after long experience with students, that there is just as much
intelligence, probably more, in the minds of just steady,
straightforward, plain students, as one is apt to find in the self-
conscious “intellectual” of the academic schools. I think these
straightforward students (in land-grant institutions) are apt to be
sounder in mind and keener in their thinking than some with more
pretensions and assumptions. One of my rewards for teaching in
an institution like Purdue...is that I always feel when I face a

212



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

total reserve officer commitment to ROTC was to rise to 628. This target was
achieved and in the five years after FY 1986, AGR strength remained in the
600-plus range."”

In FY 1991, however, two events occurred which drastically cut AGR
strength. One was the inactivation of 62 ROTC units, part of Operation Hori-
zon—to be discussed in Chapter 8. These inactivations brought total AGR
authorizations down to 550. The second, more far-reaching event came as a
result of the congressional approval of the FY 1991 National Defense Autho-
tization Act. The act, in effect, prohibited the assignment of full-time reserv-
ists to the ROTC program after 30 September 1991. Section 687 was added to
Chapter 39, Title 10, U.S. Code; it read,

...A member of a reserve component serving on active duty or
full-time National Guard duty for the purpose of administering,
recruiting, instructing, or training the reserve components may
not be assigned to duty with a unit of the Reserve Officer Train-
ing Corps Program.'*

The passage of the act stunned Cadet Command. It was known that AGR
strength was to be reduced by 30 percent over the next six years in conso-
nance with the institutional drawdown projected by Operation Horizon. But
no one in the ROTC community had a presentiment that such a radical initia-
tive was in the offing.”® It was apparent that since AGR officers constituted
fully a third of ROTC cadre strength nationwide, their withdrawal from cam-
puses by the September 30 deadline would have disastrous results.

Accordingly, appeals were made to Congress in an attempt to soften the
impact of the legislation. Senator John Glenn of Ohio made it known that he
for one considered the use of full-time reserve officers as ROTC instructors
an abuse of the original intent of the Active Guard/Reserve program and would
not weaken in his resolve to rid ROTC of all AGRs by the end of FY 1991.°
Fortunately for Cadet Command, a majority of his colleagues in the House
and Senate recognized the impracticability of such a precipitous move and ap-
proved a measure, incorporated into the FY 1992 National Defense Authorization
Act, which allowed a phased reduction of AGR personnel by normal attrition.

Concerns about economy, reserve readiness and functional efficiency
motivated congressional proponents of the AGR ban. A Senate Armed Ser-
vices Committee report noted that although the Army’s ROTC program was a
direct source of officers for selected reserve units, the duties of an ROTC

154



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

diagnostic aptitude test, before being enrolled in the Advanced Course.
Only if a cadet had a grade point average of at least 2.85 could this re-
quirement be waived."!

An overhaul of the training and evaluation methods used at Advanced
Camp was another of the new commander’s priorities. He was intent on re-
placing the teaching of individual military skills with leadership development
as the centerpiece of the cadet summer experience. To realize this goal, he
eliminated the teaching of many perishable mechanical skills at camp and
substituted in their stead tactical training, which lent itself to the evaluation
of cadet leadership potential.”

In the summer of 1984, Fourth Region Headquarters introduced at Ad-
vanced Camp a new method for conducting summer camp. It was called the
“tiered approach” to training. Under this approach, cadets reported to camp in
ten increments. The reporting times of these increments were staggered by
two or three days. This permitted the scheduling of identical, sequential, and
progressive training for each cadet and corrected a problem that had plagued
the ROTC Advanced Camp system for decades. See Figure 2-2. Each incre-
ment consisted of approximately 260 cadets organized into a regiment of two
companies, both with four platoons. The distribution of cadets among the 10
cycles was random, with no more than two cadets from the same school as-
signed to a particular platoon. The system standardized operations and en-
couraged competition. A five-day capstone exercise, Adventure Challenge,
punctuated summer training and forced cadets to use the full range of skills
and knowledge they had acquired over the previous six weeks. Impressed by
what he saw at Camp Adventure, Major General Prillaman directed the other
regions to adopt the tiered approach.”

The Fourth Region Commander did not rest content with reordering ca-
det summer training in his own region. As was his wont, he strayed into other
domains where he possessed no formal authority and where, in many cases,
his involvement was not welcome. His proposal for the creation of an Army
Officer Cadet Center (AOCC), for example, clearly exceeded the scope of an
ROTC region commander. The AOCC, as envisaged by Wagner, involved the
establishment of a single national summer camp through which all cadets—
ROTC, OCS, and the Military Academy— would have to pass before be-
ing commissioned. The AOCC was to be modeled after the Fourth ROTC
Region’s Advanced Camp and would, it was anticipated, become the ve-
hicle for the standardization of the entire U.S. Army precommissioning
training system.“

63



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

improve the situation through the creation of an Office of the Executive for
Reserve and ROTC Affairs. The general officer who filled this position acted
as an advisor and representative for the ROTC in dealings between the Army
leadership and college presidents. An ROTC Division, headed by a colonel
and consisting of six officers and two civilian clerks, monitored day-to-day
operations and advised the Reserve Affairs Executive and the General Staff
G-3 on all ROTC matters.” The creation of this office reflected a praise-
worthy intent but resulted in few concrete improvements. The Executive's
lack of real command authority saw to that.

The lot of the ROTC product did not get better after entering the Orga-
nized Reserve Corps. Beyond correspondence courses and the rare opportu-
nity for a 15-day active duty tour, little post-commissioning training or edu-
cation of any type was available. Nor could most reserve officers hope to
hone their skills by finding positions in units outside the organized reserve.
The National Guard normally commissioned officers from its own enlisted
ranks after passing them through state-run Officer Candidate Schools.*° In
1935, the situation improved slightly with the passage of the Thomason Act.
This piece of legislation authorized a year of active duty for 1,000 ROTC
graduates annually—50 of whom could be awarded Regular Army commis-
sions upon tour’s end. In the main, however, professional development be-
yond the precommissioning phase became a reality for only a handful of ROTC
graduates.

World War Il

The mobilization of the U.S. Army for World War II gave the ROTC
its first real test. From August 1940 to December 1941, 80,000 Organized
Reserve Corps officers, the vast majority of whom were ROTC graduates, an-
swered the call to active duty. This group of officers formed the nucleus around
which General Marshall built the war-time Army. In the midst of the war,
Marshall paid tribute to these officers:

The procurement of suitable officer personnel was fortunately
solved by the fact that during lean, post war years over 100,000
reserve officers had been continuously trained... These reserve
officers constituted the principal available asset which we pos-
sessed at this time... Without these officers the successful rapid
expansion of our Army...would have been impossible...*!

18



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

Reform Initiatives

After he had the opportunity to take stock of the situation and reflect on
the magnitude of the challenge that confronted him, the new Fourth Region
Commander, with the help of his staff, started to formulate a plan of attack
designed to correct the many problem areas he had identified. In developing
his agenda, he was determined to inject a new vigor into the program and
reshape it, insofar as it lay within his power, into an Active Army organiza-
tion. At the same time, he was intent on endowing ROTC with a status com-
mensurate to its function. His constant reminders to his cadre, to the rest of
the Army and to the American public that the ROTC produced 70 percent of
the U.S. Army officer corps was one small aspect of this broader campaign.

To address both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the Fourth
Region’s production problems, he introduced a new production management
system, which he named Operation Goldstrike.** Unlike the former system
which had established commissioning goals for individual ROTC detachments
on the basis of past performance, Operation Goldstrike took into account both
the market potential and the average prospect quality within a given area.
Recruiting resources and advertising funds were redistributed if it was found
that the potential of a particular market was not being fully exploited.”

Accompanying the new production management system was the region
commander’s imperative for ROTC cadre members to “enter the heart of the
university.” By stressing this imperative, he hoped to reverse a tendency that
had long been with the ROTC, but had become especially pronounced since
the late sixties when the program had run into stiff and sometimes violent
opposition on campus. ROTC instructors tended to remain on the margins of
the university, either afraid or unwilling to take a central place in the life of
the institution to which they were assigned. As a result, they often forfeited
close ties with the administration and faculty and, even more unfortunately,
attracted into the program students who themselves occupied positions on the
fringes of the university. This last fact had been bemoaned by ROTC program
managers for some time. According to a 1969 Quartermaster School report,
“square” and “jerk” were appellations commonly attached to ROTC cadets.
“Nerd” became a popular designation in the eighties. Wagner’s goal was to
transform the program from an appendage to a vital part of the college and, in
this way, entice students in the mainstream of college life into the Army.**

The Fourth Region Commander suggested to the DCSROTC that the
Goldstrike recruiting methodology should be adopted by the other ROTC

61



RECRUITING CADETS

production shortfalls. Provided with early warning, commanders of troubled
units could work to boost retention rates and get the most out of the human
material they had on hand. Focusing the attention of the chain-of-command
on the production mission was a broader purpose served by the report. It was
a tangible reminder to all cadre that big brother at Cadet Command
Headquarters was watching. If anything slipped, it had better not be
production.”

Goldminer Teams

Of all the recruiting initiatives undertaken by the ROTC community in
the 1980s, the formation of Goldminer Teams was the most significant. The
first Goldminer Team started operating in the Los Angeles area at the begin-
ning of School Year 1983-1984. By the fall of 1986, 18 such teams were
engaged in ROTC recruiting in major metropolitan areas spread throughout
the country. (See Figure 3-7, page 85).

The uniqueness of the Goldminer Teams stemmed from their mission,
which was to function as the command’s principal agents for high school re-
cruiting. No other agency or unit, it is important to note, focused on penetrat-
ing the high school marketplace for the purpose of identifying prospects for
ROTC. The Recruiting Command, it is true, performed this function, but it
had other missions as well. Most of these other missions, unfortunately, had a
higher priority than recruiting high school students for the ROTC.

The PMS also was expected to canvas local high schools for prospects.
However, two factors worked against the PMS becoming an effective high
school recruiter. First, more pressing duties limited the time available to de-
vote to this task. Second, high school students indicating an interest in ROTC
often did not plan to attend a local college. There was thus little incentive for
the PMS to spend a lot of time on a group of prospects who would join other
programs if they joined at all. The result was that prior to the appearance of
the Goldminers, the high school/ROTC interface was, in many sections of the
country, tenuous.”

The command’s Operations Directorate systematized and codified policy
and procedures for Goldminer Team operations through a series of publica-
tions and conferences. It published Cadet Command Pamphlet 145-3, Staking
Your Claim: The Goldminer Recruiting Handbook in 1986 and Cadet Com-
mand Regulation 145-7, Operation Goldminer in 1989. It instituted the An-
nual Recruiting and Marketing Goldminer Conference in December 1988 to

137



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

TRADOC submitted the Feasibility Study to General Wickham on 26
September 1985. Responding to a request from the Army DCSOPS, it also
provided an accompanying implementation plan on 6 January 1986.
TRADOC’s proposal, however, was not well received in Washington. In ad-
dition to misgivings about placing the ROTC command under TRADOC, Army
leaders worried about the political fallout that would result from moving the
ROTC headquarters away from Fort Monroe. The local populace, already
jittery because Congress was considering the possibility of closing down the
fort entirely, would regard such a step as the prelude to a total Army with-
drawal from the area. Moreover, neither U.S. Senator John Warner nor the
Secretary of the Army John O. Marsh wanted the headquarters moved out of
state. Both men were Virginia natives and graduates of Washington and Lee
University in Lexington, Virginia. Marsh suggested that the new command
be located on the campus of a prestigious Virginia university.”'

With the Army Staff vacillating about what it was going to do with the
ROTC and with his own retirement fast approaching, General Richardson be-
came impatient and took matters into his own hands. He invoked Army Regu-
lation 220-5, which allowed Army field commanders to designate provisional
units without approval from the Pentagon. Accordingly, on 22 February 1986,
he directed Major General Prillaman to organize the ROTC as a provisional
command of TRADOC at Fort Monroe, which Prillaman promptly proceeded
to do.” After more than twenty years, the recommendations of the Comptroller’s
Report had been finally accepted. The U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command, the
name that the new organization would assume, was thus born in an atmosphere
of uncertainty and controversy. Its survival was problematic, for its existence
rested not upon a broad consensus among the Army's senior leaders, but upon
the unilateral action of a frustrated TRADOC Commander.

Advent of Wagner

To place the events leading up to Cadet Command’s founding in their
proper perspective and to set the stage for what follows, it is necessary to
consider developments in the Fourth ROTC Region during Richardson’s tenure
as TRADOC Commander. Brigadier General Wagner, who took over Fourth
Region at approximately the same time that Richardson took over TRADOC,
arrived at Fort Lewis with some definite opinions about the ROTC program
and about precommissioning training in general. As a commander of an
armored cavalry regiment and as an assistant division commander for maneuver

54



40.
41.

42.

43.

44,

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54,
55.

56.

57.

59.

60.
61.
62.
63.

64.
65.

66.

ENDNOTES

Briefing Slides, ATCC-MO, n.d., subject: Command Update Briefing.

(1) Author interview with LTC James Janele, 5 April 1994. (2) Second ROTC
Region Annual Historical Report, 1 January - 31 December 1993, ATOB-T, LTC

Alton P. Latimer, 6 April 1994, HRDC.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 5 April 1994.

Data provided by Operations and Market Research Division, ATCC-MO, Marketing,
Operations and Public Affairs Directorate.

(1) Author interview with LTC Kendal Smith, 15 February 1995. (2) Briefing Slide,
ATCC-MO, Reasons for Production Decline, Cadet Command Command Briefing.
Fact Sheet, ATCC-MP, LTC Kendal Smith, 30 March 1995, subject: Implications for Army
ROTC of the Policy on Homosexual Conduct, HRDC.

(1) J. Jennings Moss, “Military may not be meeting intent of ‘don’t ask, don't tell’,”
Washington Times, March 24, 1995, p. 3. (2) Author interview with Mr. Paul Kotakis,
30 March 1995.

(1) Comments made by MG James M. Lyle, during a briefing to MG Sikora, Deputy
DCSPER, 6 March 1995. (2) Fact Sheet, ATCC-MP, LTC Smith, 30 March 1995,
subject: Implications for Army ROTC of the Policy on Homosexual Conduct.

Author interview with Ms. Janet Baker, 30 March 1995. (2) Briefing Slide, ATCC-TE,
Cadet Command Issue, Collegiate Education Advisory Committee, 30 March 1995, HRDC.
Briefing Slide, ATCC-PA, 1994 Recap, Cadet Command Commander's Miniconference,
21 February 1995.

Memorandum for Record, ATCC-ZR, COL W. Clyde Graham, 29 September
1995, subject: Senior AGR Forum—18 September 1995—Pentagon Conference Room
2E687, HRDC.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 26 October 1995.

(1) Author interview with COL Michael Sullivan, 1 March 1993. (2) Briefing Slides,
ATCC-MO, n.d., subject: Taking Steady Aim on the Future by Winning the Recruiting
Battle Now.

Memorandum, GEN Frederick M. Franks, ATBO-BO, to GEN Gordon Sullivan, 30 July
1993, subject: Officer Distribution Priorities.

Data provided by the Personnel and Administration Directorate.

(1) Briefing Slide, ATCC-PA, Personnel, CSA Briefing, 6 January 1995. (2) Briefing
Slide, ATCC-PA, Personnel, CSA Briefing, 14 January 1995. (3) Briefing Slide, ATCC-
PA, Personnel, Cadet Command Commander's Miniconference, 16 February 1995.
(4) Briefing Slide, ATCC-MO, Reasons for Production Decline, Cadet Command
Command Briefing, 3 March 1995.

Briefing Slide, ATCC-PA, Personnel, CSA Briefing, 14 January 1995, Vanderbilt
University to MG James M. Lyle, Commander, Cadet Command.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Briefing Slide, ATCC-PA, Personnel, CSA Briefing, 6 January 1995. (2) Memorandum,
TAPC-OPD, BG Frederick G, Wong, Director of Officer Personnel Management to
DCSPER, 9 January 1995, subject: Status of Non-Branch Qualified Captain
Program, HRDC.

Author interview with LTC Victor R. Coffenberry Ill, 10 January 1996.

Author interview with COL L.E. Keenan, 13 February 1995.

Author interview with COL J.G. Cretella, 16 March 1993.

Letter, Joe B. Wyatt, Chancellor, Vanderbilt University to MG James M. Lyle,
Commander, Cadet Command.

Remarks made by MG Lyle at State of Command Address, 18 December 1995.

(1) Briefing Slide, ATCC-PA, Personnel, Cadet Command Commander's
Miniconference, 1 February 1995. (2) Author interview with COL L. E. Keenan,
13 February 1995. (3) Annual History Report, Personnel and Administration
Directorate, ATCC-PS, COL L.E. Keenan, 5 December 1994, HRDC.

Author interview with CPT Rachel Elkins, 29 November 1995.

Ibid.

323



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

officers—and concentrated on developing “fine drill corps.” The board
lamented the fact that both institution and instructor were “judged by parade
ground results.” The latitude accorded to officer-instructors in developing their
own courses of instruction, board members concluded, was largely responsible
for this unfortunate state of affairs.'°

The officer assignment policies of the War Department also limited the
effectiveness of on-campus military training programs. The department’s stin-
giness in personnel matters presented a particular problem. In some of the
larger land-grant schools, the Army detailed one Regular Army officer to man-
age a corps of several thousand cadets. University administrators complained
about the quality as well as the quantity of the officers assigned to their insti-
tutions. Many received inexperienced second lieutenants when they expected
seasoned colonels. Others got officers who were physically not up to the task
at hand. In 1911, a War Department inspector deemed the retired major serv-
ing at North Dakota Agricultural College in Fargo as unfit for his position
because of old age—he was to turn 80 on his next birthday. Cadre motivation
was another issue. The Army simply did not attach much importance to in-
structor duty and officers knew it. One university president urged that time
spent as a collegiate military instructor “should count as time spent with the
troops in considering his service and promotion.” Otherwise, he warned, the
“discrimination” against such work would continue to discourage officers from
accepting such assignments.'!

The Army’s lukewarm support of collegiate military training was due in
part to personnel and budgetary constraints. Both people and money were in
short supply during most of the period in question. Senior army leaders were
reluctant to detail officers to colleges and universities because, in the words of
one Department Commander, such detached duty “depletes the line and de-
prives the troops of the services of these excellent officers when they are most
needed.” The pre-World War I Army, like the post-Cold War Army, devoted
more words than resources to leader development.'?

The “indifferent” attitude of university authorities toward military train-
ing also dampened the War Department’s enthusiasm for the program. This
indifference, one general staff study noted, was displayed by the “wholesale
excusing” of students from military instruction. Farm chores, athletic com-
mitments, conflicting civilian job schedules, and a host of other activities too
numerous to recount got students excused from drill. The failure of college
administrators to “allot proper time and opportunity for the work of the
military department” was another sign of this indifference, or so it seemed.

"1



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The same source deplored the lack of support provided to the PMS by the
armies. “In looking to the large army headquarters,” he maintained

..the PMS is referred to several offices before getting the re-
sponse he requires. A single home base—or focal point—where
the PMS can get an immediate understanding and useful response
does not exist at most armies.

The group of officers that conducted the study noted that a nonstandard
organization rendered nonstandard results:

Each of the six ZI (Zone of the Interior) Army Commanders and
the Corps Commanders in five of the six ZI Armies give the
ROTC/NDCC program varying degrees of priority within their
tespective commands. As a result there is wide variance in pro-
gram execution, in quality and quantity of administrative and
logistical support provided, and in the quality of the program
product.

Things were almost as bad at the Department of the Army level, accord-
ing to the report’s authors. There, general staff responsibility for officer pro-
duction programs was split among the Assistant Chief of Staff for Force De-
velopment, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (DCSPER), and the Chief
of Reserve Components. The ROTC’s close association with this last agency—
it had a seven-person ROTC Division within it—was not, it was felt, alto-
gether a desirable state of affairs. The study group asserted that:

Association and identification of the Army ROTC with the Army
Reserve has caused the ROTC to receive a lower priority and
less emphasis than it deserves as the primary source of officers
for the active army, regular and non-regular.

At the Continental Army Command (CONARC) Headquarters, an eight-
person ROTC Branch within the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Indi-
vidual Training was responsible for coordinating ROTC affairs. (The branch
had been transferred there from the Reserve Components Division effective
15 May 1962 in an interim reorganization of CONARC Headquarters.) With
such meager personnel assets, the branch could not provide the kind of

28



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

one compressed summer session. Secondly, the cadre who evaluated the lead-
ership potential of Basic Camp cadets had only a month and a half to do their
job. Their assessments of potential would by necessity be less thorough than
the ones performed on Basic Course cadets, who the cadre could observe over
a period of two years.°

Abolishing the two-year on-campus scholarship (also called the PMS in-
centive scholarship) at the beginning of School Year 1991-1992 was also, in
part, a reflection of the Commanding General’s determination to bolster the
four-year program (budget cuts likewise played a role). Before 1991, money
had always been set aside for this type of award, which had the successful
completion of Basic Camp as an eligibility prerequisite. Students vying for
this scholarship did not have to face national competition, as was the case
with most other varieties of award. PMSs could select almost any student
they wanted, provided that the student in question met certain minimum quali-
fying criteria. Although it proved useful as a recruiting and retention device,
it did not, in the main, attract into the ROTC a student of the highest caliber.

After seeing how the elimination of the PMS incentive scholarship
played out on campus, however, Arnold came to the conclusion that he
might have proceeded too hastily. His action did raise product quality but
it also took a valuable tool away from the PMS and perhaps went too far in

BASIC CAMP
ATTENDANCE 1965 - 1992

Thousands

5

4

3 5

2 HH
1 3 ‘wan

0
Years 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

Figure 6-1. Basic Camp Attendance 1965 - 1992

148



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

In addition to effecting a rapid drawdown, the Horizon plan had several
other stated objectives. One was to preserve the traditional form of the com-
mand. Thus, under Horizon, the old camp structure (i.e., three Advanced Camps
and one Basic Camp) was retained. Eliminating one or more camps, which
some outside of Cadet Command Headquarters had suggested, would have
saved money but also would have reduced the cadre-to-cadet ratio at camp,
which would have lowered the overall quality of training.

The plan also provided for a “ramp-up” capability in case of national
emergency and an “infrastructure” capable of maintaining “the Army’s pres-
ence on America’s college campuses.” There was an obvious tension between
Horizon’s primary goal of closing unproductive units and these latter two ob-
jectives. “Preserving the Army’s presence on campus” (a rather nebulous con-
cept to which a variety of definitions have been attached) often has meant
keeping units with a long history of substandard production while maintain-
ing a “ramp-up” capability (in the way it has traditionally been understood, at
least) necessarily entailed the retention of a larger institutional base than of-
ficer requirements dictated. How seriously the Army took these latter two
objectives is not entirely clear. There were officers at Cadet Command Head-
quarters and in the Pentagon who regarded them primarily as convenient jus-
tifications to ward off even more drastic unit cuts in the future.”

The Secretary of Defense directed the Army to implement Operation
Horizon on 12 July 1990. A little over 14 months later, Cadet Command had
closed 62 Senior ROTC units, which represented 15 percent of extant pro-
grams at the time. Fifty of these closures had been part of the original Hori-
zon plan. The other 12 were Effective Management Program closures. How-
ever, all 62 actions are commonly lumped together under the Horizon label
because they were developed and worked at approximately the same time.

Major General Arnold, the Cadet Command Commander who superin-
tended the execution of Horizon, clearly regarded it as a huge success. He
attributed the success to superb coordination by his headquarters staff. Be-
sides keeping TRADOC, the Department of the Army and the Defense De-
partment in the planning loop, his staff worked closely with congressmen,
general officers, Adjutant Generals of state National Guard organizations,
distinguished alumni, and others who had a stake in the operation. According
to Arnold, the end result of all this was that no closure decisions had to be
reversed—a remarkable achievement given the number of institutions and indi-
viduals involved and the intense emotions that unit inactivations often incite.

The General Accounting Office, however, was less enthusiastic about

235



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

TRADOC (11 March 1983). Richardson’s appointment would prove to be
significant because of the part he was destined to play in the transformation of
the ROTC program. He brought to his new post an in-depth knowledge of the
ROTC acquired during his tenure as TRADOC’s Deputy Commanding Gen-
eral and as Assistant Commandant of the Infantry School. When he assumed
command, Richardson brought with him two principal concerns about the pro-
gram. First, he, like General Otis, felt that the officer production quota of
10,500 by 1985 was far too high. Second, he believed that too many ROTC
graduates (124 in 1982) were failing their Officer Basic Course.

These facts reinforced a conclusion he had drawn months earlier—namely,
that quantity was being bought at the expense of quality in the ROTC. His
conclusion was correct, for recruiting pressures in the 1970s and early 1980s
induced many ROTC cadre to commission individuals who, to paraphrase one
DCSROTC, clearly did not have what it takes to become officers.® Richardson
decided to attack the problem at both ends—i.e., to lower production quotas
and raise commissioning standards. He took up the quota issue with the
DCSPER, Lieutenant General Robert M. Elton, and explained to him that the
10,500 figure simply could not be allowed to stand—at least not if Army lead-
ers wanted a capable annual cohort of new lieutenants entering the Army. Lieu-
tenant General Elton worried that a substantial lowering of the goal would
leave the Army with too few junior leaders. But Richardson pressed the point
and the DCSPER eventually relented and agreed to drop the quota to, from the
TRADOC perspective, more realistic levels. By 1986, the production mission
had been reduced to about 8,700.7

One of the steps Richardson took to raise the quality of ROTC produc-
tion was to redefine unit success. A detachment’s relative standing now rested
not only on how many officers it turned out but on how well those that it did
produce fared at their Officer Basic Course. The DCSROTC was instructed
to track Officer Basic Course failures by individual program. When an of-
ficer failed the basic course, the DCSROTC informed the PMS of his alma
mater and detailed the reasons for failure. The PMS in question was then
expected to review the performance records of that officer to determine whether
or not he should have been commissioned in the first place and report back on
the findings. This procedure encouraged PMSs to do everything they could to
avoid such unwanted attention.*

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) had an especially
high proportion of their graduates fail at Officer Basic Courses. This led Gen-
eral Richardson to solicit the support of HBCU presidents in resolving the

48


U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Cadet Command’s chief sought to pre-empt the Quicksilver plan by com-
ing up with a downsizing scheme of his own. Operation Horizon was the
result. The Horizon plan reflected both his determination to retain as much of
the ROTC institutional structure as possible and his fears about the organiza-
tional turbulence that would inevitably accompany such a large scale closure
action. In the past, not all parties had demonstrated an appreciation for the
disruption that sudden and wholesale unit inactivations can bring in their
wake. The 1977 General Accounting Office recommendation to Congress
clearly demonstrated the point (see page 226).

The procedure that the command had developed for eliminating unpro-
ductive units, the Effective Management Program, could not be the exclusive
means by which Horizon was effected. That program rested on a four year
inactivation process but Cadet Command had to make major cuts in only one
year. To effect the drawdown with the necessary rapidity, therefore, the com-
mand relied upon the expedient of the “contract” closure. A review of the
standardized contract between the Army and institutional authorities revealed
that a host institution could be closed in one academic year and an extension
center in one semester if either the school concerned or the Army terminated the
contract for whatever reason. (Several private universities in the late 1960s had
used the contract closure to terminate Army ROTC programs on their campuses.)

Selecting units for inactivation was accomplished through the use of the
Army ROTC viability algorithm, a device designed to identify colleges with
low production potential. The 1990 version of the algorithm favored quantity
over quality. It gave equal weight to past (1/4), current (1/4), anticipated near
term production (1/4), and to quality (1/4). A sensitivity analysis of this algo-
rithm indicated that schools with low production potential did not improve
their relative standing when increased importance was given to quality. In
retrospect, one can see this as a clear signal that something was amiss with the
viability algorithm. In the press of events that accompanied Horizon, how-
ever, such a methodological error went undetected.

From March to August 1990, Cadet Command Headquarters refined the
Horizon Plan, while keeping in close contact with both the TRADOC and
Army Staffs. In its August 1990 form, Horizon called for the inactivation of
50 Senior ROTC units (31 hosts and 19 extension centers), the elimination of
two brigade headquarters, and the selective drawdown of cadre at certain
schools. With this plan, the command’s end strength was to shrink from 4,499
to 3,761 and its officer production capacity from 7,800 to 6,200. All this was
to be accomplished by October 1991.

234



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

military drill; three periods per week of military instruction; strict discipline
during drill periods; a week of field training each year; and instruction in small
unit tactical operations. Students completing this course of study would be
commissioned into a reserve officer corps. To ensure compliance with pre-
scribed standards, the federal government should, in Orton’s opinion, reserve
the right to discontinue payments of land-grant funds to those schools failing
to meet these criteria.”

Representatives from various civilian and Army educational organiza-
tions met in Washington, D.C., in November 1915 and, using Orton’s propos-
als as a guide, drafted a bill to create a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. The
full support of the academic associations made possible the eventual incorpo-
ration of the ROTC Bill into the National Defense Act of 1916, which was
passed on 3 June of that year. In addition to creating the ROTC, the act estab-
lished an Organized Reserve Corps, an organization into which ROTC gradu-
ates and other reserve officers could be pooled during peacetime.”!

The first ROTC units appeared in the autumn of 1916 at 46 schools. They
registered a combined enrollment of about 40,000. These units came along
too late, however, to permit them to exercise a significant impact on Ameri-
can involvement in World War I. ROTC training, in fact, was suspended in
1918 in favor of the Student Army Training Corps, a body formed to train
enlisted men for special assignments, not to provide on-campus
precommissioning training.

The Inter-War Years

Shortly after the armistice, the ROTC was reestablished at most of the
institutions that had maintained pre-war units. Congress attempted to rein-
vigorate the program when it passed the National Defense Act of 1920, which
provided for more federal support to ROTC units in the form of uniforms,
equipment, and instructors. In the period between the wars, the ROTC grew
steadily although not as much or as quickly as some government and Army
officials would have liked due to limited appropriations. Starting with units at
135 institutions in 1919, the program encompassed 220 colleges and universi-
ties by 1940. Production also increased. By the time the United States entered
World War II, the ROTC had produced over 100,000 officers and its graduates
constituted about 80 percent of the Organized Reserve Corps.”

To get an ROTC unit established on their campus during this period, col-
lege and university presidents had to petition the Army Adjutant General’s

14



RECRUITING CADETS

each year. This in turn led to an unevenness of product quality and to
the perception of arbitrariness in the officer selection process.

Upon its establishment, the command began the task of installing the
Fourth Region’s Operation Goldstrike in the other three regions. This, Cadet
Command staff officers hoped, would go a long way towards eliminating the
abuses associated with past recruiting management practices. A milestone in
this effort occurred in August 1986 when the command published Cadet Com-
mand Pamphlet 145-1, Operation Goldstrike: The Goldstrike Management
System, which contained the outlined of the mechanism by which the com-
mand planned to turn things around.

Before the institution of the Goldstrike Management System, the ROTC
method for establishing recruiting and commissioning goals had been irregu-
lar. Region commanders received recommended production goals from their
higher headquarters. They, in turn, gave only recommendations to their sub-
ordinate PMSs about the quantity and quality of cadets to be commissioned
and set no production floor (or production minimum). PMSs were, in many
respects, semi-autonomous agents who determined both the quality and quan-
tity of the cadets they were to put into the Army.TM*

To standardize recruiting and production functions, the new system con-
tained a management device called the mission process. This process, which
gave the command the ability to measure production effectiveness in both
quantitative and qualitative terms, engaged each level of the chain-of-com-
mand in negotiating the number of cadets (or the mission) to be contracted
and commissioned during a given fiscal year. In practice, of course, there was
much more direction by, than negotiating with, Cadet Command Headquar-
ters, but it was nonetheless true that with the mission process, the PMS be-
came more aware of how his battalion fit into the overall ROTC production
scheme than had previously been the case.

The annual mission cycle began in November when the Department of
the Army sent Cadet Command production missions for seven years into the
future. In January, at the annual commander’s conference, the Commanding
General gave “directed missions” to each region commander for three years
into the future. Upon receipt of a directed mission, each region headquarters
analyzed it and then negotiated with Cadet Command Headquarters to adjust
the mission upward or downward. The final step in the process took place in
April or May during separate region “adjudication conferences.” Here, each
region commander presented an analysis based on market potential to the Ca-
det Command Commander. After further discussion, the two men then agreed

135



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

In the new headquarters, the former divisions of the old DCSROTC were
retained but substantially expanded. The new Personnel and Administration
Division formulated policies and procedures for the management of person-
nel—military, civilian, and cadet. It also ran the Army ROTC Scholarship
program and controlled the Precommissioning Assessment System. A Re-
source Management Division managed the command’s logistics, finances,
and manpower allocation processes. The Training Division dealt with
matters relating to precommissioning training, education, and leader devel-
opment. The operation of and the evaluation methods used at both Basic and
Advanced Camp fell within the purview of this division. Training also had a
high school desk which oversaw the operation of the Junior ROTC. A Mar-
keting Division supervised the national advertising program, conducted mar-
ket research, and through its Public Affairs Office, acted as the official spokes-
man for the command. See Figure 3-5

Anew Operations Division along with several special staff offices were
added on to the frame of the old DCSROTC structure. Operations headed
up the Goldstrike Mission Management System and measured how well

HEADQUARTERS CADET COMMAND (1986)

INSPECTOR RESERVE
GENERAL ADVISORS
SURGEON COMMAND INTERNAL

— _t GROUP REVIEW
INFO MGT }
| j l I l
PERS & RESOURCE TRAINING OPNS DIV MKTG
ADMIN DIV MGT DIV Div (socc) Div

Figure 3-5. Headquarters Cadet Command (1986)

81



10.

11.

13.

17.
18.
19.

20.

21.

22.

ENDNOTES

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-TE, Evaluation Division, Training Directorate, 5 December 1989,
subject: OBC Failures. (2) TRADOC Annual Command History,1 October 1982 - 30
September 1983, pp. 228-29. (3) Memorandum ATTG-MPS, LTC S. D. Serafin, HQ
TRADOC, 16 December 1987,subject: Officer Basic Course Failures. (4) Memorandum
for Record, ATCG,LTG Richardson, 14 October 1983, subject: Visit to US Army Infantry
School,12 October 1983. (5) Memorandum, ATRO-EE, COL Richard B. Hoogstraten,to
Chief, Resource Management Division, 1 June 1983, subject: ViabilityStandards,

(1) Report, “Quality in ROTC,” Historically Black Colleges Conference, Hampton
University, Hampton, Va., 13-14 March 1985, “Quality in ROTC,” pp. 105-15, HRDC.
(2) Letter, Senator Charles Grassley and Representative Tom Tauke to GEN Richardson,
Cdr, TRADOC, 3 December 1984. (3) Letters, GEN Richardson, Cdr, TRADOC, to
Senator Grassley and Representative Tauke, 19 December 1984 and 1 February 1985.
(4) Letter, Thomas L. Palmer, President, Panhandle State University to MG Prillaman,
DCSROTC, 19 December 1985. (5) Letters, GEN Richardson, Cdr, TRADOC, to the
Presidents of 21 Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 17 March 1986. (6)
DCSROTC Semiannual Historical Report, 1 July - 31 December 1973; and DCS/Cdr ROTC
Semiannual Historical Reports: 1 October 1984 - 31 March 1985; and 1 October 1985 -
31 March 1986, HRDC. (7) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, October 1977 -
September 1978, pp. 274-76. (8) Letter, ATRO-O, MG Prillaman, Cdr, ROTC, to Cdrs,
U.S. Army ROTC Regions, Area Cdrs, PMS, 24 January 1986, subject: Year End
Assessment, p. 5.

(1) Author interview with MG Daniel W. French, 23 September 1995. (2) Author interview
with GEN William R. Richardson, 13 November 1995.

DCSROTC, TRADOC, 1975 Orientation and Briefing Files n.d., HRDC.

Ibid.

Author interview with MG Daniel W. French, 23 September 1995. (2) Author interview
with GEN William R. Richardson, 13 November 1995. (3) Memorandum, ATCG, GEN
Richardson to MG Hall, 14 October 1985, subject: Graduate Degrees on ROTC
Duty, HRDC.

Oral history interview with MG Prillaman, n.d.

(1) Office of the Chief of Staff, Department of the Army, ROTC Study Group Report
(Washington, D.C.: HQDA, May 1986), 1:5-23. (2) Message, HQDA, DACS-ZB, to Car,
TRADOG, 3 November 1983, subject: Army Management Headquarters Activities (AMHA).
(1) Letter, GEN Richardson to GEN Maxwell Thurman, 8 March 1984. (2) Message, GEN
Richardson to LTG Elton, Army DCSPER, 15 February 1984, subject: ROTC as a DCSPER
FOA. (3) Letter, GEN Richardson, to LTG Elton, Army DCSPER, 6 August 1985, (4)
Letter, GEN Richardson to GEN Wickham, CSA, 12 August 1985. (5) Message, GEN
Richardson to LTG Elton, 14 January 1985, subject: ROTC Reorganization. (6) Letter,
ATCG-P, GEN Richardson to LTG Elton, 4 September 1985.

ROTC Study Group Report, |:5-8.

Ibid., 1:5-22.

(1) Letter, ATRM-MS, GEN Richardson to GEN Wickham, 26 September 1985.
(2) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Feasibility Study: ROTC as a Major Subordinate Command of
HQ TRADOGC, 20 September 1985.

(1) Author interview with Mr. William Marlin, 21 September 1995. (2) Author interview
with Mr, Sal Cannella, 27 September 1995.

(1) Author interview with Mr. Sal Cannella, 27 September 1995. (2) Letter, ATRM-MS,
GEN Richardson to GEN Wickham, 26 September 1985. (3) Feasibility Study; ROTC as
a Major Subordinate Command of HQ TRADOC.

(1) Letter, ATRM-MS, MG Carl H. McNair, Jr., COS TRADOC, to HQDA (DAMO-FDP),
6 January 1986, subject: Concept Plan—ROTC as a Major Subordinate Command (MSC)
of HQ TRADOC. (2) Memorandum for Record, ATRM-M, COL Benjamin D. Taylor, Chief,
Management Division, DCSROTC, 21 February 1986, subject: Briefing to HQDA on
Establishment of ROTC as a Subordinate Command of HQ TRADOC. (3) Memorandum
for Record, ATRM-M, COL Taylor, 3 March1986, subject: ROTC Reorganization
Follow-on Action.

311



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

cadets, trained in proper counseling techniques, to convince other cadets
of the importance of obtaining an education and the dangers of using drugs.
The orientation clinic was a program in which senior high school cadets
would canvas junior high schools for the purpose of explaining to the stu-
dents the benefits of joining JROTC.?

On 17 August 1989, Cadet Command representatives briefed District of
Columbia public school officials about the program. Although initially reluc-
tant, the educators finally bought into it. On 24 October 1989, Dr. Andrew E.
Jenkins, Superintendent of D.C. schools, signed a memorandum of agreement
with Major General Wagner to implement Operation Capital. There followed

fe

JROTC Cadets at Denbigh High School, Newport News, Virginia

274



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

of any action would not be felt until the summer of 1997. This meant that
tomorrow’s projected officer production shortfall must be addressed today.**

Second, Major General Lyle “turned up the heat” on the ROTC cadre in
the recruiting arena. Before his appearance on the scene, discussions about
summer camp and other training issues dominated the agenda in command
councils; after his arrival, recruiting took top billing. The message to battal-
ion commanders was unmistakable -- they were expected to shift gears and
refocus on the officer production mission.

Finally, the new commander, responding to a request he had received
from the Army Chief of Staff, directed his staff to explore ways for Cadet
Command to accomplish its mission more efficiently and more economically.
Alternative staffing proposals, various school closure plans (which focused
on eliminating ROTC battalions at those institutions that were either ineffec-
tive or inefficient producers of officers), an Army version of the Marine Corps’
Platoon Leader’s Course along with a number of other schemes were studied
with an eye toward boosting and, at the same time, reducing the costs of of-
ficer production. *

Officer Production in the Post-Cold War Era

During the tenures of both Arnold and Lyle, Cadet Command fell short
of its officer production goals. See Figure 6-3. While the command turned
out a sufficient number of new second lieutenants to meet Active Army re-
quirements, it consistently missed its reserve objective. The reasons behind
this production slump were numerous and complex. Before going on, some
of the more significant of these reasons will be briefly discussed. This will
help the reader more fully understand subsequent sections of this book and
add to a comprehension of why, in a time of demobilization, production could
still be a very real problem.

Declining Propensity

In the early nineties, the Army, along with the rest of the services, lost
some of its allure with young men (but not, it seems, with women). The Defense
Department’s Youth Attitude Tracking Study indicated that the willingness of
young males between the ages of 16 and 18 to enlist in the military dropped
off dramatically after 1990. Interest among the 19-21 age group also declined.
This trend affected the ROTC as much as it did the rest of the Army. Lieutenant
Colonel Greg McGuckin, the Army’s marketing and advertising chief, called

163



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

do a uniformly good job of preparing cadets for their future roles. One
junior officer of that era complained that when he and some of his ROTC
associates entered the Army, they found themselves woefully unprepared for
their jobs. “We were just a bunch of civilians with uniforms,” he lamented.
Option C only made the situation worse. It was no surprise to many offic-
ers who were familiar with the ROTC that an Army review board in the
early 1970s found that of the three major commissioning sources, ROTC
did the poorest job in preparing its charges for their first assignment.®

Support within the Army for this demilitarization of the program was by
no means universal. An ad hoc committee of officers, convened on the occa-
sion of the Sixth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference (1968), expressed con-
cern about the direction the program was taking. It warned that things had
gone far enough and should be allowed to proceed no farther:

..there may be some pressure to further water down the military
requirements of current ROTC program options to make the pro-
gram more attractive. The committee, however, considers that
these pressures should be resisted strongly. No further watering-
down of ROTC options is acceptable. Therefore, serious short-
falls in officer production should be made up from procurement
programs other than ROTC.

Senior officers became defensive about charges that the military com-
ponent of ROTC was being emasculated. Brigadier General Melvin A.
Goers, Chief of the ROTC Directorate at CONARC Headquarters, felt com-
pelled to assure ROTC cadre members in 1970 that CONARC was “cer-
tainly not going to prostitute any of the principles that we hold dear in the
military” in promoting Option C and other liberal policies.” To many of-
ficers, such assurances had a hollow ring.

ROTC After Vietnam

The period of transition from a conscript to an all-volunteer military es-
tablishment in the early 1970s was a trying time for the three services. All
officer production sources faced new and imposing challenges but those that
confronted the Army ROTC were especially daunting. To be sure, ROTC pro-
duction problems surfaced well before the Vietnam drawdown. As early as the
spring of 1967, Army leaders found themselves faced with a choice between

35



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

cadets prior to contracting and prominently displayed in all region and cadet
battalion headquarters. '*

The customs and traditions of the U.S. Army regimental mess were also
appropriated by Cadet Command. All units were required to hold an annual
Dining-In and Military Ball, the instrumentality through which the customs
and traditions of the regimental mess were transmitted. This tradition origi-
nated in the British Army during the eighteenth century when officers were
quartered in taverns or private homes. The close association of British and
American officers during the world wars resulted in the adoption of this tradi-
tion by the U.S. Army.'¢

Flags were a command fetish during the Wagner era. Historically, the
most prized possession of any unit was its colors. The organizational colors
identified a unit’s physical presence on the battlefield and provided a rallying
point for its members during combat. In light of this tradition, Major General
Wagner believed that Cadet Command had to have one of its own.

He enlisted the aid of the Institute of Heraldry and by June 1987, had
manufacturing drawings of new flags and guidons for the command and its
subordinate units in his possession. These drawings were patterned on the
design of the Foster Flag—a flag designed by Sergeant Major Calvin
Foster, Wagner’s long-time associate, and his wife. Until the arrival
of the official flag in December 1987, the Foster Flag flew at all Cadet
Command ceremonies. Afterwards, it was retired and placed on display in
the foyer of Cadet Command Headquarters at Fort Monroe, Virginia. It
became something of an institutional icon, its somewhat roughhewn appear-
ance symbolizing the many obstacles that the command had to overcome in
order to assert its identity in its early days.'’ See Figure 3-4.

Noncommissioned officers also figured prominently in the campaign to
imprint a distinctive stamp on the command. Through a program known as
Operation Striper, noncommissioned officers were made the guardians of tra-
dition. In this capacity, they taught the customs and traditions of the service
to cadets, ensured that cadets maintained high standards of personal appear-
ance, gave instruction in drill and ceremony, and, in general, guided the mili-
tary socialization process of the students entrusted to their care.'*

The new role given to the noncommissioned officer through Operation
Striper made him a much more valued and, from the cadet perspective, re-
spected member of the cadre. Before the establishment of Cadet Command,
college and university faculty members frequently complained that the
ROTC staff was filled with noncommissioned officers who lacked college

76



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

ROTC program, did not go down particularly well in Cadet Command. Ac-
customed over the last several years to devoting themselves almost exclu-
sively to the training of cadets, ROTC instructors chafed under the new man-
date to recruit, which was what the new algorithm meant at the unit level.
There were and are at least two principal reasons behind the dislike of recruit-
ing among professional military officers. First, it is hard work. Cadre mem-
bers would much prefer to spend their time training and teaching cadets than
performing the routine and often grueling tasks associated with recruiting.
Second, it is unpredictable. Success in recruiting, it is believed, is more
dependent on chance and circumstances than upon diligence and sound
planning.

By far the most significant part of Cadet Command’s reorientation to the
new international and fiscal realities of the 1990s, however, involved a plan
to slash ROTC’s institutional base by between 23 percent and 34 percent be-
tween FY 1994 and FY 1999. The plan was dubbed, for obvious reasons, the
Five-Year Plan. In its final form, it provided for the time-phased elimination
of up to 100 ROTC units, including both host battalions and extension cen-
ters, and outlined both the manpower and monetary savings that would be
attained in each phase. It was the most ambitious measure of its kind in the
history of the ROTC program.”

The Five Year Plan, unlike previous plans, contained several decision
points at which determinations could be made about the pace and scope of the
downsizing process. Such built-in decision points were considered necessary
to give the Army and Cadet Command the flexibility to respond to future events
and conditions. See Figure 8-5.

Another consideration that guided the plan’s formulation was program
stability. It was to guarantee stability that the plan provided for the incremen-
tal reduction in institutional and cadre strength at a rate of approximately 20
schools per year. The gradual or “time-phased” feature of the plan was added
to forestall the practice of cutting cadre before cutting units—a practice that
the Army had adopted several years before and from which Cadet Command
still had not recovered. The effects of such premature personnel decrements
were most evident at the battalion level. Before Horizon, there were on aver-
age 5.5 officers assigned to each host school. By 1995, this number had fallen
to only 3.5. See Figure 8-6.

In an ROTC battalion, the first area to suffer when personnel shortages
exist is recruiting. This is because recruiting is the only discretionary part of
the unit’s schedule. Other functions, i.e., training, administration, and

245


U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

23.

24.

25.

27.

28.

39.

(1) Message, DA SSO to TRADOC SSO, 25 June 1985, subject: CY85 MG Promotion
Board Selectees. (2) Message, GEN Richardson, to GEN Wickham, 5 December 1985,
subject: Commander, ROTC. (3) Letter, GEN Richardson to BG Wagner, 31 December
1985. (4) Message, DA SSO to TRADOC SSO,19 February 1986, subject: General
Officer Assignments. :

(1) Letter, AETSBDC-M, BG Wagner, ADC, 3d Inf Div to MG Prillaman, DCS/
Cdr ROTC, 11 April 1983. (2) Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995.

Author interview with Mr. William Marlin, 25 September 1995.

Author interview with Mr. Cal Foster, 26 September 1995.

(1) HQ USCONARC, Report of the Ad Hoc Committee, Basic and Advanced Camps,
October 1969, p. 25, HRDC. (2) Fourth ROTC Region Annual Historical Summary , 1
October 1982 - 30 September 1983, p. 5, HRDC.

(1) Letter, MG Prillaman to BG Wagner, 26 May 1983. (2) Letter, ATOD-TNG-OF, HQ
Fourth ROTC Region, 8 September 1983, subject: ROTC Camp Evaluation (RCS-ATRO-
190), pp. 8-9. (3) Memorandum, ATRO-EE, MG Prillaman to region cdrs, 18 May 1983,
subject: Reading and Mathematical Skills. (4) Fourth ROTC Region Annual Historical
Summary, 1 October 1982 - 30 September 1983, p. 5, HRDC.

HQ Fourth ROTC Region, ROTC: Everybody's Business, 1983, p. 3, HRDC.

(1) Message, ATRO-PP, MG French to LTG Richardson, MG Dinges, and region cdrs, 2
March 1981, subject: Officer Standards. (2) Memorandum, ATRO-PP, MG French to Cdr,
USA MILPERCEN, 3 December 1980, subject: Attrition Rate at Officer Basic Courses.
ROTC: Everybody's Business, p. 3, HRDC.

Ibid.

Ibid, p. 7.

Remarks made by LTG T. L. Stroup, DCSPER, at the Cadet Command Commander's
Conference, 11-13 September 1995.

(1) Ibid. (2) Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995.

The code name “Goldstrike” signified ROTC’s mission of producing second lieutenants,
who wear a gold lieutenants bar as their insignia of rank.

HQ Fourth ROTC Region, Operation Goldstrike, n.d.

(1) Author interview with Mr. Cal Foster, 27 September 1995. (2) Fact Sheet,
COL Lawton, DCSROTC Ed Div, 25 September 1974. (3) Letter, GEN Bruce C.
Clarke to Secretary of the Army, Bo Calloway, 19 August 1974. (4) Herbert T.
Smith, Managing the R.O.T.C. Program (Ft. Lee, Va.: U.S. Army Quartermaster
School, 30 September 1969), p. 13.

(1) Fourth ROTC Region Pam 145-3, Operation Goldstrike, 1 July 1984 and 1
July 1985. (2) Fourth ROTC Region Annual Historical Summaries: 1 October

1982 - 30 September 1983, pp. 12-13; 1 October 1983 - 30 September 1984,

40.

41.

42.
43.

44.

45.

47.

312

pp. 13-15; and 1 October 1984 - 30 September 1985, pp. 31-33, HRDC.

(1) Author interview with Mr. Cal Foster, 28 September 1995. (2) Comptroller
of the Army, A Study of Organization for Management of the Army ROTC/
NDCC Program, p. 31. (3) Fourth Region Annual Historical Summary, 1 October
1985 - 30 September 1986, p. 27, HRDC.

Fourth Region Annual Historical Summary, 1 October 1982 - 30 September
1983, p. 27, and 1 October 1982 - 30 September 1983, p. 36, HRDC.

Ibid., p. 8.

(1) Fourth Region Annual Historical Summaries: 1 October 1982 - 30 September 1983,
p. 13; 1 October 1983 - 30 September 1984, pp. 13-15; and 1 October 1984 - 30
September 1985, pp. 31-33, HRDC. (2) Fourth ROTC Region Pam 145-3, 1 July 1984
and 1 July 1985.

Paper, BG Wagner, Cdr, Fourth ROTC Region, October 1983, subject: Army Officer
Cadet Center (Camp).

ROTC: Everybody's Business, p. 9.

Ibid., p. 10.

(1) Paper, BG Wagner, October 1983, subject: Army Officer Cadet Center. (2) GEN
Richardson strongly supported the idea. See Message, GEN Richardson to LTG Elton, 1
December 1983, subject: Army Officer Cadet Center Proposal; and Message, LTG Elton



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

aseries of briefings intended to enlist the support of influential officials within
the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, the Department of
Education, and the Department of Health and Human Services for the new
endeavor. When Mr. William Clark, the Acting Assistant Secretary of the
Army, heard about Operation Capital in October 1989, he became excited about
it and proposed that it be presented before the Army Policy Council. That
body heard the program described in a briefing conducted in November. Such
efforts helped clear a path for the program through government channels.

Meanwhile, through the work of region commanders, the operation was
extended to encompass eight additional cities. The new cities were: Balti-
more, Detroit, Chicago, Denver, El Paso, Shreveport, Dallas, and San Diego.
By mid-1990, Operation Capital was in full swing.”

The reorientation of the JROTC that occurred during Wagner’s watch
represented a break with the past. Major General Wagner, while not aban-
doning the traditional aims of the program, recast it in a different mold, trans-
forming it into what amounted to an instrument of social engineering. The
Chief of Staff’s ROTC Study Group in its 1986 report had expressed concern
about the disproportionately large number of JROTC units hosted by inner-
city “poor schools that did not send people to college.” It recommended that
the DCSROTC focus on bringing “better schools” into the JROTC fold to
boost the program’s image.”! Cadet Command’s first chief targeted for inclu-
sion into the JROTC community precisely the type of school that the study
group was so anxious to exclude.

Arnold and the JROTC Expansion

In the two decades before 1992, the number of high schools partici-
pating in the U.S. Army variant of the JROTC program rose only moderately.
The last significant spurt of growth occurred from FY 1980-1986 during the
tenure of Major General Prillaman as the TRADOC DCSROTC. In that six-
year period, the number of JROTC units rose by 199, or 30 percent. The
expansion that began in 1992, however, was to dwarf this previous effort.
The JROTC grew by over 60 percent between 1992 and the beginning of 1996.

The JROTC was one of the few ways that the U.S. Army served Ameri-
can society in other than a warfighting capacity. The JROTC mission had
taken on a new importance in an era when the traditional assumptions that had
guided the employment of American military forces during the Cold War were
in the process of being replaced by others more relevant to the new global and

275



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

pressure to compete for income-generating research grants—an activity that
took time away from their teaching responsibilities.

Students were often caught in a crunch having both less time to study
and fewer course offerings from which to choose. On many campuses, stu-
dents found it difficult to get the courses they needed. The problem was particu-
larly acute in the California state system. There, some students had to wait until
their senior year to take English 101, a basic prerequisite for graduation.

The lengthening of the undergraduate experience had a number of unto-
ward consequences for the ROTC program. One was an increased drop-out
rate. The longer students extended their college career, research indicated,
the lower were their chances of graduating. With the virtual elimination of
the Early Commissioning Program in 1991, an individual without a degree,
even though he might have successfully completed all prescribed ROTC course
work and training, was ineligible for a commission. Another consequence
was the aggravation of ROTC academic alignment problems, which arose when
cadets took five or six, instead of four years to graduate. Enrollment data
showed that attrition rates for so called completion cadets, i.e., cadets who
have met all ROTC commissioning requirements except for the attainment of
a baccalaureate degree, were every bit as high as those for cadets enrolled in
the ROTC Advanced Course.**

Financial Squeeze/Time Constraints

Skyrocketing college costs compelled many students to work to finance
their education. According to a 1994 Cadet Command survey, approximately
67 percent of Army ROTC cadets were employed.*? Students who worked to
put themselves through school often felt that they did not have time for a
demanding program like the ROTC. It was not uncommon for cadets in the
ROTC Advanced Course to spend 18 to 20 hours per week during the aca-
demic year in ROTC-related activities. Cadets also had to devote most of one
summer to ROTC Advanced Camp—a summer that would otherwise have been
available to earn money in a more remunerative undertaking. ‘Many students
could not, or believed they could not, withstand the financial loss that partici-
pation in the ROTC sometimes entailed.*°

The Defense Department's Exclusionary Policy

The Defense Department’s exclusionary policy toward homosexuals was
another factor that, in the opinion of many in Cadet Command, worked to
lower ROTC production totals. That policy prohibited military officials from

167



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Headquarters). In December 1994, the Defense Department suggested that
the maximum commissioning age for scholarship cadets be increased from 25
to 27. At the time of this writing, that suggestion is still being evaluated by
the other services.*®

The Army Allocation Program

School Year 1982-1983 saw the introduction of the Army ROTC
Scholarship Allocation Program. The Army initiated the program to attract
more students with what the Army had variously termed “hard skill” or “high
tech” academic majors into its officer corps. Engineering, the physical
sciences, business, and nursing all fell into this category. ROTC program
managers at various levels were given “scholarship utilization” objectives based
on academic discipline. For School Year 1982-1983, the objectives were:
engineecring—30 percent, physical sciences—25 percent, business—20 percent,
social sciences—10 percent, nursing—7 percent and other—8 percent. In
subsequent years, these objectives changed little.”

The Scholarship Allocation Program targeted "high-tech" disciplines

203



GOLDQuest, 133-139

Goldstrike Blitz Report, 136

Goldstrike Mission Management
System, 81, 134-137

grade point average, 180-182

Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, 264

Gray Committee, 21, 186, 187

Gray, Gordon, 21

Green to Gold, 138, 139

Guaranteed Reserve Forces Duty
(GRFD), 41

Guest Speaker Program, 120, 121

H
Haines Board, 221
Haines, Gen. Ralph E., 193
Hamblem, Brig. Gen. Archelaus Jr.,
192
Hampton University, 110, 145
Harvard University, 221
Hattaway, Lt. Col. Jimmie, 98, 99
Hausman, Col. William, 83, 84
helmet of Pallas Athena, 72, 73
“high tech” disciplines, 203-206
Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCU), 48, 49, 110-113
Hodson, Lt. Col. Michael E., 82,
119-121
Hoglan, Brig. Gen. Curtis F., 264
Holliday, Col. Ralph C., 17
Holloway Plan, 184, 185, 189
Horizon, 154, 233-237
House Armed Services Committee,
201

I
increased time to graduate, 166, 167
Individual Ready Reserve, 88
Indiana University, 8
infantry, 15, 16, 142
Information Management Office, 82
Inspector General, 82
“instant tradition,” 74-77
Instructor Training Course, 118
intelligence, 93
Intensive Management Program, 228
interactive satellite teleconferencing
programs, 282

J
Janowitz, Morris, 116, 213

INDEX

Jefferson, Thomas, 8
John Jay College of Criminal
Justice, 168
Johns Hopkins University, 211, 221
Jones, Lt. Col. Leonard M., 110
JROTC, 257-288
cadet creed, 285-286
early history, 257-258
expansion, 275-280, 283, 284
federal support for, 258
Improvement Plan, 263
instructor course, 280, 281
mission statement, 265, 266,
269
program of instruction, 263,
264, 271
“push packages,” 277
retiree recall, 280
role model program, 273
sponsorship program, 266
summer camps, 273, 284, 285
Vitalization Act, 260, 261
Jugenheimer, Donald, 124, 140

K
Kansas State University, 96
Kemper Institute, 8
Key, Brig. Gen. Milton E., 36, 192
Korean Conflict, 20, 84, 187, 188
Korean War Gl Bill, 190

L

Lafayette College, 8

Laird, Melvin R., 33

Land-Grant College Bill, 8, 59

land-grant colleges, 9, 10, 14

Lathrop, Robert L., 175

Leader Development Study,
113-115

Lead Expediting and Dissemination
System, 133, 134

leader's reaction course, 99

leadership, 93

Leadership Assessment Program
(LAP), 43, 44

Lewis, Representative Ron, 250-252

Lincoln, Abraham, 9

Lincoln Technical Institute, 275

Los Angeles Basin, 62

Louisiana State University, 8

low-intensity conflict, 93

353



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

levels of intellectual and academic attainment), the PMS must
not lose sight of the fact that the students enrolled will be offic-
ers and probably lead troops within four years. Their intelligence
is very important; but equally important is their physical ability;
their common sense; their emotional stability; and their overall
versatility... | saw too many obese misfits, without stamina or
perseverance, at our camps this past summer. We do not need
these types."*

The CONARC Commander, General Ralph E. Haines, agreed with
Hamblem and Key. He too was startled by the number of cadets who failed
the physical fitness test. From this, he concluded that it was necessary to
change the way CONARC evaluated scholarship applicants. Award winners,
in his estimation, should be selected with the whole-man concept in mind.
“We don’t want just the academician in our ROTC program; we want the men
with brains but with balance too.” Scholarship selection criteria were indeed
changed but how much and when is difficult to establish. Complaints about
the lack of physical vigor and leadership ability among scholarship recipients
continued to be voiced throughout the next decade. It appears that the Army’s
adoption of a more broadly-based gauge of officer potential in scholarship
applicants was an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary process.”

CONARC Scholarship Study

ACONARC study of the Army ROTC scholarship program was sent to
the Army DCSPER in May 1969. The authors of the study based their find-
ings on a survey of the academic performance of scholarship cadets, com-
ments from PMSs and CONARC staff officers, and the collective experience
of the ROTC/NDCC Directorate with the program. In the study, they recom-
mended that: the number of scholarships in force be raised from 5,500 to
10,000; one- and three-year scholarships be awarded in addition to the tradi-
tional two- and four-year scholarships; two-year (lateral entry) cadets be made
eligible for scholarships; and the subsistence allowance be increased to one-
fourth the pay of a second lieutenant for nonscholarship and one-third the
base pay of a second lieutenant for scholarship cadets.” Only the second
recommendation—the one that called the introduction of one-, and three-year
scholarships—was accepted, at least at that particular time. The Depart-
ment of the Army authorized CONARC to award one-year scholarships
“on a limited basis” to “highly qualified MS IV cadets who are motivated for

193



Operation Gunfighter, 102, 103

Operation Gunsmoke, 99

Operation Horizon, 154, 233-237

Operation Just Cause, 1

Operation Kit Carson, 99

Operation Partnership, 140

Operation Pathfinder, 102

Operation Striper, 76-78

Operation Trailblazer, 99

Operation True Grit, 102

Operation Young Citizen, 269-271

Operations Division, 81, 82, 136

Option C, 34, 35, 43

Ordnance Corps, 189

Ordnance School, 57

Organized Reserve Corps (ORC), 14,
15, 18, 19

Orientation and Enrollment Course,
117

Orton, Edward Jr., 13, 14

Otis, Gen. Glenn K., 46, 48

P

Pacific Grove, California, 13

Panama, 1

Partridge, Alden, 8

Paul, Norman S., 190

performance gap, 56-60

Persian Gulf, 1

Personnel and Administration
Directorate, 81

personnel shortages, 169-172

personnel turbulence, 172-174

Philippines, 12

Phoenix, Operation, 237-240

physical science majors, 204

Platoon Leader’s Course, 24, 163

Plattsburg Movement, 13

PMS Selection Board, 87

post-Cold War demobilization, 146-
147, 232-256

Powell, Gen. Colin, 276

Powell, Gen. Herbert B., 25

Precommissioning Assessment

System (PAS), 43

Preview Discovery Center, 282

Prillaman, Maj. Gen. John P., 46, 47,
54, 55, 57, 63, 69-72

Princeton University, 42, 221

Professor of Military Science, 24, 29,
48, 50

INDEX

Selection Board, 87
Professor of Military Science and
Tactics (PMS&T), 15, 17

project TWA, 141

propensity to enroll in ROTC,
163-165

Public Law 92-166, 194, 195

Public Law 92-171, 194, 195

Public Law 94-361, 262

Purdue University, 212

Q
“quality deflection syndrome,” 60
Quartermaster School, 58, 61
Quicksilver, Operation, 233

R
Ranger Challenge, 67, 108-110
Reagan Administration, 45
Reconnaisance and Commando
Doughboy (RECONDO)
Course, 40
Recruiting and Cadre Orientation
Course, 116
Regimental Affiliation Program, 66
Region commands, 38-40, 53
Reimer, Gen. Dennis, 250, 251
Reserve Component Advisors, 82
Reserve Forces Act of 1955, 25, 219
ROTC
Branch, DCSIT, CONARC,
28,31
Command, 46
early history, 7-44
Directorate, DCSIT, CONARC,
31, 35, 36
Division, CORC, HQDA, 28
Leaders Course, 118
Nursing Program, 82
Study Group, 52
Vitalization Act of 1964, 25,
26, 140, 147
ROTC: Everybody's Business, 58
Resnick, Maj. Allen R., 127
Resource Management
Directorate, 81
Resume advertisement, 131, 132
Review of Education and Training
for Officers (RETO), 43, 44, 58
Rice University, 221
Richardson, Gen. William R., 43, 47-

355



THE CONCEPT OF A CADET COMMAND

proposal) differed only slightly. In the end, group members reached essen-
tially the same conclusion as had the authors of the 1965 Comptroller’s Re-
port—the establishment of the ROTC as a major subordinate command of
TRADOC (or its organizational forefather CONARC) was the best solution to
the program’s managerial ills. This solution promised to maintain the infor-
mal training support channels so essential to the precommissioning training
system, while still allowing the ROTC to influence policy making in such ar-
eas as cadre assignments, lieutenant accessions, and advertising.'*

TRADOC prepared its plan for ROTC restructuring while the Chief of
Staff’s Study Group was conducting its investigation. The TRADOC team
and the Study Group shared information and worked closely together on is-
sues of mutual interest. TRADOC’s plan, encapsulated in a document en-
titled “Feasibility Study: ROTC as a Major Subordinate Command (MSC) of
HQ TRADOC” was completed in September 1985, eight months before the
Study Group’s final report appeared.

The TRADOC Feasibility Study located the proposed ROTC Command
at Fort Knox, Kentucky. The new headquarters was to be created from the
assets of the Headquarters, Second ROTC Region, which was to be elimi-
nated. The three remaining region headquarters were to be reduced in size by
consolidating much of their administrative and logistics workload in the new
national headquarters. Centralizing ROTC planning and management at the
national headquarters, it was asserted, would enable regions and ROTC de-
tachments to concentrate on operations and training and thus raise the quality of
their product. The realization of substantial manpower and financial savings was
cited as a secondary justification for the proposed reorganization. The plan’s time-
table set 1 October 1986 as the date of the new command’s activation.”

According to several witnesses, the location of the national ROTC head-
quarters at Fort Knox was not dictated solely by operational considerations.
Before the Feasibility Study was completed, the promotion of the Fourth Re-
gion Commander, Brigadier General Robert E. Wagner, to major general had
been announced and his selection as the next ROTC commander was widely
rumored. This was not good news to the TRADOC staff. Not only did they
find some of his personality traits objectionable, but his habit of circumvent-
ing the chain-of-command and taking his case directly to the DCSPER,
TRADOC Commander, the Army Chief of Staff, and any other influential de-
cision-maker who would listen enraged them. By banishing him to Knox, the
thought was, his access to prominent personages in Washington, D.C., and at
Fort Monroe would be restricted.”

53



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

tradition of neglect. In January 1985, TRADOC proposed a mission statement
which highlighted the citizen-leadership aspect of the junior program. It read:

To develop informed and responsible citizens and to provide an
understanding of the U.S. Army in support of national objectives.”

However, it was rejected by the study group because, in its collective
opinion, it did not address all the Defense Department’s objectives or the
program’s need for academic credibility. General Wickham then recommended
a more detailed and ambitious mission statement:

To help develop informed and responsible citizens, aid the growth
of their leadership potential, strengthen their character through
teaching of the values associated with Service life, acquaint them
with the technology inherent to a modern Armed Force, and pro-
mote an understanding of the historical role of Citizen-Soldiers
and their service and sacrifice to the Nation, thereby creating an
interest in military service as a career.”*

Another recommendation of the study group centered on making the
JROTC a more prolific source of recruits for the U.S. Army. It believed that a
more thorough exploitation of the sponsorship program, which matched up
JROTC units with local Army organizations, was one way to promote this
end. TRADOC was urged to develop a plan to define and institutionalize
JROTC-Army relationships across the nation. The plan, the study group felt,
should include provisions for the Army to provide training support and equip-
ment loans to and conduct displays and demonstration for the JROTC.

A third recommendation was for TRADOC to create a centralized man-
agement system for the JROTC. Such a system could enforce JROTC regula-
tions, set standards and policy, accomplish inter-service coordination, act as
liaison with education institutions, and monitor the accrediting process for
establishing or disestablishing units—all tasks that were not being handled
very effectively with the existing system. The study group called for the cre-
ation of a separate directorate within the Office of the DCSROTC charged
with the responsibility of managing all aspects of the JROTC.*

The DCSROTC, Major General Prillaman, took exception to many of
the report’s findings, especially those that recommended a closer and more
visible JROTC-Army relationship. He did not want the JROTC to be

266



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

educations and who were unprepared for the instructional duties they were
called upon to perform.

An ROTC cadet enrolled at the University of Illinois in the 1960s
told of an incident on his campus that illustrated this miscasting of the
noncommissioned officer. It seems that one cadet, an astronomy major, an-
swered a question on a celestial navigation exam with the term “Constellation
Cassiopeia.” His answer was correct but the noncommissioned officer teach-
ing the class marked it wrong. When confronted by the student, the instructor
responded that the Army manual called the constellation in question “The Big
M” and that no other response was acceptable. The cadet then went to his
astronomy instructor who became incensed at the slight that had been inflicted
on his field of study. Obviously, the astronomy instructor concluded, the non-
commissioned officer’s action was reflective of the basic inflexibility and
oversimplicity of the Army ROTC program."

THE FOSTER FLAG

AEADQUATERS

Figure 3-4. The Foster Flag (note the misspelling of Headquarters
and the reversal of the helmet of Pallas Athena)

77



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

Shortly after receiving approval for the officer recall, Cadet Command
submitted another request for the recall of 16 retired NCOs. One NCO retiree
was to be allocated to each brigade commander. They were to assist JROTC
expansion by performing a variety of administrative and logistical duties at
the brigade level as well as by promoting awareness campaigns for the start of
new JROTC units.

For both the officer and NCO retirees, the recall was restricted to indi-
viduals with unique skills or with specialized training and experience. Over
half of the officer retiree recalls were from the special branches. The program
was carefully watched at the Department of the Army because officers re-
called to active duty were counted against Army end strength. In addition,
Cadet Command requested and received 20 civilian authorizations from
TRADOC to support the expansion at the headquarters level. These positions
were placed in the High School and Resource Management Directorates to
handle increased budgetary and logistics requirements.**

JROTC Instructor Course

One way in which Cadet Command sought to fulfill Major General
Arnold’s vow to place JROTC on an equal footing with the senior program
was to establish a JROTC Instructor Orientation Course (known as the
Junior School of Cadet Command, JSOCC). The course was patterned after
the School of Cadet Command and was designed to give the JROTC a firm and
homogeneous instructor base upon which to build. Arnold approved the course
on 24 September 1992 and instruction actually began on 31 May 1993. Two of
the retirees assigned to Cadet Command Headquarters were detailed to assist
in the administration of the course.*

National Science Center

Forming a partnership with the National Science Center (NSC) was an-
other initiative undertaken by Cadet Command in 1992 that had the purpose
of promoting the education of American youth. The NSC concept itself origi-
nated at the U.S. Army Signal Center and School at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Its
developers aimed at enhancing the quality of science and mathematics edu-
cation and improving the general understanding of communications and
electronics technologies among the secondary school population of the
United States.

The National Science Center initiative was a cooperative arrangement

281



48.

49.
50.

51.

52.
53.

No

ENDNOTES

to General Richardson, 23 January 1984, subject: Army Officer Cadet Center (AOCC).
(1) Letter, LTG Williard W. Scott, Jr., Superintendent, USMA, to GEN Richardson,

14 December 1983. (2) Memorandum, GEN Richardson to DCSROTC, 4 October 1983.
Author interview with Dr. Larry Brown, 2 October 1995.

(1) LTC Warren W. Hanson, “ROTC: A National Asset That Transcends Military Needs,”
Army (August 1963), p. 35. (2) Reserve Components Division, G-3 Section, HQ
USCONARC,Semiannual Historical Report, 1 January-30 June 1956, p. 7, HRDC.
(3) Lathrop, Student Attitudes Toward ReserveOfficer Training Corps Program, p. 29.
Letter, ATOD-TNG, BG Wagner to distribution, 20 December 1983, subject:
Goldstrike #C3—Cadet Organizational Structure.

Ibid.

(1) Fourth ROTC Region Annual! Historical Summaries: 1 October 1984 -
30 September 1985, p. 49, and After Action Camp Requirements, Appendix E,
pp. 1-2; and 1 October 1985 - 30 September 1986, p. 9, HRDC. (3) Letter,
ATOD-CDR, BG Wagner, to all PMSs, 12 December 1984, subject: Goldstrike
#22—School Year 84-85 FRAGO #2. (4) Letter, BG Wagner, to GEN Richardson,
31 October 1984. (5) Letter, BG Wagner to GEN Richardson, 18 October 1985.

CHAPTER III

(1) Author interview with GEN Richardson, 13 November 1995. (2) Author interview with
MG Wagner, 23 March 1995.

Author interview with MG Wagner, 23 March 1995.

Ibid.

(1) Letter, ATCC-ZA, MG Wagner, Cdr, ROTC Cadet Command, 10 March 1986, subject:
Assumption of Command. (2) Author interview with MG Wagner, 23 March 1995.

(1) Message, Cdr, ROTC Cadet Command, to AIG 7442, 13 March 1986, subject: U.S.
Army Cadet Command. (2) Message, GEN Richardson to LTG Car! E. Vuono, DAMO-
ZA, 18 March 1986, subject: Name of ROTC Command. (3) Author interview with Dr.
Larry Brown, 2 October 1995.

Author interview with Mr. Sal Cannella, 2 October 1995.

(1) Letter, ATOD-CDR, BG Wagner thru MG Prillaman, to GEN Richardson, 1 August
1985, subject: Proposed Shoulder Sleeve Insignia for Senior ROTC, HRDC. (2) Memo-
randum, DAPE-MPA-0A, MAJ Ellis S. Frison, ROTC Liaison, HQDA thru ADCSROTC to
MG Prillaman, subject: ROTC Patch. (3) Letter, ATRO-TT, MG Prillaman to Cdr,
Institute of Heraldry, 16 August 1985; 1st Endorsement, DAAG-HDP-A, COL Gerald T.
Luchino, Director, Institute of Heraldry to Cdr, ROTC Command, 19 December 1985; 2d
Endorsement, ATRO-TT, MG Priliaman, to Cdr, Institute of Heraldry, 13 January 1986.
(4) Letter, DAPE-MPS-OA, LTG Elton to MG Prillaman, 21 November 1985, subject:
SROTC Shoulder Sleeve Insignia. (5) Message, GEN Richardson to LTG Vuono,18 March
1986, subject: ROTC Command.

Letter, DAAG-HDP-A, COL Luchino, Director, Institute of Heraldry, to Cdr, ROTC Cadet
Command, 28 April 1986, subject: Shoulder Sleeve Insignia, SROTC Cadets and U.S.
Army ROTC Cadet Command, HRDC.

Letter, LTG Scott, Superintendent, USMA, to LTG Elton, 22 October 1985.
Author interview with Mr. Cal Foster, 3 October 1995.

Letter, DAAG-HDP-A, COL Luchino to Cdr, ROTC Cadet Command, 22 August 1986,
subject: Distinctive Unit Insignia for the U.S. Army Cadet Command, HRDC.

(1) News release, Cadet Command Marketing Directorate, 15 May 1987, subject: ROTC
Anniversary. (2) Letter, ATCC-TT, COL James T. O'Connell, COS, Cadet Command,
11 March 1987, subject: LOI for the Cadet Command 1987 Spring Review.

(1) See 870-5a files in HRDC: (a) Ceremony—1987 Spring Review; (b) Ceremony—1988
Spring Review; (c) Ceremony—1989 Spring Review. (2) Song, “A Bar of Gold on Army
Green,” lyrics by Patrick J. Cunningham,Creative Services Director, N.W. Ayer, and
music by David Buskin, HEA Productions, September 1986. (3) Sequence of Events,
1988 Spring Review Ceremony, Continental Park, 19 April 1988, HRDC.

313



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

R.O.T.C." The Ohio State University, 1971.

Bullock, Baxter M. “A White House Conference on ROTC,” USAWC Student
Essay, 16 October 1973.

Bush, James D. “A Comparative Study of ROTC Professors of Military Science
and Other Officials.” University Microfilms International, 1981.

Joe, Ronald M. “The Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: The Past,
The Present, The Future,” USAWC Studies Program, 11 May 1988.

Miyasaki, Shuiche. “A Case Study of the Army ROTC Core Curriculum and Its
Implementation in the 70’s,” USAWC Student Essay, 14 December 1972.

Rankin, George H. “The Administration of Army Reserve Officers’ Corps (ROTC)
Units.” Syracuse University, 1949.

Rockhold, Howard R. “Proposed Improvements to the Army Senior ROTC
Program,” USAWC Student Essay, 20 October 1975.

Smith, Herbert T. “Managing the R.O.T.C. Program.” U.S. Army Quartermaster
School, 1969.

Turner, Alfred F. “The Army ROTC—Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” Air War
College Research Report No. 3697, May 1968.

349



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

competency levels in these basic skills. The Army’s recognition of the exist-
ence of this problem pre-dated the establishment of Cadet Command. In March
1984, attendees at the HBCU Annual Conference agreed that something should
be done to raise the math and reading skills of HBCU cadets. Almost a year
later, (February 1985), after discussions with numerous HBCU officials and
educators, the DCSROTC circulated a proposal that he called Enhanced Skills
Training: ROTC Cadet Skills Development Program. It took the DCSROTC
another year to come up with several alternative approaches for the actual
conduct of the program.

Upon assuming command in March 1986 (shortly after he returned from
the HBCU Annual Conference at Alabama A&M University), Wagner chose
one of the DCSROTC’s alternatives. The alternative selected rested on the
premise that Cadet Command had neither the expertise nor the manpower to
carry out this venture on its own; it needed the cooperation and material sup-
port of the HBCUs. However, the command did agree to contribute $3 million
for the establishment and operation of an Enhanced Skills Training Program
at each HBCU hosting an ROTC unit.

In the final arrangement worked out between the two parties, Cadet Com-
mand was given the responsibility of prescribing the standards to be attained
and monitoring the proficiency testing; the schools were to provide the in-
structors for and actually conduct the program. Under the provisions of the
Enhanced Skills Training agreement, each HBCU was to administer a diag-
nostic test to all of its cadets in three areas—reading, writing, and mathemat-
ics—and place those failing to meet the standards in a remedial program de-
signed to enhance basic skills. A cadet was to enroll only in those programs
in which he had scored below the acceptable standards.

Cadet Command also made a concerted effort to improve the communi-
cative skills of Hispanic cadets in Puerto Rico. This was important, it was
believed, because Puerto Rican institutions of high learning produced the ma-
jority of the Army’s bilingual Hispanic officers. The command approached
this task by taking the floundering English-as-a-Second Language program,
which had run into trouble because of a lack of instructors and money, and
attempting to revitalize it.

Language specialists from the Defense Language Institute’s English Lan-
guage Center were brought in to replace instructors from the University of
Puerto Rico. At the same time, the instructional staff was increased from
three to 10. The revised program offered an informal English language work-
shop at no cost to the cadet during the academic year and two consecutive

112



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

before the House Committee on Armed Services, Major General Edward S.
Bres, the Executive for Reserve and ROTC Affairs, asserted that the produc-
tion of large numbers of active duty officers was not the principal function of
the Army ROTC. The Army program, he explained, needed less generous
incentives than the Navy to fulfill its purpose of producing second lieutenants
for the National Guard, Army Reserve, and, through the Thomason Act of
1935, the Regular Army. In taking this approach, Bres was implying that the
Navy was paying too much for its reserve officers.’

Anti-scholarship sentiment was also prevalent at the grassroots level.
Major George H. Rankin, an active duty officer commissioned through the
ROTC program at Clemson University in the 1930s, expressed the sentiments
of many officers when he asserted that—

The mission of the Army ROTC is to produce reserve officers
not Regular Army officers. An optional and subsidized Army
plan would devolve into two (2) programs, one competing against
the other—one program producing officers for the Regular Army
and the other producing Reserve Officers. Every ROTC student
would desire to be in the subsidized program, the end result be-
ing a strong subsidized program and a weak contact one.*

The issue of ROTC scholarships surfaced again in 1948 with the release
of the Gray Committee Report. This committee had been convened to con-
sider, among other things, the role of reserve forces in the nation’s defense
system. One of its recommendations was to drop the “R” from ROTC to re-
flect the program’s growing importance as an integral part of the officer pro-
curement system for the active forces. It also recommended that the system
of subsidized military education for regular and extended active duty officer
candidates be expanded to include all three services. The latter recommenda-
tion of the Gray Committee was not adopted but it was subsequently cited
almost every time a proposal was made to extend ROTC scholarships to the
Army and Air Force. The Army, on its part, officially endorsed the Gray
Committee’s scholarship recommendation although, once again, the Execu-
tive for Reserve and ROTC Affairs posited that such incentives were not nec-
essary to draw college students into the officer corps.”

In 1949, the Service Academy Board revisited the ROTC scholarship
question. Unlike the Army’s Executive for Reserve and ROTC Affairs, the Board
saw the ROTC developing into a major source of regular and non-regular active

186



CADET TRAINING

device to systematically evaluate leadership development.

The results attained did not completely satisfy Cadet Command’s Com-
mander. He would have liked to see the LAP accepted on an even wider scale—
in line units as well as throughout the entire school system. But there could
be no denying that the introduction of LAP in ROTC, at the Military Academy
and in the Officer Basic Course system gave a uniformity and coherence to
MQS I and MQS II that they had previously lacked.

The School of Cadet Command

Attaining standardization in the ROTC program, Major General Wagner
realized, required that a single center be established for the indoctrination and
training of all Cadet Command cadre members. Only in this way could the
command’s philosophy along with its standards, policies, and procedures be
firmly implanted in and uniformly spread throughout the command. To create
this center, he wanted to take the extant ROTC School, which at the time of
Cadet Command’s founding was located at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana,
modify its curriculum and organization, and remake it into an institution that
could serve his purposes. However, in order for the proposed school to ac-
complish the goals he had in mind, he was convinced that it had to be moved
to Fort Monroe where he could personally superintend its operation. His ef-
forts to establish such an institution culminated in January 1987 with the open-
ing of the School of Cadet Command (SOCC) at Fort Monroe. Before detail-
ing the story of the SOCC, it is first necessary to relate something about its
origins so that its place in the command’s development can be better under-
stood.

The roots of the SOCC can be traced back to the late 1970s during the
tenure of Major General Daniel W. French as the DCSROTC. Recurring dif-
ficulties in meeting production goals along with his own personal observa-
tions persuaded the DCSROTC that ROTC instructors were poor recruiters.
The problem called for the creation of a course designed to improve the re-
cruiting and interviewing skills of ROTC instructors. At his prompting, a group
of veteran ROTC enrollment officers assembled at TRADOC Headquarters on
12 February 1979. Their mission was to develop a course curriculum to teach
ROTC cadre the requisite recruiting skills and techniques. The end result of
the group’s deliberations was the TRADOC Enrollment and Retention Course.

The DCSROTC introduced the Enrollment and Retention Course on 4
June 1979. The Chamberlain Hotel at Fort Monroe hosted a pilot class of 20

115



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

given prevailing conditions, the best available means of producing enough
officers of the right type to lead America’s Cold War Army. The need for
a college-educated leader capable of understanding and employing increas-
ingly sophisticated military technology, the predilection for an officer
corps reared in the citizen-soldier tradition and the pressure to keep
the costs of officer production as low as possible all played a part in
creating this sentiment.

Over the next decade, the movement to enlarge and restructure the
ROTC gathered momentum. A 1949 meeting of the Service Academy Board
echoed the Gray Committee’s call to make the ROTC the Army’s prime
officer procurement source. To help turn this recommendation into real-
ity, the board proposed that, as in the Naval ROTC, scholarships be awarded
to cadets who met certain selection criteria. At the same time, the board
called for a fundamental overhaul of the military science curriculum. Be-
lieving the existing curriculum to be too narrow in scope, it advocated
replacing branch-oriented instruction with “general military education.”
Newly commissioned lieutenants, it said, should receive the necessary
branch specific training at a branch-affiliated Officer Basic Course (OBC)
after they got their degree. The curriculum adopted by the Army in the
early 1950s reflected many of the board’s suggestions. It is also notewor-
thy that the Service Academy Board urged that the control of the Army
ROTC be centralized so as to remove the major organizational and admin-
istrative anomalies that obstructed its development.”

Korea

ROTC enrollment was given a boost by the outbreak of the Korean
War in June 1950. Due to the U.S. Government’s decision to declare partial
rather than full mobilization, the Army decided to rely on the ROTC, not
OCS, to meet the needs of the emergency. The program immediately
became more popular among college students because of the deferment it
offered from the draft. University officials, fearing that enrollment at their
institutions would be decimated by conscription, flooded the Army with
applications for new units and thus gave additional impetus to ROTC
expansion.”

The creation of the Army Advisory Panel on ROTC Affairs in 1952 was
another important milestone in the evolution of collegiate military education.
Consisting of 12 civilian and six military educators, the panel provided a
forum for the exchange of views between the Department of the Army and

22


10.

12.

13.

14.
15.

17.
18.
19.
20.
21.

22.
23.

24.

30.

31.

32.

33.

ENDNOTES

Ibid., pp. 155-57.

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3, Committee
on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 88th Congress, p. 6562 and p. 6589.
Ibid., p. 6539.

ROTC Vitalization Act, Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services,
United States Senate, 88th Congress, 2d Session on H.R. 9124, August 13, 1964, p. 35.
Ibid., p. 36.

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, Hearings before Subcommittee No. 3, Committee on Armed
Services, House of Representatives, 88th Congress, p. 6569.

DCSIT, HQ USCONARC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 June 1968),
pp. 2-5

HQ USCONARG, Ninth Annual CONARC Camp Commanders Conference, p. 30.

HQ USCONARC, Tenth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference, p. 6.

HQ USCONARG,Ninth Annual CONARC Camp Commanders Conference, p. 91.

DCSIT, HQ USCONARC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 June 1969), p. 2.
DCSIT, HQ USCONARGC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 July - 31 December 1969),
p. 1. 250 applications for 1-year scholarships were received for that first scholarship
class; 178 were selected for these awards and 170 actually accepted them. 44 students
won 3-year awards in the first year of their issuance.

DCSIT, HQ USCONARG, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 June 1971), p.7.
DCSIT, HQ USCONARC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 July - 31 December
1971), pp. 7-8. The new subsistence rate took effect on 14 November 1971.

(1) William P. Snyder, “Leaders for the Volunteer Force: The Problems and Prospects of
ROTC,” in Lawrence J. Korb, ed., The System for Educating Military Officers in the U.S.,
Occasional Paper No. 9, International Studies Association, 1976, p. 84. (2) Public Law
92-166, ROTC Scholarships, Laws of 92nd Congress, 1st Session, November 23, 1971,
pp. 563 and 1765. (3) Author interview with Mrs. D. Cooper, 18 July 1995. (4) Author i
nterview with Mrs. N. Parker, 17 July 1995.

DCSIT, HQ USCONARG, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 June 1972), p. 6.
DCSIT, HQ USCONARG, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 June 1973), p. 6.
DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannua! Historical Report (1 January - 30 June 1974), p. 5.
DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 September
1976), pp. 8-9.

(1) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 April - 30 September 1980),
p. 16 and Appendix 0. (2) Briefing Slides, DCSROTC, MAJ R. V. Luczak, Scholarship
Program Analysis, n.d. (3) Public Law 96-357, ROTC Scholarships, Laws of 96th
Congress, September 24, 1980. (4) ROTC Study Group Report, |: 4-1-2.

(1) Controiler General of the United States, Reserve Officer Training Corps:
Management Deficiencies Still to be Corrected, Report B-146947, March 15, 1977,
pp. 11-13. (2) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 July - 31
December 1975), pp. 8-9. (3) Author interview with Mrs. Nancy Parker, 3 May 1995.
(4) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 October 1976 - 31 March 1977),
p. 4. (5) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 October 1981 - 31 March
1982), p. 9. (6) Review of Education and Training for Officers (RETO), p. V-3.

(1) Author interview with Mr. Sal Cannella, 23 June 1995. (2) Briefing Slides, MAJ R. V.
Luozak, Scholarship Program Analysis, n.d. (3) Author interview with Mrs. Nancy Parker,
23 June 1995. (4) Author interview with Mrs. June Reams, 23 June 1995. (5) Author
interview with MAJ Dale Fye, 23 June 1995.

DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 September
1976), pp. 19-20.

(1) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 January - 30 June 1975),
p. 3. (2) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 April - 30 September
1978), p. 16. (3) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 October - 31
March 1980), p. 16. (4) DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report (1 October
1981 - 31 March 1982), p. 9. (5) Fact Sheet, CPT Dyess, DCST/TRADOC Off Educ Task
Gp, 2 March 1978. (6) Author interview with MG (Ret) Daniel French, 24 June 1995.

325



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

theory was, meant better lieutenants, at least when considered in the aggre-
gate. He gave explicit expression to this vision:

As the Army gets smaller, it is imperative that we increase the
quality of our officer corps. During this austere period more than
ever, vibrant leadership which vigorously recruits, trains and re-
tains the best college students available, is needed to assure we
are better in the future...*

Building a Four-Year Program

When Arnold came to Fort Monroe, he brought with him a well-devel-
oped agenda, which he had put together during his three year tenure as First
Region Commander. One item on that agenda called for the invigoration of
the Junior ROTC program, to be discussed in Chapter 9. Another enjoined
raising product quality by transforming the Senior ROTC into a predominantly
four-year program. To the new Commanding General, the relationship be-
tween the four-year course and product quality was an extremely close one.
He instructed his brigade commanders to: “Build your programs from the
ground up. Four-year programs have the stability and continuity that produce
the best lieutenants upon commissioning.” 4

To strengthen the four-year program, Major General Arnold effected a
number of programmatic changes. One such change was the de-emphasis of
Basic Camp. Brought into being by the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964, Basic
Camp was a so-called lateral entry program, designed for students who for
one reason or another did not complete the ROTC Basic Course. By substitut-
ing a six-week summer camp for the Basic Course, it allowed an individual to
get a commission in two years. As a result of the Cadet Command
Commander’s decision to restrict this avenue into the Advanced Course, Ba-
sic Camp attendance in 1991 hit a two-decade low. See Figure 6-1.

It was generally believed within Cadet Command Headquarters that Ba-
sic Camp turned out an inferior product. A considerable body of quantitative
evidence lent support to this belief. Comparisons of grade point averages,
Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, and Advanced Camp results all showed non-
scholarship Basic Camp cadets at the bottom of the order of merit list.

There were two primary reasons for this qualitative inferiority, it was
felt. Unlike the student who completed the on-campus Basic Course, the
graduate of Basic Camp did not have a lengthy exposure to military skills,
knowledge and traditions. Everything he knew about the Army came from

147



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

reductions by drawing on the glut of officers created by the drawdown of U.S.
forces in Europe. That source dried up in 1993 and TRADOC was forced to
make some unpleasant choices. General Frederick Franks, the TRADOC Com-
mander, found it impossible to support service schools, battle labs, Cadet Com-
mand and “excepted” activities like the Command and General Staff College
and the Combat Training Centers at past levels. On 30 July 1993, he told the
Army Chief of Staff that “unless other directed,” he intended to fill “excepted”
activities at 90 percent and Cadet Command at 80-85 percent of their autho-
rized level under the TRADOC Officer Distribution Plan.TM

Table 3
Cadet Command Officer Strength °°

Fy90 FY91 FY92 FY93 FY94 FY95

Assigned 1579 1488 1384 1038 1127 1130
TRADOC ODP 1575 1567 1335 1267 1242 1242

A particularly heavy blow fell at the beginning of School Year 1993-
1994, when Cadet Command lost its “must fill” status with the U.S. Army
Personnel Command, the organization responsible for allocating active com-
ponent officers throughout the Army. After that time, Cadet Command had to
compete with other organizations for the dwindling pool of high quality offic-
ers. The Active Guard/Reserve officer shortage also hurt. In January 1996,
the command still had only 202 of the 275 full-time reservists authorized by
Congress. Major General Lyle had, over the previous two years, made numer-
ous appeals to the Army Staff and the heads of both the National Guard and
the Army Reserve, requesting that they provide Cadet Command with the ad-
ditional 73 officers, but to no avail. The Simultaneous Membership Program
particularly suffered from this shortage since fewer AGR officers were on
hand to publicize the benefits of belonging to a reserve unit.*¢
College and university officials whose ROTC units were threatened with
closure for producing too few officers upbraided the Army for not providing
enough instructors to get the job done. The Army, it seemed to these officials,
was placing them in an impossible situation. “It baffles me to know,” wrote
Hazo W. Carter, the President of West Virginia State College, “that the
Army can provide inadequate support and then threaten the college with

170



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

Cadets celebrate their graduation from Advanced Camp. ........... 5
Cadet Corps at Kansas State University ca. 1895. .
ROTC 57-mm gun training at Purdue University 1928.
Army ROTC cadets training at

Valley Forge Military Academy, 1960 .........cseeseseneeeneereeees 27
General William R. Richardson
Cadet Park and Salute Battery, Fourth Region,

Fort Lewis, Washington .
Ranger Challenge ...........005
School of Cadet Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia ........ - 120
Major General Arnold (left) and Major General Wagner

(right) at the Change of Command Ceremony

in April 1990
Major General Arnold (left) and Major General Lyle

(right) at the Change of Command Ceremony

in June 1993. oo
The Scholarship Allocation Program targeted "high-tech

disciplines
JROTC Cadets at Denbigh High School, Newport

News, Virginia ........ccccsecseceeseseseecsssersenesenessseseseetsnenensseacerenerenerteny
Major General Robert E. Wagner
Major General Wallace C. Arnold a
Major General James M. Lyle .......cecscsssesessseeeecteeetenteteeneenseanenneeneense

LIST OF FIGURES
Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Individual
Training (DCSIT), CONARC
ROTC/NDCC Directorate, DCSIT, CONARC..
Command Structure, Revised ROTC Organization (1973
Deputy Chief of Staff for Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps (DCSROTC) ....sessecsesssessesseeesresssesseenseseseensenseneesneensentene 39
Standard Organization for Headquarters
ROTC Regions (1973)
The Performance Gap .
Tiered Training
Proposed Command Structure for AOCC
Pre-1986 Shoulder Sleeve Insignias for ROTC Cadets
Proposed ROTC Command Patch
ROTC Command Patch
The Foster Flag



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Lusitania, 13

Lyle, Maj. Gen. James M., 79, 80,
139, 160-182, 208-214,283-288

Lyons, Gene M., 19, 23, 24, 34

M

Marion Institute, 8

market competition, 166

Marketing Managers Course, 116

Marketing, Operations and Public
Affairs Directorate, 83

Marks, Ms. Donna, 270

Marsh, John O., 54

Marshall, Gen. George C., 12, 17, 18

Marshall, S.L.A., 212

Masland, John W., 19, 23, 24, 34

Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 211, 221

McClellan, Gen. George, 9

McGuckin, Lt. Col. Greg, 163

McNamara, Robert S., 259

Michigan Tech, 171

Military Ball, 76

military history, 93

Military Junior Colleges, 41, 149,
150, 152

Military Qualification Standards,
43, 44

Military Review, 85

Military Science Core Curriculum
(See Option C)

military science curriculum, 15, 16,
22-24, 33, 34

mission set, 136

Mobile Discovery Center, 282

mobility, 93

Modified General Military Science
Program, 24, 34

Montgomery Gl Bill, 140

Morrill Act (See Land-Grant
College Bill)

Morrill, Justin S., 9

N

National Collegiate Athletic
Association, 102

National Defense Act of 1916,
14, 257

National Defense Act of 1920, 15,
217

National Defense Authorization

354

Act for FY 1991, 154

National Defense Cadet Corps,
258-261

National Electronic Educational
Distribution System, 282

National Guard, 18

National Guard Officer Candidate
School, 43, 79, 80

National Guard Professional
Education Center, 116, 117

National Program for Electronics
Training, 282

National Science Center, 281, 282

Naval ROTC, 20, 184-186

Neale, Col. James, 58, 59

New Gl Bill, 138, 140

non-branch qualified captains,
171, 172

Norman, Col. Kenneth G., 98

North Dakota Agricultural College, 11

Northern Warfare School, 40, 60

Northwestern University, 124

Norwich University, 7-9

Nunn, Senator Sam, 279-282

nursing majors, 205

N.W. Ayer, 60, 125, 126-128

fe)

Oak Ridge Academy, 8

officer accessioning, 142-144,
179-182

Officer Basic Course (OBC), 22, 48

Officer Candidate School (OCS), 1
19, 22, 24, 30, 34, 43, 63-67

Officer Distribution Plan (ODP), 50,
170

Officer Education and Training
Review Group, 91-94

officer production, 134-136, 163-178

Officer Selection Battery (OSB), 62

Ohio State University, 13

Ohio University, 196

Operation Audie Murphy, 99

Operation Bold Challenge, 102, 103

Operation Capital, 271-275

Operation Challenge, 99

Operation Desert Storm, 1

Operation Future Challenge, 102, 103

Operation Goldminer, 62

Operation Goldstrike, 61

Operation Green Thunder, 99, 100



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Adjusting the Scholarship Mix

Another means by which the Army attempted to get more out of its schol-
arship dollars was by adjusting its mix of two-, three-, and four-year scholar-
ships. “Clearly,” members of the RETO Study Group noted, “more scholar-
ship students could graduate annually at the same resource level if significant
numbers of scholarships were offered for two or three years rather than four.”
It was recognized that a drop in quality (as defined by SAT scores and grade
point averages) would inevitably accompany such an adjustment. In light of
the low service retention rate of four-year scholarship recipients, this was a
price the Army was willing to pay.

The adjustment began in earnest in the mid-1970s, an era when the Army
was experiencing large production deficits. During School Year 1973-1974, 56
percent of Army ROTC scholarships were of the four-year variety. Five years
later (School Year 1978-1979), this percentage had dropped to only 35 percent.

Criticism directed against the Army by the General Accounting Office
(GAO) and other outside agencies was one factor that propelled ROTC ad-
ministrators to adjust the scholarship mix. General Accounting Office reports
written in 1973 and 1977 noted that many ROTC participants whose education
was being supported by a full scholarship dropped out of the program each year.
The greatest exodus of four-year award recipients took place before or at the end
of their second year, prior to their incurring a service obligation.

There was also a problem, albeit of smaller dimensions, with scholarship
recipients dropping out of the Advanced Course. Although these cadets did have
a service obligation (two years service), it was rarely enforced. The Army’s policy,
the General Accounting Office noted, was to ignore the active duty obligation
unless it was evident that the student in question was willfully evading the
terms of his contract. Many Army officials believed that “impressed” ser-
vice was inconsistent with the concept of a volunteer army. In any case, of
the approximately 800 contracted cadets who withdrew from the Advanced
Course in School Year 1974-1975, two were ordered to active duty.

The General Accounting Office pressed for drastic action. One of its
suggestions was to convert scholarships into loans for cadets who did not ful-
fill their obligations. Another was to require cadets who left the program
prematurely to reimburse the government for education and training costs.
The Army, however, felt that changing the scholarship mix was a more
appropriate course to take. It took congressional action to force the Army to
recoup scholarship monies from program drop outs.°°

197



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Spring Gold

While Cadet Command market analysts and their Young and Rubicam
associates were busy coming up with answers to basic questions about what
audiences to target and what advertising themes to use, they were simulta-
neously working on the Spring Gold marketing plans of 1988 and 1989. Both
plans emphasized the integration of national, regional, and local advertis-
ing with decision points in the academic life of applicants and called for
two advertising surges each year. The first surge was to come in the spring
when the high school senior made decisions about what college to attend
and what academic major to pursue; the second in the autumn when the
freshman arrived on campus and registered for classes. Other decision
points were identified but a limited budget prevented the command from
targeting them." See Figure 5-1.

RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS

3

é
|

E
:
2
E
:
5

MUNN HNOX NI SEWEM

SOISAHd/MULSINGHO/A901018
SALLISWAAINA UNY SAaT1OD OVOU AWAY

Mesa i

; SHAPING THE COURSE
f OFTHEFUTURE

‘ONTSAINIONG ‘TWOLLAWNOWTY/THTLISAGNI/TWOINWHOTA
‘ONRIZANIONG NNT 1OULd/TYOIUNTIVLAW/ THOUNTES
‘ONFSSANIONS TWANLTNONIOW/ THINAINNOWLANS/TIAIO

THE SMARTEST COLLEGE
COURSE YOU CAN TAKE,

Figure 5-1. Cadet Command Recruiting Publicity Brochures, 1991

130



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

and 150,000, so placing units in these cities was made the command’s next
priority. He did attach one stipulation to this last priority, however. To avoid
JROTC saturation in one city, he ordered that the command focus on those
cities where less than 25 percent of the high schools have units affiliated with
any service. Of the 186 cities across the country that fall into this last cat-
egory, only 64 remained without a JROTC program by the autumn of 1995.”

JROTC Summer Camps

Since 1973, summer camps have been an important part of the JROTC
program. For the first twenty years of their existence, however, these camps
had an improvised air about them. This was due in large measure to a lack of
money and legal standing. The law did not even authorize travel and living
expenses for many of the cadre who put on the camps.

All this changed in 1993 when Congress inserted into Title 10 of the
United States Code provisions that allowed the Army to subsidize the camp-
related travel and subsistence expenses of JROTC cadre. The summer camp
program subsequently mushroomed. In 1995, approximately 19,000 cadets
attended summer camps at 36 separate locations spread throughout the United
States and Germany. Only 8,000 cadets had participated in these summer
activities as recently as 1992. See Figure 9-2.

To regulate and standardize JROTC summer camp operations, Cadet
Command published a new regulation—Cadet Command Regulation
145-14, Organization and Operation of Summer Camps—in August 1993 and
established a standardized program of instruction. The program was divided into
three instructional components: required, integrated, and additional. See Table 6.

Table 6
JROTC Summer Camp Program of Instruction

REQUIRED INTEGRATED ADDITIONAL
Leadership Reaction Course — Physical Training Marksmanship
Rappelling Drill and Ceremonies Substance Abuse
Land Navigation Leadership Training Static Displays
Confidence/Obstacle Course Personal Hygiene Tours/Visits

Math and Science Jump Tower

Water Safety Field Training

284



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

EADERSHIp'

358


U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

keep the teams current on changes to policies and programs. This institution-
alization of the Goldminer program gave the command a formal instrument
with which to canvass that portion of American youth that would, by neces-
sity, constitute the future enrollment base of ROTC.”

Green to Gold

The Army’s enlisted force has been a traditional source of cadets for the
ROTC. Federal law permitted students with prior military service to enter
directly into the ROTC Advanced Course because they possessed a level of
military skills that was at least on a par with cadets who had completed the
Basic Course. ROTC program administrators had never done a particularly
good job of exploiting the enrollment potential of this group. The Office of
the DCSPER tried to tap this market when it introduced the Green to Gold
program as part of the Training Management Program in 1986. It gave the
mission of administering Green to Gold to installation education centers. The
critical flaw in this DCSPER program was its lack of an adequate supervisory
apparatus. Like so many other past programs designed to regulate the ROTC,
tremendous latitude was given to local authorities. As aresult, Green to Gold
was administered in a hundred different ways.

To revitalize the program, the DCSPER gave control over it to Cadet
Command in 1987. The command’s first move was to establish an organiza-
tional mechanism with which it could strongly affect, if not exactly direct, the
administration of the Green to Gold program by installation education cen-
ters. It designated 41 ROTC units as Counterpart Battalions and entrusted
them with the task of working with nearby installations to identify enlisted
soldiers with the requisite qualifications and abilities to become officers. The
names of the soldiers thus identified were sent to the PMS at the college that
the soldier indicated that he planned to attend. The process sketched above
was outlined in detail in Cadet Command Regulation 145-6, Green to Gold
Prospecting.”'

The linchpins of the system were the so-called enrollment counselors,
ROTC instructors from Counterpart Battalions appointed to perform this task.
These counselors targeted enlisted men and women planning to leave the Army
after their period of enlistment expired and attend a four-year college. Lists
of soldiers contributing to the Army College Fund or the New GI Bill, avail-
able through the post’s education center, gave them plenty of prospects. Since
the success of the enrollment counselors depended on the cooperation of the

138



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Horizon’s results. In a report published in May 1991, that agency charged
that the Horizon inactivations were “insufficient to match the Army’s lower
accession needs” and that far too many “consistently unproductive units” still
remained in operation. It conceded that long officer production lead times
coupled with budgetary and end strength uncertainties greatly complicated
the task of effecting institutional retrenchment but insisted that such difficul-
ties did not excuse the failure of the Army to develop a comprehensive long-
range plan to guide the downsizing process.

The May 1991 report placed a major portion of the blame for the con-
tinuing existence of marginally productive units on the inadequacy of DOD
Directive 1215.8. That directive, it asserted, neither defined “adequate pro-
duction” nor provided sufficiently precise criteria to be of any real value in
making productivity and closure determinations. Although the Defense De-
partment mandated that the services consider the cost of unit maintenance and
the number, quality and kinds of officer produced, it did not provide guidance
on how to measure those factors. The agency also found that the directive
contained nothing about assessing the “qualitative benefits” of an ROTC de-
tachment. In short, the General Accounting Office found Cadet Command’s
closure methodology, to include its unit viability algorithm, to be seriously
flawed.”

The problem of nonproductive units had been exacerbated, according to
the General Accounting Office, by the Defense Department’s failure to over-
see productivity and closure decisions. The department had no mechanism to
ensure that the services were complying with congressional intent, its own
directive, or service regulations. It was the lack of oversight coupled with the
imprecision of the closure criteria that permitted the services to give diverse
and widely varying interpretations to the specific provisions of the Department of
Defense Directive—interpretations, the General Accounting Office noted, that were
not always in accord with the expressed desires of Congress.

One particularly deleterious result of the Defense Department’s failure
to provide adequate oversight had been, in the opinion of the authors of the
May 1991 report, the creation of extension centers. Neither the Congress nor
the Defense Department had sanctioned these units. They were created, it
was alleged, solely for the purpose of protecting unproductive ROTC units
from inactivation and epitomized the kind of unilateral, ill-considered and
uneconomical measures that the services, when left to themselves, were prone
to take in a misguided attempt to protect their turf.*° As a kind of parting shot,
the General Accounting Office reminded the Congress that the Army’s retention

236



APPENDIX E

SENIOR ROTC SUMMER
CAMP TRAINING 1966 - 1995

NURSE SUMMER
YEAR ADVANCED. TRAINING BASIC
YEAR CAMP PROGRAM RANGER CAMP.
1966 18,163 3,337
1967 18,398 1,974
1968 18,236 2,415
1969 18,362 2,919
1970 14,835 2,479
1971 10,432 240 1,737
1972 7,221 470 1,399
1973 5,498 506 1,032
1974 4,407 395 1,682
1975 5,632 402 2,606
1976 6,155 371 2,254
1977 6,951 338 1,592
1978 7,173 207 2,683
1979 7,402 0 2,883
1980 7,662 55 3,266
1981 8,157 24 70 3,232
1982 8,411 44 69 4,055
1983 9,806 121 79 4,601
1984 9,255 162 76 4,052
1985 8,692 223 63 3,669
1986 8,482 230 42 3,023
1987 8,342 250 74 3,186
1988 9,034 207 78 2,820
1989 8,862 174 75 2,295
1990 6,910 130 oO 1,771
1991 4,867 165 oO 1,113
1992 4,159 157 0 1,242
1993 4,318 215 0 1,640
1994 4,493 221 0 1,981
1995 4,456 235 0 1858

305



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

assignment (active duty assignments were more sought after and tended to go
to cadets on the higher end of the order of merit list) and, second, whether the
individual would get a Regular Army or reserve commission (with Regular
Army commissions generally reserved for cadets at the top of the order of
merit list). Each cadet was assigned to a branch in the third and final phase of
the accessioning process. The delinking of the discrete components of cadet
accessioning dampened the rippling effect of initial bad decisions and greatly
reduced if not completely eliminated the inequities and inanities that were so
much a part of the previous system.“

144



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

33.

34,

35,

37.

38.
39.
40.
41.

42.
43.

44,

45.

46.

47.

48.
49.

50.

51.

52.

318

(1) HQ USCONARG, Report of the Tenth Annual CONARG ROTC Conference, 13-14
September 1972, p. 119, HRDC. (2) Author interview with Dr. Larry Brown,
11 October 1995.

(1) Cadet Command Annual Historical Review, 1 March-31 December 1986, pp. 2-3,
HRDC. (2) Cadet Command Reg 145-3, ROTC Military Qualification Standards (MQS) |
Campaign Plan, 24 July 1987, 5 July 1988, 10 May 1989, and 30 March 1990. (3) Cadet
Command Cir 145-87-2, ROTC Military Qualification Standards (MQS) | Campaign Plan, n.d.
Ibid.

Memorandum, ATCC-TT, COL Cox, Director of Training to Region Cdrs, 27 November
1989, subject: Training Management Indicators.

(1)See HQ USCONARC, Report of the Tenth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference, 13-14
September 1972, p. 19, HRDC. (2) Comments on remarks by GEN Bruce C. Clarke to
23 Professors of Military Science on the Senior ROTC Program, HQ, Second ROTC.
Region, 1974, HRDC.

Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995.

Ibid.

Oral history interview of COL Cox by Dr. Lee Harford, n..d.

(1) Ibid. (2) Pre-Advanced Camp Training Program developed at the first HBCU Camp
Conference, September 1986.

Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995.

(1) HQ USAROTCCC, Report, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU)
Conference, Howard University, Washington, D.C. 10-11 March 1987, HRDC. (2) Fact
Sheet, ATCC-ZR, COL Wynder, Reserve Advisor, 15 February 1989, subject: The
Historically Black Colleges and Universities Task Force (HBCU-TF), HRDC.

(1) HQ USAROTCCC, Annual Historical Review, 1 March-31 December 1986, pp. 1-2,
HRDC. (2) Fact Sheet, ATCC-TE, 6 September 1989, subject: U.S. Army ROTC Cadet
Command Enhanced Skills Training (EST) Program, HRDC. (3) HQ USAROTCCC,
Report, Historically Black Colleges Conference, 10-11 March 1987, p. 13, HRDC.

Ibid.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-TE, Mr. Roger Spadafora, Training Directorate, 9 March 1989,
subject: English-as-a-Second Language, HRDC. (2) Author interview with Mr. Roger
Spadafora, 10 October 1995.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-TE, Dr. Larry Brown, 8 September 1988, subject: Leadership
Assessment Program (LAP) Integration. (2) Information Paper, ATCC-TE, Dr. Larry Brown,
1 November 1987, subject: Gold Bar Transition. (3) Memorandum, ATZL-SWD-LDS,
COL John C. Thompson, Deputy Director, Leader Development Study, 11 January 1988,
subject: Leadership Development Study Update. (4) USA Command and General Staff
College,Conference Report, Leadership Conference 1986, February 1986.

Ibid.

(1) Cadet Command LAP Assessor’s Handbook, May 1989. (2) Leadership Assessment
Program (LAP) How-To-Fight Manual, May 1989. (3) Author interview with Dr. Larry
Brown, 10 October 1995.

(1) HQ USCONARC, Report of the Tenth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference, 13-14
September 1972, p. 119, HRDC. (2) Letter, GEN Bruce C. Clarke to Secretary of the
Army Bo Callaway, 19 August 1974, HRDC. (3) Memorandum, COL Robert L.
Chamberlain, PMS, Cornell University, to GEN Bruce C. Clarke, 10 April 1975, subject:
Comments of Concern Expressed During Your Cornell Visit, HRDC. (4) Comments on
remarks by GEN Bruce C. Clarke to 23 Professors of Military Science on the Senior
ROTC Program at HQ Second ROTC Region, HRDC. (5) Author interview with Dr. Larry
Brown, 11 October 1995.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-TE, Dr. Larry Brown, 6 September 1989, subject: Leadership As
sessment Program (LAP)/Integration into TRADOC Leader Development Course.
(2) Interview with Dr. Larry Brown, 11 October 1995.

(1) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1979 - 30 September 1979, p. 183. (2)
DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 October 1978-31 March 1979,
pp. 16-1 HRDC. (3) DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 April 1978-30
September 1979, pp. 21-22, HRDC. (4) See also the ROTC Curriculum, COL John C.



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

organizational solution were considered excessive. Instead, a weakened ver-
sion of one of the alternatives advanced by the Comptroller’s Study Group in
1965 was adopted—namely, the creation of an Office of the DCSROTC at the
TRADOC level. See Figure 1-3. Only in its 1973 form, the ROTC chief was
to be merely the TRADOC DCSROTC, not, as the Study Group had recom-
mended, the DCSROTC/ROTC Commander. A major general headed the new
office, which was essentially the old CONARC ROTC Directorate with a differ-
ent name. It was approximately the same size (about 60 personnel) and, except

COMMAND STRUCTURE,
REVISED ROTC ORGANIZATION (1973)

HQ DEPARTMENT
OF THE ARMY

HQ TRADOC

First L&=2) [seconp
ROTC ROTC
REGION REGION

THIRD * FOURTH
ROTC
REGION

ROTC
REGION

0-7

snore (2/6) [grote (8)

sroro (28/6)

SROTC
UNITS UNITS UNITS UNITS
110 69 66 45
JROTC JROTC JROTC JROTC
UNITS UNITS UNITS UNITS
150 150 150 150

TOTAL PERSONNEL:

430 PERSONNEL IN REGIONAL
HQ AND ABOVE

2878 PERSONNEL LOCATED IN ROTC
INSTRUCTOR GROUPS AT
INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL

GENERAL OFFICERS:

1
1
4

18

BG - HQ DA
MG - HQTRADOC

BG - REGIONAL & CAMP

COMMANDERS

COL - AREA COMMANDERS

Figure 1-3. Command Structure, Revised ROTC Organization (1973)

37



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

strategy, adjusting the viability algorithm, refining the cost to commission
model, and developing organizational templates (management tools that
specified the minimum manning level required to attain a given level of
production). In addition, the group had the job of planning the next round of
inactivations.

By the beginning of the summer, Phoenix had identified 23 institutional
candidates for elimination. It presented its target list, along with its other
proposals, to officials at the Department of the Army in July 1991. These
officials, however, flatly rejected the closure recommendations, citing politi-
cal sensitivity as the reason. Following up Horizon with more cuts in the near
term simply would not be palatable to certain segments of the academic com-
munity or with certain members of Congress. They promised to give Cadet
Command more people to adequately staff existing units, but this additional
assistance never materialized.

Before long, the accelerating pace of the drawdown made it evident that
the reductions called for by the Phoenix Group had been on much too modest
a scale. Beginning in the fall of 1991, mission reductions followed one an-
other in rapid succession. First, the ROTC production objective was sliced
from 6,200 to 5,800; then to 5,200; and finally to 4,500. While the Army was
lowering the ROTC mission, it was also taking away personnel. In 1992, 392
active duty officer authorizations (enough to staff 100 ROTC units) were lost
to Cadet Command as a consequence of the Total Army Analysis study. Al-
most simultaneously, Congress passed legislation prohibiting the use of AGR
officers on ROTC duty. This was a severe blow to Cadet Command because it
had a complement of over 550 full-time reserve officers assigned to it. Al-
though Congress later reversed its AGR ban, AGR support was restored at
less than 40 percent of its pre-1992 level (550 vs 202). As a result of all this,
Cadet Command began work on a more aggressive plan to eliminate units.

This time the effort was to be known as Alternative Strategies. As
was the case with Operation Horizon, the contract closure, rather than the
Effective Management Program, was the instrument chosen to effect the
planned reductions. In a memorandum to the DCSPER dated 30 April 1992,
Major General Arnold recommended that 56 units be deactivated over a two-
year period—25 in FY 1993 and 31 in FY 1994. Originally, Alternative Strat-
egies had targeted 94 schools for elimination, but the Commanding General,
fearful of the political fallout that such a huge and sudden reduction would
occasion, cut the number to 56.”

Cadet Command planners targeted three distinct categories of ROTC units

238



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

semi-autonomous parts in the process. Region headquarters, for example,
had final selection authority for two-, and three-year scholarship recipients.
The regions, along with Headquarters USAREUR, were also responsible for
the preliminary screening of four-year scholarship applicants. The Basic Camp
Commander exercised control over the two-year scholarships awarded in his
domain while TRADOC Headquarters had the responsibility for the one- and
four-year scholarship programs as well as for two-year scholarships reserved
for active duty enlisted personnel.

The system outlined above was duplicative, wasteful, and resistant to
any sort of positive control by the DCSROTC. Moreover, it was inherently
unfair since, under this system, the imposition of common selection standards
over the wide range of scholarships offered was, for all practical purposes,
impossible. Consolidating the selection function in the Office of the
DCSROTC cured at least some of the aforementioned ills and unquestionably
placed the scholarship program on a firmer managerial foundation.”

Push to Increase Scholarships

Army downsizing in the wake of the American withdrawal from Viet-
nam coupled with the end of conscription created a major officer produc-
tion problem for the Army ROTC. From an all-time high in FY 1969,
ROTC production sank to a period low in FY 1974. See Appendix B. One of
the ways ROTC officials responded to this situation was by seeking from Con-
gress authorization for more scholarships. Anticipating future production short-
falls, the authors of the 1969 CONARC Scholarship Study, as we have seen,
urged that the scholarship ceiling be raised from 5,500 to 10,000. This, of
course, did not happen; Congress in Public Law 92-166 (November 1971)
granted only an increase of 1,000.

This rebuff did not deter DCSROTC staff officers from pursuing the is-
sue. Indeed, they could not afford to let it since ROTC production fell sub-
stantially short of the goals set for it by the Army throughout the 1970s. In
1974, 1975 and again in 1978, the DCSROTC historical records indicate that
requests were submitted to the Department of the Army to raise the scholar-
ship ceiling to 10,000. The RETO Study Group, worried about both the quan-
tity and quality of ROTC output, recommended in its 1978 report that the
ceiling be set even higher—at 12,000. This latter figure apparently came from
a revised scholarship/officer production model developed by the TRADOC
DCSROTC. The Army Chief of Staff accepted the RETO recommendation

199



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

only one category of training distractor. There were a host of other factors
and excuses, as diverse as the body of colleges and universities that hosted
military training programs, that resulted in widely varying attendance totals
from week to week throughout the collegiate community.’

Nonproductive units became more of a problem after World War I. The
reductions in military spending imposed by a cost-conscious Congress forced
the Army to take a careful look at those units whose enrollment totals did not
meet the standard prescribed by the National Defense Act of 1920. This act
dictated that no ROTC unit was to be established or maintained at an institu-
tion that failed to enroll “at least one hundred physically fit male students” in
its program of military instruction. With this legislation, the Army closed
some uneconomical units (17 according to one count) although not nearly as
many, it appears, as it would have liked or which production figures indicate
was warranted. Again, external forces in the form of congressional and insti-
tutional pressures worked against the goal of attaining production efficiency.°

Post-World War Il Demobilization

The move to rid the ROTC of unproductive units was renewed after the
Second World War. The disestablishment criteria contained in the National
Defense Act of 1920 remained in effect. The 1948 annual history of the Of-
fice, Chief, Army Field Forces (OCAFF), contained the following entry:

OCAFF took steps to establish the ROTC on a sounder basis by
requiring all armies to submit recommendations concerning the
withdrawal of unsatisfactory and uneconomical units. This ac-
tion resulted in the withdrawal of ROTC units from seven insti-
tutions prior to the opening of the 1948-49 academic year.”

In the 1949 annual history of the Army Field Forces, the issue surfaced
once again:

A continuing problem in connection with the efficient and
economical conduct of the ROTC program is the elimination of
unproductive units. As a result of an extensive study by the ROTC
branch of this office (i.e.,Office, Chief, Army Field Forces) and
presented to the Director of O&T in the spring of 1949, six (6)
units were deactivated out of a total of twenty-four (24) so

217


CONTENTS

Chapter 9

THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS ................... 257

Early History ....
Post-World War I
The Post-Vietnam Era, 1970-1985.
The Program of Instruction...
Attempts at Reform, 1985-1986
Establishing A New Azimuth, 1986-1986.
Operation Capital ..
Arnold and the JROTC Expansio

Retiree Recall ......

JROTC Instructor Course.

National Science Center...

Career Academies......
JROTC Expansion Goals Refined
JROTC Summer Camps
JROTC Cadet Creed...
Cadet Command and the JROTC

CONCLUSION 0.0 eeccsesseesseesssesesessvsessecesecsnsesseesneenssesnessseesntesneesseeesnees 288

Cadet Command gave the Reserve Officers' Training Corps
@ MEW ENTHUSIASM. ....cecceecseecsseerseeeseessecesereneres oo 291
Training at summer camps, Ranger Challenge, and field training
exercises were revamped to give cadet training

more of a Regular Army flavor...
Training assumed a new intensity with the establishment

Of Cadet Command, .....cccseeccssesseesseeessrssneessressiessieesneecsveenneeennees 295
Appendix A .299
Appendix B . 300
Appendix C . 302
Appendix D . 304
Appendix E . 305

End Notes
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
Glossary ....
Selected



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

Management Program (EMP). TRADOC took this step, according to the
DCSROTC records, because it was burdened with certain detachments that
had no growth potential and that had a long history of substandard production
(a situation that was by no means new). TRADOC program managers placed
much of the blame for this on the Intensive Management Program. That pro-
gram, they charged, identified substandard units but did not provide a mecha-
nism to improve their performance or eliminate them in a timely manner.*!
Under the Intensive Management Program, the typical response to the prob-
lem of an unproductive unit, it seems, was to reduce cadre at the school in
question until an appropriate cadre-to-cadet ratio was achieved. This course
of action made sense in terms of cost effectiveness but not in terms of training
effectiveness. In fact, it made, in many cases, an already bad training environ-
ment even worse.

The Effective Management Program contained provisions designed to
correct the ills associated with the old method. According to the officers who
framed the new procedure, it defined effective and ineffective units, permit-
ted the early identification of substandard detachments, and provided a realis-
tic means of purging marginal unit performers from the ROTC program. The
Effective Management Program’s unit viability formula set a commissioning
objective of six lieutenants per cadre officer and took into consideration the
quality and type of lieutenants commissioned. It also provided for a lengthy
probationary period—up to four years—to give every marginal producer a
real opportunity to get back on course.

The new viability formula was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the
414 extant ROTC programs in 1986. Thirty-one detachments were identified
as marginally effective in this survey. The substandard programs were noti-
fied of their status and provided with “individually tailored” guidance and
assistance for the purpose of helping them achieve an acceptable level of pro-
ductivity.” How much or whether the performance of these marginal produc-
ers was improved was not recorded.

TRADOC instituted the Effective Management Program when it did be-
cause it was facing a dilemma. It had to boost production (it turned out 8,000
lieutenants in FY 1985 but its mission was 10,500) but had to do so without
additional personnel or resources. By 1985, the defense spending boom of
the early 1980s had run its course and the Army, along with the other services,
was starting down the path of fiscal retrenchment. Under these circumstances,
the only way to close the production gap, it seemed, was to achieve opera-
tional efficiencies by redistributing personnel. This meant withdrawing

231



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

within the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Individual Training to
Directorate status, placed a brigadier general at its head, and raised its strength
from eight to 60 persons. See Figure 1-1. Publicity, recruiting, curriculum
development, personnel and cadet administration, logistics, and resource
management all fell within the purview of the new directorate. While the
increased personnel authorization seemed generous, it was substantially less
than the augmentation that would have been necessary to create an independent
ROTC Command or an Office of the DCSROTC (60 vs 142 and 89
respectively).*' See Figure 1-2.

CONARC attempted to standardize ROTC operations at army head-
quarters by providing them with a model staff organization as a guide.
Unfortunately for CONARC, the armies largely ignored this model. Ac-
cording to Colonel Edward Chalgren, Deputy Director of the ROTC/NDCC

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF
FOR INDIVIDUAL TRAINING (DCSIT), CONARC

DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF
FOR INDIVIDUAL TRAINING

ASSISTANT
DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF
FOR INDIVIDUAL TRAINING
|
EXECUTIVE
ADMIN || INFO SYSTEM
BRANCH i BRANCH
I l
PROG & RES ROTC/NDCC USATC
DIRECTORATE DIRECTORATE DIRECTORATE
R&D SCHOOL.
DIRECTORATE DIRECTORATE

Figure 1-1. Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff
for Individual Training (DCSIT), CONARC

31



17.
18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.
28.

29.

ENDNOTES

(1)ibid, (2) Leadership Assessment Program (LAP) Assessor Workbook, U.S. Atmy
Precommissioning Assessment System (PAS), January 1982, Chapter 2.

(1) Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995. (2) Author interview with Dr. Larry
Brown, 5 October 1995. (3) Oral history interview of MG Wagner by Dr. Lee Harford,
15 August and 15 December 1989.

(1) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994. (2) Oral history
interview of COL Cox by Dr. Lee Harford, 12 and 23 October 1989.

U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command Annual Historical Review, 1 March 1986 - 31
December 1986, p. 4 and p. 8.

Oral history interviews of MG Wagner by Dr. Lee Harford.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-TT, LTC Jimmie Hataway, Chief, Training Division, 1 May 1990,
subject: Camps Planning and Execution Cycle. (2) Memoradum, ATCC-TT, COL Cox,
Director of Training to region cdrs, 4 October 1988, subject: Cadet Command 1988
Camps After Action Review Report. (3) Memorandum, ATCC-TT, COL Cox to region
cdrs, 27 May 1988, subject: Commanding General's Guidance for Camps 88, HRDC.
(1) Memorandum, ATCC-TT, LTC Hataway, Deputy Chief, Evaluation Team to COS, Camp
All American and Camp Warrior, 9 July 1988 and 15 July 1988, subject: Evaluation Team
Observations. (2) Memorandum, ATCC-TT, LTC Hataway, Deputy Chief, Evaluation to
Deputy Camp Cdrs, Camp Adventure and Camp Challenge, 22 June 1988 and 12 July
1988, subject: Evaluation Team Observations. (3) Advanced Camp Checklist,
Training Directorate, Cadet Command, May 1988, HRDC.

(1)HQUSAROTCCC, Advanced Camp How-To-Fight Manual, February 1987, 1988, 1989,
and 1990. (2) HQ USAROTCCC, Cadet Leaders How-To-Fight Manual, April 1990.

(1) Author interview with COL Thomas Maclver, 6 October 1995. (2) HQ USCONARC,
Report of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Basic and Advanced Camps, November 1969,
p. 25 and p. 45, HRDC.

(1) Advanced Camp How-To-Fight Manual, February 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990.
(2) Cadet Leaders How-To-Fight Manual, April 1990.

(1)Ibid. (2) HQ USCONARG, Report of the Tenth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference,
13-14 September 1972, p. 126, HRDC. (3) “ROTC Flourishes Under New Cadet
Command: Provides Army With 75 Percent Of Its Officers,” Army Times, September 21,
1987, p. 33.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-TT, LTC Hataway, Deputy Chief, Evaluation Team to Deputy
Camp Cdr, Camp Challenge, 6 June 1989, subject: Camp Challenge 1989 Evaluation.
(2) Letter, ATOC-SR, MG Gerald Childress, Cdr, Third ROTC Region to MG Charles C.
Rogers, DCSROTC, 20 October 1975, HRDC. (3) Camp Challenge How-To-Fight Manual,
February 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990.

(1) Camp Challenge Checklist, Training Directorate, Cadet Command, May 1988.
(2) Camp Challenge How-To-Fight Manual, February 1987, 1988, 1989, and 1990.
Memorandum, ATCC-TT, COL Cox, Director of Training, to region cdrs, 8 December 1989,
subject: Cadet Command Camps Follow-On Workshops.

Advanced Camp Staffing Model 1990 and Camp Challenge Staffing Model 1990.

(1) Lathrop, Student Attitudes Toward Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Programs, p. 34.
(2) HQ USCONARG, Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Basic and Advanced Camps,
November 1967, p. 176-77, HRDC. (3) Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995.
(4) HQ USCONARG, Report of the Tenth Annual CONARC ROTC Conference, p. 98.
(5) George Mair, “What's Wrong with the ROTC?,” The American Mercury (August 1963),
pp. 25-28.

(1) Richard Halloran, “R.O.T.C., Shunned No More, Grows Increasingly Selective,” New
York Times, July 20, 1987, p. 2. (2) “ROTC Flourishes Under New Cadet Command:
Provides Army With 75 Percent Of Its Officers,” Army Times, September 21, 1987, p. 33.
(1) Leadership Assessment Program (LAP), Program Administrator Manual,
Precommissioning Assessment System, n.d., pp. 39-40. (2) Cadet Command Reg
145-3, Military Qualification Standards | (MQS |) Campaign Plan, 31 May 1991, p. 60
and p. 69.

(1) ibid. (2) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1995.

Author interview with MG Wagner, 25 March 1995.

317



CADET TRAINING

more productive event. This conference had originated in 1971 (it was then
called the ROTC Minority Recruiting Conference) as a forum to promote closer
ties between Army ROTC and HBCUs. Over the years, however, the confer-
ence lost its sense of direction and purpose. By the mid-1980s, it operated
without a charter; its annual gathering did not even have an agenda.

Wagner wanted things done differently and, at the March 1986 HBCU
Conference at Alabama A&M University, told the assembled HBCU officials
the new direction he purposed to take. In communicating his vision, he out-
lined for them some of the problems their cadets were having at Advanced
Camp as well as the difficulties HBCU commissionees were having at their
Officer Basic Courses. Informally, Major General Wagner also called the
HBCU PMSs aside at the conference and reminded them in rather blunt terms
that they (i.e., the PMSs) were members of Cadet Command and that he ex-
pected them to carry out loyally and enthusiastically the policies and pro-
grams adopted by the command. Such a step was necessary, Wagner thought,
because of their attitude and comments during the conference, which had not
always borne witness to a whole-hearted acceptance of the new Cadet Com-
mand ways of approaching precommissioning training. Some of the friction
between the new commander and the PMSs, no doubt, was due to method-
ological differences, but some was also related to the increased workload and
stress that came with the new order. Rejoining the Active Army was a painful
experience for some of these officers—especially those that had become en-
sconced in their positions in the pre-Cadet Command era and were accus-
tomed to the old ways.

When he arrived back at Fort Monroe, Wagner gave the task of remaking
the conference into something that could further the goals of the command to
Lieutenant Colonel Jones. Over the course of the next year, Jones worked out
a plan to accomplish this end. To facilitate the plan’s implementation, he
invited both HBCU presidents and PMSs to the annual meetings. This oc-
curred for the first time in 1987 and had the effect of more closely integrating
ROTC instruction into the academic curriculum. In addition, he formed an
HBCU Task Force to keep attention focused on the HBCUs in the intervals
between meetings.

Enhancing the academic skills of minority cadets, especially in reading,
writing, and mathematics became a prime component of Cadet Command’s
effort to upgrade precommissioning education and training at HBCUs. The
relatively high failure rate of ROTC graduates at the various branch Of-
ficer Basic Courses was due in large measure, surveys indicated, to substandard

Ww



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

but on arriving at single, definitive answers to concrete questions. The mind-
set encouraged by the study of these “hard skill” disciplines had an obvious
appeal to a certain type of military officer.”

Failure to Reach “High-Tech” Goals

Despite the Allocation Program, the Army still was not able to attract
high quality engineers in the numbers it wanted into the ROTC. A lack of
command emphasis may have played a part in this. Cadet Command Com-
manders have generally subscribed to the thesis that one can effectively em-
ploy and manage technology without necessarily understanding the scientific
principles that underlie its functioning. In this sense, they have adhered to the
tradition of the British officer corps which has a decidedly operational as op-
posed to a technological bent.

Also at work was the problem of getting capable engineering students
interested in military service. More lucrative jobs awaited many of them in
the civilian sector. A majority of the ones that did enter the Army saw their
professional skills erode in jobs that the Army may have identified as engi-
neering-related but, in reality, could be performed by any reasonably intelli-
gent college graduate regardless of academic background. They were conse-
quently at a disadvantage if and when they got out of the service and sought
civilian employment as an engineer.

Moreover, those engineering majors that did stay with the ROTC pro-
gram were not, in general, exemplars of the “warrior-leader’—an assertive
and determined mesomorph who could by his presence and demeanor com-
mand the respect of subordinates. They tended to be more comfortable be-
hind a computer screen than in front of an infantry platoon. As a result, many
did not perform particularly well at Advanced Camp, which was, according to
those in Cadet Command who measured leadership ability, a good indication
that they did not have what it took to be an Army officer.

Finally, students pursuing “high tech” academic majors found it difficult
to meet the course requirements of their career field and still find time to
satisfy the demands of the ROTC program. This has been a problem for the
Army since the 1950s. To accommodate the aspiring engineer and physicist,
the Army modified its ROTC curriculum in 1960, decreasing “purely mili-
tary” instruction from 480 to 360 contact hours and adding 120 hours of elec-
tives. The modifications permitted the Army to meet the letter if not the spirit
of the National Defense Act of 1916 whose provisions required that a cadet

205



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Cadet Corps at Kansas State University ca. 1895

established departments of military instruction. It was among the land-grant
institutions, however, that the tradition of military training took firmest root
and the concept of citizen-soldier officer education became the most firmly
embedded. At most land-grant schools, one year of military training had been
made compulsory by 1900.°

Despite the various steps taken to improve instruction, the contributions
of collegiate military training programs to the national defense were limited.
No uniform training standards guided instruction nor was the federal govern-
ment given supervisory authority to regulate the various collegiate programs.
Officers were allowed to conduct training according to their personal views
and desires. The result was that no two institutions were alike in their courses
of military instruction.

According to a board of officers assembled in 1911 to consider
collegiate military programs, the majority of officers assigned to campus
duty lost sight of their principal purpose—which was to produce volunteer

10



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

LDS Latter Day Saints

LEADS Lead Expediting and
Dissemination System

LOA _ letter of agreement

LT lieutenant

LTG _ fieutenant general

M
MACOM
major Army command
MFR = memorandum for record
MG major general
MGIB Montgomery Gl Bill
MILPERCEN
U.S. Army Military
Personnel! Center
MILPO Military Personnel Office
MJC Military Junior College
MOA memorandum of agreement
Mol memorandum of instruction
MOS ___ military occupational
speciality
MOU memorandum of
understanding
MPA Military Personnel, Army
MPRI Military Professional
Resources, Inc.
MQS ___ military qualification

standards
MS military science
MUSARC
major U.S. Army Reserve
command
N

NBQ __non-branch qualified

NCO non-commissioned officer

NDCC National Defense Cadet
Corps

NG National Guard

NGB National Guard Bureau

NROTC Naval Reserve Officers’
Training Corps

NSC National Science Center

NSTP Nurse Summer Training
Program

NWTC Northern Warfare Training
Center

oO
OBC Officer Basic Course

336

OCAFF Office of the Chief,
Army Field Forces
OCAR Office of the Chief, Army
Reserve
OCS Officer Candidate School
ODP = Officer Distribution Plan
ODCSPER
Office of the Deputy Chief
of Staff for Personnel
ODCSROTC
Office of the Deputy Chief
of Staff for ROTC
O&F — organization and functions
O&M operations and
maintenance
OMA operations and
maintenance, Army
OML order of merit list
ORC Organized Reserve Corps
OSB Officer Selection Battery
OSD Office of the Secretary of
Defense
OSS = Office of Strategic Services

P
PAS Precommissioning
Assessment System
P&A personnel and
administration
PERSCOM
U.S. Army Personnel
Command
PL Public Law
PLC Platoon Leader’s Course
PME Professional Military
Education

PMS Professor of Military
Science

POC point of contact

POI program of instruction

POM program of objective
memorandum

PT physical training

R
RA Regular Army
RC reserve components
RCPAC U.S. Army Reserve
Personnel and
Administration Center



INTRODUCTION

Cadets celebrate their graduation from advanced camp

one’s net wide enough, especially in and among such an able group as
the collegiate population of the United States, one is bound to catch a
number of big fish—even though they might represent a very small
fraction of the whole catch. In any case, the success of the ROTC program
in producing prominent civilian and military leaders tells us little about
its ability to produce competent, well-motivated junior officers.
Historically, leadership at the tactical level has not been a forte of the
U.S. Army. Leavenworth graduates have been world-class; our junior
officers have not.
It was not until the decade of the 1980s that the ROTC began to
move in a different direction. A program whose effectiveness had long
been limited by its organizational diffusion and lack of standardization i
was transformed in a relatively short period of time into an efficient pro- |
ducer of commissioned officers—a producer that was capable of turning i
out in sufficient quantity junior officers of the type that performed so
creditably in the Persian Gulf War. To be sure, from the program’s in-
ception there were officers who both recognized and worked to correct
the many problems that plagued the ROTC. Indeed, many of the reforms
and improvements instituted over the last decade had been prefigured in



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

CADET TRAINING

RECRUITING CADETS

vi

Chapter 3

Forging A New Image .......sesseeeeeeeeree
The New Command ...
Headquarters Organization
Subordinate Command
Cadet Command Functions

Chapter 4

Military Qualifications Standards
The Leadership Assessment Program
The Cadet Training Arch
Basic Camp
Administrative Reform of Camps
A New Intensity ..........0
The Cadet On-Campus Training Program
Training at Historically Black Colleges and Universities
The Leader Development Study
The School of Cadet Command

Chapter 5

Past Recruiting Practices
The Contribution of the DCSROTC
A New Direction .....
Young and Rubicam.
Spring Gold.
The Advertising Media Mix
GOLDQUESE on. eeeseessesseetesteeeeeeeetenees

The Goldstrike Management System
Goldminer Teams
Green to Gold ..
Cadet Command-Recruiting Command Cooperation.
Scholarship Program
Officer Accessioning



CHAPTER V

RECRUITING CADETS

An uncharacteristic uniformity ran through ROTC advertising
at all levels. Cadet Command Headquarters, the regions,
and individual battalions now pushed a single theme—
personal success—and adopted almost identical packaging
for all advertising products. The contrast with the old way of
doing business was glaring.

Previous chapters have noted ROTC’s perennial inability to draw its pro-
portionate share of students from the upper echelons of America’s collegiate
population. In the mid-1980s, ROTC product quality was still a major Army
concern. Echoing the observations of the earlier RETO Board Study (1978), a
January 1986 report by the U.S. Army Audit Agency noted that “significant
quality problems existed” in the ROTC cadet corps—an assessment found in
other official studies and in the military periodical literature of the era.'

Enrollment numbers were also a source of worry and, as we have seen,
had been since the end of the Vietnam War. ROTC fell short of its FY 1984
production mission of 9,402 officers by approximately 12 percent. As a re-
sult, the Army felt compelled to slash ROTC production missions by a like
percentage and thereby established the dangerous precedent of tying output to
existing capability rather than need. Pessimistic demographic forecasts height-
ened Army concerns. The ROTC Study Group Report, published in May 1986,
noted that the overall aging of the U.S. population had “particularly signifi-
cant implications” for the ROTC program. The group cited studies projecting
that the 18-24 year age group—the group from which ROTC drew most of its
participants—would shrink by 20 percent between 1985 and 1996. Only after
this latter date would this age group once again begin to grow. The meaning
of this was clear to the study group; ROTC would have to struggle for at least
the next decade just to maintain its pre-1986 levels of production.”

123



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.

84.

Lo

Papo

oON

324

(1) Briefing Slide, ATCC-MO, Enrollments and Contracts, Cadet Command Command
Briefing, 3 March 1995. (2) Briefing Slide, ATCC-T, Camp Statistics, Cadet Command
Command Briefing, 4 March 1995.

Profs message, MG Lyle to Region Cars, 17 February 1995, subject: Lylegram
#32—Five Chances to Say Yes.

Lathrop, Student Attitudes Toward Reserve Officer Training Corps Program, p. 36
and p. 52.

Profs message, MG Lyle to Region Cars, 17 February 1995, subject: Lylegram
#32—Five Chances to Say Yes.

(1) Memorandum, ATOD-E, COL Charles E. Crow for COS, USACC, 10 February 1995,
subject: Trip Report on Brigade Command Visits, 4th Region (ROTC), the “Apache”
Brigade. (2) Briefing Slide, ATCC-MO, Retention Goals, Cadet Command Briefing,
4 March 1995.

Memorandum, ATCC-ZR, MG Lyle to Region Cars, 20 December 1995, subject: ROTC
Battalions’ Relationship with Local Reserve Component Units.

(1) Thomas E. Cronin, “Thinking and Learning About Leadership” in Robert L. Taylor
and William E. Rosenback, ed., Military Leadership: In Pursuit of Excellence, 2d edition
(Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1992), p. 60. (2) Memorandum,
ATOD-E, COL Charles E. Crow for COS, USACC, 10 February 1995, subject: Trip
Report on Brigade Command Visit, 5th Brigade, 4th Region (ROTC), the “Apache” Brigade.
(1) Annual Historical Summary (January - December 1994), ATCC-RR, LTC Richard A.
Massey, 15 March 1995, p. 4 and p. 17, HRDC. (2) Congressional Report - House,
H808, August 12, 1994.

(1) Author interview with Mrs. Connie Dolan, 9 March 1994. (2) Annual Historical
Report, July - December 1993, ATCC-R, LTC Richard A. Massey, Resource
Management Directorate, 9 March 1994, HRDC.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 10 March 1994.

Ibid., 4 December 1995. (2) Author interview with MG Rober F. Wagner, 7 December
1995.

Briefing slides, ATCC-T, “Cadet Evaluation System,” n.d.

Ibid.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 15 January 1995.

(1) Author interview with Dr. Larry Brown, 12 January 1996. (2) Briefing slides,
ATCC-T, “Cadet Evaluation System,’ n.d.

Comments made by COL Robert B. Sauve, First Region Chief of Staff, during Cadet
Command Commanders’ Miniconference, 20-233 February 1995.

Author interview with COL Thomas Maclver, 12 January 1996.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 15 January 1995.

CHAPTER VII

(1) War College Division, General Staff Corps, Study on Educational Institutions Giving
Military Training as a Source for a Supply of Officers for a National Army, prepared as a
supplement to the Statement of a Proper Military Policy for the United States, WCD 9053-
121, November 1915, p. 9. (2) Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership,
p. 38.

(1) Robert L. Lathrop, Student Attitudes Toward Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
Program, p. 5. (2) Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, pp. 76-77.
Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, pp. 73-74.

Rankin, the Administration of Army ROTC Units, p. 151.

Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, pp. 77-78.

Service Academy Board, A Report and Recommendation to the Secretary of Defense,
January 1950, p. 13.

Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, pp. 49-50.

Ibid., pp. 145-147.

Ibid., p. 148.



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS

JUNIOR ROTC CAMPS

CAMP LOCATIONS
@ 1994 & 1995 Wi995

A 1994

WGermany

Puerto Rico

SUMMER 1994 |SUMMER 1995,
° 46 Camps 58 Camps
° « 31 Locations 36 Locations
ad 16,583 Cadets 18,821 Cadets
e o
FOCUS ON: OBJECTIVES

Adventure training
Leadership development
NOT war-fighting skills

Build citizenship
Develop leadership skills
Build self-esteem

Have fun

Figure 9-2. Junior ROTC Camps

The command was careful to ensure that the essential thrust of the pro-
gram was on leadership development and citizenship. Military tactics and
combat weapons training were specifically excluded from the program of in-
struction. This was done to refute critics who allege that the JROTC’s main
purpose was to serve as a recruiting instrument for the armed services.

JROTC Cadet Creed
The idea of a creed for the JROTC originated not in Cadet Command

Headquarters but in various high schools across the nation. During the many
visits he made throughout the command in his first year as ROTC chief, Major

285


CADET COMMAND

lasting four days and three nights and unfolded in four overlapping phases—
preparation; offense/defense; patrolling (raid); and company fighting march.
After each phase of the exercise, controllers critiqued the cadets. As the exer-
cise progressed, the cadets were subjected to increasing levels of physical and
mental stress, caused by a depleted water supply, long movements on foot,
lack of sleep, bugs, rain, and other field nuisances. See Figure 4-1.

The graduation ceremony at the end of Advanced Camp was meant to
symbolize the passing of the officer candidate through the “cadet training arch”
and the completion of what was considered to be the single most important
event on the road to commissioning. It was especially important to such
“an incredibly far-flung organization” like Cadet Command to have such
an instrument available, Wagner believed; for not only would it help en-
sure product quality, it would also develop esprit and instill a sense of
solidarity in and among the cadets who made up the ROTC program—
qualities that the widely scattered and organizationally diffuse ROTC pro-
gram had never previously possessed.

TRAINING ADVANCED CAMP (1987)

GEN SUB
© APFT
© LAND NAV
© CoMMO
© NBC BASIC TACTICS —_| ADVANCED TACTICS
© OBSTACLES/MINES =| @ ITT © SMALL UNIT PATROLLING
@LRC e@sap Tactics —_}@ STRAC
© RECONDO © PLT TACTICS © LARGE UNIT PATROLLING
zi
TRAIL GUN AUDIE Ww ce] KIT CAPSTONE
BLAZER | SMOKE| MURPHY fd 2 CARSON EXERCISE
-
WEAPONS COMBINED © BATTLE
TRAINING ARMS & SEQUENCE
jo M-16 BRANCH © OFFENSIVE/
jo Meo ORIENTATION DEFENSIVE
© HAND GRENADE PATROLLING
© ANTI-ARMOR © AIR ASSAULT
© FIRE SUPPORT © RAID
jo ARMOR © COMPANY
FIGHTING
MARCH

Figure 4-1. Training Advanced Camp (1987)

101



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

American Army. Indeed, the Army’s record of apathy stretched back to the
passage of the Morrill Act of 1862.

It was difficult to explain this tradition. Perhaps it was bound up with
the anti-elitist proclivities of the American public and the American Army.
Perhaps it was a result of the localism that had for so long characterized ROTC
operations. This localism had inhibited the growth of an ROTC corporate
identity which in turn inhibited the development of an ROTC constituency
within the ranks of the Army’s senior leaders. Whatever the reason, the fact
was that the professional nurturing of ROTC officer aspirants was given scant
attention before 1986.

No major improvements could be made in the officer accessions process,
Neale’s paper went on to say, until the ROTC received its fair share of re-
sources. In 1983, the Army spent $159,000 to commission one West Point
cadet and only $36,000 to train one four-year ROTC scholarship cadet.
Moreover, the vast majority of academy graduates attended Cadet Troop Leader
Training, Air Assault, Airborne, Flight Orientation, or Northern Warfare Train-
ing compared to only 27 percent of their ROTC counterparts. A significant
difference in cadre quality also existed: at the Military Academy, the cadre
promotion rate from lieutenant colonel to colonel was 64 percent, in ROTC
only 20 percent. The obvious point was that a more equitable distribution of
resources and training opportunities among the commissioning sources was
in order.

ROTC: Everybody’s Business also alleged that ROTC was being short-
changed in the recruiting arena. The U.S. Army Recruiting Command’s
recruiting budget amounted to $75 million per year, but ROTC received
only $6.4 million of this total. To compensate for inadequate recruiting
funds, ROTC targeted markets where the quality of the average prospect
was relatively low and recruiting easier. Scholarships were of little help
in remedying this “quality deflection syndrome” because of the Army’s
academic mix requirements, which focused on bringing more engineering
and other so-called “high tech” majors into the program. Students en-
rolled in these disciplines were given preferential treatment in the scholar-
ship selection process even though in many instances they did not exhibit
the same intellectual and leadership potential as applicants who were pursu-
ing or planned to pursue liberal arts degrees. This was unfortunate, Fourth
Region Headquarters felt, because the Army had never definitively established
a positive correlation between a technical or engineering background and adept-
ness in operating and employing modern weapons systems.**

60



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The Army Scholarship Analysis

In the mid-1980s, attention was focused once again on the scholarship
mix issue. The DCSROTC found it necessary to undertake a study—the Army
ROTC Scholarship Analysis—to determine the optimum scholarship mix to
attain peak production. Such an analysis was needed, the Office of the
DCSROTC believed, because no one really knew if the Army was getting the
maximum production return on its scholarship investment. Existing methods
for allocating two-, three-, and four-year awards were little more, it contended,
than a “corporate best guess.”

The study yielded several recommendations. First, it urged that the num-
ber of four-year scholarships be reduced. A maximum of 1,500 offers were to
be made; no “turn-downs” were to be filled with alternates. It was estimated
that this would yield about 750 four-year recipients annually, representing
about 15 percent of the yearly total. Second, advanced designee scholarships
were to be offered to what were formerly four- and three-year alternate win-
ners. Students who won advanced designee awards would start to collect ben-
efits the year after they enrolled in the ROTC program. Finally, the study
recommended that the proportion of two- and three-year awards be increased.

Although the study recommendations were approved by the DCSROTC
in November 1985, they were never fully implemented. Apparently, the
DCSROTC could not get enough qualified applicants to fill all the two- and
three-year awards it allocated and thus had to give more four-year scholar-
ships than it wanted. Nevertheless, the number of two- and three-year awards
was increased as much as the market would support.

Taking up where the Office of the DCSROTC had left off, Cadet Com-
mand was able to effect a modest reduction in the proportion of four-year
awards in subsequent years. At the time of the study cited above, it stood at
25 percent; by 1994, it had been lowered to about 22 percent.”!

TRADOC Consolidation
of the Scholarship Program

The TRADOC DCSROTC also strove to streamline and make more
equitable the scholarship selection process after 1973. This was attempted by
consolidating and centralizing the scholarship selection function at TRADOC
Headquarters. When the Steadfast reorganization took effect in July 1973,
TRADOC, the four regions, and several other parties all played key and

198



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

ROTC 75-mm gun training at Purdue University, 1928

Office. In their petition, they had to pledge to offer a four-year course of
instruction in military science, which included a Basic Course of three hours
per week during a student’s first two years and an Advanced Course of five
hours per week during his final two undergraduate years. If the petition was
approved (which was by no means certain since fiscal constraints resulted in
many institutions being denied units), the school was given the authority
to require compulsory enrollment in the Basic Course and to determine the
number of credit hours awarded for each military science course. The Army
assigned active duty officers and enlisted men as instructors and paid their
salaries. Upon acceptance by school officials, the senior officer assumed the
title Professor of Military Science and Tactics (PMS&T) and the other officers
the title of Assistant PMS&T. Permission to enroll in the Advanced Course
was granted only to those cadets who desired to pursue a commission. The
Army provided uniforms, equipment, and textbooks and paid Advanced Course
cadets a small subsistence allowance to defray the costs of haircuts and uni-
form care. Cadets also received a small stipend during their six-week summer
camp between the junior and senior year.”

The branch affiliation of each ROTC unit determined its curriculum and
summer camp regimen. Some institutions supported units of several types
(infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineer, etc.). Certain subjects—for example, map
reading, military history, military law, basic tactics, camp sanitation, drill, and
marksmanship—were part of every curriculum. All military science instruc-
tion, both Basic and Advanced, was categorized as either theoretical or practical.

15



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

51, 54-56, 69, 70, 265-269
Rogers, Maj. Gen. Charles C., 42, 62
Rogers High School, 279
Roosevelt High School, 272
Russian Language Course, 40
Rutgers University, 168

Ss
Saint John’s College, 8
Saint Louis, Missouri, 88
salute batteries, 75
San Jose State University, 168
Sauve, Col. Robert B., 181, 276
Savannah State College, 237
scholarship program, 140-142
Army Allocation Program, 103,
204, 208
cap, 206, 207
tiering, 178, 208-214
Scholastic Aptitude Test, 132, 147
School of Cadet Command (SOCC),
82, 115-121
Science-by-Mail Program 282
Scott, Lt. Gen. Willard, 73
Sears, Louis M., 212
Second ROTC Region, 249-251
Selective Early Retirement Board,
173
Selective Service Act, 21
Senate Armed Services Committee,
154, 191
Service Academy Board, 22, 23, 186
Sherman, Gen. William Tecumseh, 8
shoulder sleeve insignia, 70-74
Signal School, 58
Simultaneous Membership
Program, 133, 170
Smith, Brig. Gen. Wilfred, 49
Snyder, William, 43, 229, 230
soldier support systems, 93
Spanish-American War, 12, 216
Spring Gold, 130, 131
Spring Review, 73-75
Stanford University, 221
Starry, Gen. Donn, 50
Steadfast reorganization, 36-40, 52
Stone, Michael, 239
Strategic Marketing, Advertising,
and Recruiting Tool (SMART)
Kit, 133
Student Army Training Corps, 14

356

Student Military Instruction Camp, 13
subsistence allowance, 177

Sullivan, Gen. Gordon R., 113,281
Sutherland, Maj. James, 102

T
Test of Adult Basic Education, 57
Texas A&M University, 42, 95, 96,
173, 178
Texas Christian University, 173
Texas Tech University, 168
The Citadel, 8, 17, 95
Third ROTC Region, 241-243
Thomason Act of 1935, 18, 186
Thomkins, Curtis J., 171
Thompson, William O., 13
Thurman, Gen. Maxwell R., 50, 114
tiered approach to training, 63
Tilelli, Gen. John H. Jr., 250
time constraints, 167
Total Army Analysis, 238
Total Army Concept, 93
TRADOC, 36-40, 43, 51, 52
Training Directorate, 82, 114
Training Management Indicators,
107-110
training support package, 95
two-year ROTC program, 25, 26,
147, 221

U

Umbrella Management System, 268,
269

U.S. Army Center for Army
Leadership, 96

U.S. Army Combat Developments
Command, 36

U.S. Army Institute of Heraldry,
72,76

U.S. Army Military Personnel
Center, 86

U.S. Army Personnel Command, 170

U.S. Army Recruiting Command
(USAREC), 60, 139, 140

U.S. Army Research Institute for the
Behavioral and Social
Sciences, 95

U.S. Army Reserve Personnel
Center, 88

U.S. Army ROTC Cadet
Command, 54



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

and time-consuming and felt that it produced more work than benefit. Many
detachments simply deleted students from the system upon the receipt of their
names to avoid the tiresome and largely unprofitable exercise of contacting
hundreds of students who in all probability would not or could not enroll in
the ROTC.”

Cadet Command’s answer to the Lead Expediting and Dissemination
System was a new program, which was given the name GOLDQuest. It in-
volved a substantial revision to the existing data base and the adoption of a
fundamentally different approach to managing the thousands of enrollment
leads received by the national processing center each year. Under the new
program, the prospect’s name was entered into the data base as soon as a
response card was received. The information requested by prospect was then
sent out by the GOLDQuest processing center. The individual’s name was
maintained on the data base until the student was a senior in high school. At
that time, and this was a key factor in the new system, the processing center
contacted the prospect by telephone to reconfirm his interest in ROTC. If the
prospect indicated continued interest, the center determined his college of
choice. The resultant names were transmitted electronically to the PMS at the
designated institution. GOLDQuest uncluttered the system by eliminating
students who no longer had an interest in ROTC and, at the same time, en-
hanced the usefulness of the system to the PMS by providing him with pros-
pects who were more likely to enroll in the program.

GOLDQuest performed another service. It allowed the command to track
prospects up to the point of their enrollment in ROTC—something that the
Lead Expediting and Dissemination System could not do or, at least, could
not do well—which, in turn, made possible the measurement of advertising
effectiveness. With GOLDQuest, Cadet Command could gauge what type of
advertising worked best and get ideas about how to make the marketing sys-
tem more cost-effective.”

The Goldstrike Management System

The production problem in the pre-Cadet Command era was related to
ROTC’s decentralized command structure. The absence of uniform eligibil-
ity criteria and a systematic method of setting production quotas (or missions
in Cadet Command jargon), the inevitable results of decentralized command,
meant that broad discretionary powers devolved upon the region commander
and PMS in determining who and how many would be commissioned

134



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

did not reach a certain critical mass—which he evidently felt was around 100
students. Indeed, Snyder attributed many of the ROTC program’s qualitative short-
falls in the 1970s to the presence of a large number of small units. General Bruce
C. Clarke, a recognized authority on leadership development, wholeheartedly
agreed with Snyder on this point.” It was a problem that was to grow worse in the
first half of the next decade as the number of small units mushroomed.

The Reagan Build-Up

DCSROTC historical reports say little about nonproductive units in the
early 1980s. This is not surprising since this was the era of Expand the Base
(ETB), a TRADOC initiative that was to increase the institutional size of the
ROTC program by nearly 40 percent between 1980 and 1984. It was to be by
far the largest institutional expansion of the ROTC since its inception, dwarf-
ing previous enlargement efforts. With Expand the Base, the DCSROTC hoped
to meet the Army’s projected annual production requirement of 10,500 by 1985.

The early 1980’s were years in which people and resources were avail-
able in relative abundance. The Army was expanding and its officer needs
were growing. Culling out uneconomical units was not a priority. Indeed, the
Army was seemingly reluctant at this time to disestablish any unit that dis-
played the slightest chance of one day becoming productive.

Because most of the extension centers created under Expand the Base
could not meet the production or enrollment minimums specified in the 1974
edition of Defense Department Directive 1215.8, the directive was revised.
The new edition (1982) eliminated numerical standards, leaving the establish-
ment of such standards entirely to the services, but ordered, instead of al-
lowed, the services to consider four viability factors, namely: the quality of of-
ficer produced; the cost of maintaining the unit; the kinds of officer produced; and
the number of officers produced. It said nothing, however, about how they were
to compute the factors. The revised guideline neither streamlined nor simplified
the increasingly complicated and confusing closure process.””

The Effective Management Program

In 1985, the Army refocused on the problem of uneconomical units. In
that year, TRADOC submitted a plan to the Department of the Army for re-
placing the “ineffective” Intensive Management Program with a new method
of managing unit productivity. It designated the new method the Effective

230



INTRODUCTION

It was not until the decade of the 1980s
that the ROTC began to move in a different direction. A
program whose effectiveness had long been limited by its
organizational diffusion and lack of standardization was
transformed in a relatively short period of time into an
efficient producer of commissioned officers.

No one today would question the motivation and competency of
newly commissioned Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) gradu-
ates. Their performance in recent conflicts such as Operation Just Cause
(Panama) and Operation Desert Storm (Persian Gulf) testifies to their
professional skill and leadership ability. The ROTC is finally doing what
its proponents in the past have claimed it could—namely, it is producing
a broadly educated junior officer, thoroughly imbued with the customs,
traditions, and ethos of the military profession yet with one foot firmly
planted in the civilian community. Moreover, it does this at relatively
little cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, many senior Army officers feel that of
the three commissioning sources currently available to the United States
Army, the ROTC program is the one that produces the second lieutenant
best prepared to meet the complex array of technological, social, intel-
lectual, and leadership challenges that are an inseparable part of the
modern military profession.

ROTC graduates, however, have not always been held in high
esteem. Until relatively recently, they were often compared unfavorably
with their Officer Candidate School (OCS) and West Point counterparts.
A reputation for being “second string” stuck with the ROTC program



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

magazine effort. Cadet Command advertisements appeared in such national
periodicals as Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Sport, Out-
door Life, Boy’s Life, Motor Trend, High School Sports, Careers, College
Outlook, Key Publishing, Peterson’s Guide, and Talbert’s Guide.

Direct mailings constituted the final element in Cadet Command’s na-
tional advertising campaign. This effort was based on lists of secondary school
students who had taken the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Tests (PSAT), the
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and the American College Test (ACT). High
school juniors scoring above average on the PSAT and indicating an interest
in engineering, nursing, or one of the “hard sciences” were the focus of the
junior mailings. These talented students, who were likely to win merit-based
scholarships, started exploring their options well before the beginning of their

RESERVE OFFICERS’ TRAINING CORPS

‘THE SMARTEST COLLEGE
‘COURSE YOU CAN TARE.

Figure 5-2. 1991 Version of the Resume Ad

132



INDEX

Academic Discipline Mix, 136, 149

academic substitution policy, 24, 93

accessions, 142-144

Active Guard/Reserve, 41, 153-156

Aderhold, O.C., 190

Ad Hoc Committee for Basic and

Advanced Camps, 38

Advanced Camp, 20, 38-40, 57,
58, 63

Advanced Course (ROTC), 15, 16,
19, 20, 23-26, 34, 41, 57-59

Advanced Degree Program for ROTC

Instructor Duty, 49

Advanced Designation Scholarship,
142

Adventure Challenge, 63

advertising, 3, 165, 166

Ailes, Stephen, 25, 189-191

Air Assault Course, 40, 60

Airborne School, 40, 60

Air Force Academy, 212

Air Force ROTC, 29, 187, 188, 229

Airland Battle Doctrine, 93

Alabama A&M University, 111, 112

Alternative Strategies, 237-240

American Literary, Scientific and
Military Academy (See Norwich
University)

Annapolis, Maryland, 8

Arab-Israeli War of 1973, 91

Armor School, 69

Army Advisory Panel on ROTC

Affairs, 22, 24

Army Audit Agency, 124

Army Chief of Staff, 17, 26, 38,
52, 69, 73

Army College Fund, 138, 139

350

Army Corps, 28

Army Field Forces, 23, 217

Army Ground Forces, 2, 19, 23

Army Magazine, 26

Army Management Headquarters
Activities, 51

Army Officer Cadet Center (AOCC),
63-67, 70, 71

Army Orientation Training
Program, 40

Army Personnel Command, 51

Army Regulation 220-5, 54

Army War College, 12

Arnold, Major General Wallace C.,
145-159

artillery, 15, 142

Assistant Chief of Staff for Force
Development, 33

Association of Military Colleges and
Schools, 184

Association of State Universities and
Land-Grant Colleges, 33, 184,
189

“at risk” officers, 173, 174

Audrain, Lt. Col. Frank, 114

B
Balanced Budget and Emergency
Deficit Control Act, 264
Basic Camp, 26, 102, 103, 146-148
Basic Course (ROTC), 15, 16, 19,
23, 26
Bennett, Senator Robert, 203
Benson Committee, 34
Benson, Dr. George C. S., 33
Blount, MG John B., 46
branch immaterial instruction, 23



57.

58.

59.

64.
65.

77.
78.

79.

ENDNOTES

Ibid., pp. 47-48.

Ibid., p. 51.

Ibid., p. 50.

(1) Author interview with LTC James Janele, 27 June 1995. (2) Memorandum for Record,
ATCC-ZR, COL W. Ellis, RF Advisor, 31 October 1991, subject: Removal of AGR Support
from ROTC. (3) Memorandum for Record, DAPE-MPO-D, MAJ Simpson, 1 November
1990, subject: APMS Language in Authorization Bill, HRDC. (4) Issue Paper, ATCC-ZA,
MG W. C. Arnold, 2 November 1990, subject: Congressional Action Precludes the
Assignment of RC AGRs to USAROTCCC Effective 30 September 1991. (5) Memoran-
dum, DAPE-MPO, MG Larry D. Budge, Acting DCSPER, for Chief Legislative Liaison,
3 February 1992, subject: Proposal to Repeal Legislation Regarding the Authorization
of Reserve Component Full-Time Support for Those Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
Programs Which Commission Officers for Direct Assignment to Reserve Forces Duty—
Action Memorandum.

(1) USAROTCCC Annual Historical Summary, 1 January to 31 December 1991, p. 35,
HRDC. (2) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 31 May 1995.

Letter, ATCC-ZA, MG Wallace C. Arnoid to DCSPER, 30 April 1992, subject: Resource
Strategies for the Future, HRDC.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-MO, Operations, Research and Strategic Analysis Division, 25
June 1992, subject: Alternative Strategies, HRDC. (2) Briefing Slides, ATCC-MO, to the
Undersecretary of the Army, Mr. Shannon, 22 June 1992, subject: Structuring and
Resourcing ROTC Cadet Command.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 1 March 1992.

(1) Fact Sheet, ATCC-MO, Operations, Research and Strategic Analysis Division, 25
June 1992, subject: Alternative Strategies. (2) Author interview with LTC James Janele,
1 March 1993.

Ibid.

(1) Semiannual Historical Report (January - June 1993), ATCC-M, LTC John B. Gately,
Director, Marketing, Operations and Public Affairs Directorate, HRDC. (2) Author
interview with LTC James Janele, 26 May 1995. (3) USACC Annual Command History,
1 January to 31 December 1993, p. 42, HRDC.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 26 May 1995.

(1) Third ROTC Region Historical Summary for 1992, 1 January - 15 November 1992,
Executive Summary, 22 December 1992. (2) Brochure, U.S. Army Third Region
Inactivation Ceremony, 7 October 1992. (3) Memorandum of Instruction (MOI) for Third
Region Closure and Deactivation, ATOC-CG, COL Robert B. Sauve, COS, Third ROTC
Region, n.d. (4) U.S. Army Third ROTC Region After Action Report (AAR), Tab G,
22 December 1992.

Ibid.

(1) Author interview with LTC James Janele, 15 June 1994. (2) Briefing slides, ATCC-
MO, 23 February 1994, subject: U.S. Army Cadet Command UpdateBriefing.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 26 May 1995.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 28 July 1994.

USACC Annual Command History, 1 January to 31 December 1993, p. 45.

Ibid, pp. 32-33.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 26 May 1995.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 10 February 1995.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 15 January 1995.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 23 June 1995.

(1) Letter, William H. Danforth, Chancellor, Washington University, to COL Judith
R. Hanses, September 30, 1994. (2) Letter, William H. Danforth to the Honorable Sara
E. Lister, ASA (M&RA), August 10, 1994. (3) Congressional Record—Senate, August
10, 1994, S11124.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 18 January 1996.

(1) PROFS message, Mr. Dave Hickman, ATCC-MO, 27 July 1994, subject: Response to
GAO Issues. (2) Author interview with LTC James Janele, 26 June 1995.

Ibid.

329



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

26.

27.
28.
29.

40.
41.
42.

43.

48.

49.
50.

51.

328

commission between 12-15. In practice, although not by regulation, 17 and 12 were
apparently the standards.

(1) Comptroller General of the United States, Reserve Officer Training Corps:
Management Deficiencies Still to be Corrected, Report B-146947, March 15, 1977, p. 3.
(2) C9, AR 145-1, Senior ROTC Program - Organization, Administration, and Training,
15 January 1979, p. 2-3. (3) C 12, AR 145-1, 1 March 1982, p. 2-5.

Ibid., pp. 3-4.

(1) Ibid., p. 6. (2) Author interview with MG (Ret) Daniel W. French, 23 June 1995.
Comptroller General of the United States, Reserve Officer Training Corps: Management
Deficiencies Still to be Corrected, FPCD-77-15, March 15, 1977, pp. 5-6. (3) ODCSROTC
staff officers described the extension center idea as a “fly before buy" concept. The
school had to prove itself as a viable ROTC production center while allowing the Army to
commit only minimum resources without a forma! contract. It allowed either party to
back out if expectations were not met. See 1975 DCSROTC Orientation and Briefing
Files, Slide 24.

Ibid, p. 6.

Polly Carpenter-Huffman and William McNaught, DOD Standards for ROTC Efficiency,
Rand Corporation, 1979, p. 3.

Ibid.

U.S. Code Congressional and Administrative News, p. 91.

Amendment No. 75, Conference Report on H.R. 13635, p. H12400.

Carpenter-Huffman and McNaught, DOD Standards for ROTC Efficiency, p. 18.
DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 October 1976 - 31 March 1977,
p. 7, HRDC.

Carpenter-Huffman and McNaught, DOD Standards for ROTC Efficiency, p. 45.

Author interview with MG (Ret) Daniel W. French, 23 June 1995.

(1) William P. Snyder, "Leaders for the Volunteer Force,” p. 77. (2) Comments on ROTC
presented to HQ, Second ROTC Region by GEN Bruce C. Clarke (RET), 21 Feb 1974.
DOD Directive 1215.8, Policies, Relating to Senior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps
(ROTC) Programs, February 8, 1982, pp. 2-3.

DCSROTC, TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 April - 30 September1985,
p. 7, HRDC.

USAROTCCC, Semiannual Historical Report, 1 October 1985 - 31 March 1986,
p. 7, HRDC.

U.S. General Accounting Office, Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Less Need
for Officers Provides Opportunities for Significant Savings, B-242016.2, May 6,
1991, p. 14.

Ibid.

USAROTCCC Annual History, January to 31 December 1990, pp. 38-39, HRDC.
Memorandum, ATCC-PA, MG Robert E. Wagner to CG, TRADOC, 30 November 1989,
subject: Officer Accessions.

(1) Enclosure 3, Selection Methodology, and 4, Rationale for the Viability Algorithm, to
Information Paper, DAPE-MPO, LTC Kitchen, subject: AUSA Draft Resolution #1,
(6)-2-91. (2) Memorandum, ATCC-OM, COL Thomas E. Faley, Jr., COS, USAROTCCC,
October 1990, subject: Concept of Operation for Consortiums.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-ZA, MG Wallace C. Arnold, thru DCSPER to CSA, 4 June 1990,
subject: Cadet Command ROTC Battalion Closure Alternatives. (2) Memorandum, DAPE-
MPO, BG Theodore G. Stroup, Jr., Director of Military Personnel Management, Army,
thru CG, TRADOC, for CG, Cadet Command, n.d., subject: Revised ROTC Missions for
FY 91-97. (3) Memorandum, LTC Michael Hodson, for ROTC Region Cars, 13 June
1990, subject: Memo of Instruction (MOl) for ROTC Unit Closures, HRDC.

Author interview with MG Wallace C. Arnold, 15 January 1993.

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Less Need for Officers Provides Opportunity
for Significant Savings, pp. 24, 27, 46 and 48.

Ibid.

Ibid., p. 49.



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Minor
A student under age 18 unless the state of legal residence has set legal majority
at a later age.

Mission Set
That year group of cadets that are commissioned and accessed into the Army.

Order of Merit List
A listing that rank orders cadets.

Precommissioning Assessment System

The primary vehicle used for the evaluation of cadets. The PAS consists of
several elements which are used to evaluate a cadet's potential to be an Army
officer.

Professor of Military Science
The academic and military position title of the senior commissioned officer
assigned to duty with a Senior ROTC battalion.

Program of Instruction (POI)

A formal course document which prescribes the training content, hours, and
types of instruction and all resources required to conduct peacetime and mobili-
zation training in an institutional setting (resident training).

Senior ROTC Host Inst
A four-year college, university, or institution or a two-year Military Junior College
that has concluded a contract with the Secretary of the Army to provide military
science instruction.

Simultaneous Membership Program

An officer training program that requires Reserve Component enlisted status in a
Troop Program Unit for eligibility. Enlisted members of RC units who contract in
the ROTC Advanced Course must assume SMP status, or be discharged from
their unit. RFD scholarship winners must participate in the SMP.

Student

A person who is enrolled in and attends a regular course of instruction full-time
at an institution. At Class MC (Military College) and Class C (Civilian College)
schools, the course of instruction must lead to a degree in a recognized aca-
demic field. Persons enrolled in a “cooperative” program are included.

Student Potential Index (SPI)

Evaluation of student's potential to complete the ROTC Advanced Course and
academic degree requirements.

340



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

the purpose of the program was to provide the student with five separate
opportunities to enroll in the ROTC. All too often in the past, students arrived
on campus knowing little or nothing about the ROTC. No cadre member had
contacted then beforehand to inform them about the program. Once the
semester began, the stress of adjusting to college life and the academic demands
of the freshman year left most students with little time or energy to thoroughly
consider what the ROTC had to offer.

This problem had a long history. In a study published in 1962, Robert L.
Lathrop reported that a situation similar to the one just described existed at
the University of Minnesota. He found that only a very small percentage of
Minnesota freshmen had talked to or heard from an Army representative be-
fore coming to the university. The first exposure most incoming students had
to the ROTC was at freshmen orientation. But in the short span of time be-
tween orientation and registration, they could not reach a decision about en-
rolling in the program. Enrollment consequently suffered.”

Under the “Five Chances to Say Yes” plan, the first student-ROTC con-
tact (Chance 1), was made through the university. Descriptions of the ROTC
program and ROTC marketing materials were to be included in application
packages, informational brochures, and other correspondence that the univer-
sity routinely sent to prospective applicants. Getting ROTC information in-
cluded in university publications required that the ROTC cadre establish a
close working relationship with the university administration, especially the
admissions office.

The second contact (Chance 2), a joint university-ROTC venture, was
made when or shortly after a student had been accepted at a particular college.
ROTC information was to be included in mailings to accepted students and,
ideally, the acceptance letter itself would contain an endorsement of the ROTC
by the university president along with a discussion of the financial incentives
available through the ROTC. Chance 3 occurred while the incoming fresh-
man was making final preparations to attend college. An ROTC Basic Course
brochure was to be inserted into university welcome packets and students were
to be contacted by telephone and through direct mail.

The fourth exposure to the ROTC (Chance 4) took place during new stu-
dent orientation. In this phase of the plan, ROTC activities were to be sched-
uled as part of the orientation and special presentations were to be given to
incoming freshmen and to the parents of incoming freshmen. The presenta-
tion to the parents was to emphasize above all the availability of ROTC schol-
arships. An on-campus direct mail campaign and specially staged publicity

175



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

12.
13.

15.
16.
17.

19.

21.

22.
23.
24,

25.
26.
27.
28.

320

November 1989, subject: Marketing Directorate’s Compiled Historical Input, 1984-1988,

pp. 4-5, 8, and 10-11, HRDC. (2) Letter, Vernon Fryburger,Chairman, Department of

Advertising, Northwestern University to MG Prillaman, 1 June 1984, subject: Marketing

Objectives and Strategies. (3) Letter, DAPE-MPA-OA, MG W.G. O’Leksy, Director of

Military Personnel Management to TRADOC DCSROTC, 15 July 1985, subject: ROTC

Production Missions and Objectives, HRDC.

(1) Letter, ATRO, MG Prillaman to Region Cdrs, 3 August 1984, subject: Total Army

Recruiting. (2) DCSROTC TRADOC, The 1984-1985 Market Plan, n.d., HRDC.

(3) Marketing Directorate’s Compiled Historical Input, 1984-88, p. 6, HRDC.

(4) DCSROTC TRADOC, Annual! Historical Summary, 1 October 1983-30 September

1984, p. 15, HRDC.

(1) Letter, N.W. Ayer, Inc. to COL Michael Schmidtman, Chief, AM Division, DCSROTC,

21 May 1984, subject: Strategic Research Implications. (2) U.S. Army ROTC FY 85

Advertising/Publicity Plan, prepared by N.W. Ayer, Inc., January 1985, HRDC.

(3) Marketing Directorate’s Compiled Historical Input, 1984-1988, p. 8. (4) Letter,

ATRO-O, MG Prillaman to Region Cdrs, 15 August 1985, subject: Army ROTC Advertis-

ing Plan FY 86. (5) TRADOC Historical Review, 1 October 1983-31 December 1986,

p. 65. (6) DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Reports, 1 October 1983-31 March

1984, pp. 1-4, 1 October 1984-30 March 1985, p. 11; 1 April-30 September 1985,

pp. 3 and 13, HRDC.

Author interview with LTC V.R. Coffenberry, II, 12 October 1995.

(1) Letter, ATCC-ZA, MG Wagner to all members of Cadet Command, 19 March 1986,

subject: Command Guidance. (2) TRADOC Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1976-

30 September 1977, p. 260. (3) Marketing Directorate’s Compiled Historical Input, 1984-

88, pp. 14-15. (4) Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 16 October 1995.

Cadet Command Reg 145-4, ROTC Marketing, Advertising, and Publicity to Support

Enrollment, 21 August 1987.

(1) {bid. (2) Author interview with LTC V.R. Coffenberry, Il, 12 October 1995.

(1) Young and Rubicam Replaces N.W. Ayer as Army Ad Agency,” Army Times, January

26, 1987, p. 11. (2) “Young & Rubicam Wins Army Pact: Largest Pentagon Ad Contract

Let After Rival Firm Suspended,” The Washington Post, January 28, 1987, p. 9.

U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command 1987 Marketing/Advertising Plan, 15 August

1986, HRDC.

Ibid.

ROTC Study Group Report, |: 2-4.

Letter, ATCC-MR, MG Wagner to Region Cdrs, 15 April 1987, subject: FY 88 Marketing

Plan (Operation Spring Gold 88), HRDC.

(1) Businessman, 20-second commercial, QYAY 1083, Young and Rubicam, 28 March

1988. (2) Resume, Ad Slick, 136N8 Ad 1A, Young and Rubicam, 1 October 1988.
(3) Information Brochures, Cadet Command.

Marketing Directorate’s Compiled Historical Input, 1984-88, pp. 20-21.

Ibid.

(1) Adventure Challenge, 057-N8-AD-4A, January 1988; 2/3 Year Scholarships Revised,

057-N8-AD-1A, March 1988; Green to Gold, 057-N8-AD-6A. (2) Memorandum, ATCC-

MA, COL James T. O'Connell, COS, to PMS, Goldminers, and Region Marketing

Officers, 25 August 1987, subject: Strategic Marketing and Recruiting Tool (SMART) Kit.

ROTC Study Group Report, |: 2-7.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 12 October 1995.

(1) Cadet Command Pam 145-1, Operation Goldstrike: The Goldstrike Management

System, HQ, Cadet Command, Operations Directorate, August 1986. (2) Author

interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 28 November 1994.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Missioning Division, Operations Directorate, History Report, 1984-89.

(1) Ibid. (2) Memo, ATCC-OM, COL Thomas E. Faley, Jr., COS to Region Cars,

1 February 1989, subject: Automated Blitz Report.



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

The Post-World War Il
ROTC Program, 1945-1960

After the conclusion of World War II, the Army moved quickly to rees-
tablish ROTC in its pre-war image. Units were active on 129 campuses by
September 1945. Despite the Army’s dispatch in reestablishing ROTC, the
program languished in the immediate post-war era. It did not approach the
ambitious production goals set for it by the Department of the Army and re-
tained, in stark contrast to the Naval ROTC program, a distinctly reserve ori-
entation. Congress dealt a blow to the Army ROTC in 1946 when it rejected
the Universal Military Training Bill, a measure that Army policy makers had
counted upon to spur enrollment.**

The period between World War II and the Korean Conflict was one of
demobilization, “downsizing,” and shrinking military budgets. The competi-
tion for resources and personnel was fierce. The Army ROTC, with its ties to
the reserves and amorphous command structure, understandably did not fare
well in this environment.

ROTC administrators faced many obstacles in the post-war period—ob-
stacles which, to a greater or lesser extent, had been with the program since it
first appeared on college campuses in the autumn of 1916. One of these was
instructor quality. Army personnel managers were reluctant to assign the ablest
officers to a professional backwater like ROTC duty. The best leaders, it was
felt, were needed for more critical positions (in troop units, high level staff
positions, etc.). ROTC got the leftovers.

In addition, the most fundamental management devices were often ab-
sent or inadequate. Standard operating procedures for administration and train-
ing were practically nonexistent. Screening and selection procedures for ad-
mission into the Advanced Course and for attendance at Advanced Camp were
primitive. Many cadets were sent to summer camp without physical examina-
tions and found at their reception that they were medically unqualified to con-
tinue in ROTC. The evaluation tools used to measure cadet leadership ability
and officer potential were just as crude. One officer, himself a graduate of
ROTC, labeled them “inadequate and unscientific” and likened them to “guess-
work.” A common complaint voiced by ROTC cadre members was that they
were inundated by paperwork. One observer alleged that the administrative
burden at unit level was so great that the cadre had little time left to take care
of what was supposedly their major function—instruction.*®

20



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

Change in Command Functions

In 1991, Major General Arnold decided to adjust the functional rubric
under which the command operated.” This functional adjustment represented
the command’s response to the new and more austere post-Cold War political
and social environment and reflected its organizational maturation. Arnold
had the list of six functions for the Senior ROTC program bequeathed to him
by his predecessor, Major General Wagner, expanded and modified. See Table 1.

Table 1
Command Functions?’

WAGNER ARNOLD
Recruit *Market
*Select Recruit
Motivate Train
Train Motivate
Retain Retain
Commission *Evaluate
*Access
Commission

“Denotes functions that appear on only one list.

Under Arnold, Cadet Command added the market function to emphasize
to everyone involved in the ROTC program that something more than recruiting,
as that term had been traditionally understood in the ROTC community, was
now necessary. In the mid-to late eighties, when money was relatively plenti-
ful and the military was generally looked upon as a desirable and stable career
option, traditional recruiting methods sufficed. But by the early 1990s, per-
ceptions had changed. Seemingly endless rounds of base closures and per-
sonnel cutbacks convinced many that a military career was no longer a secure
proposition. A more comprehensive and broadly based approach to informing
the collegiate community about the program had to be taken. Cadre now had
to be marketing agents as well as recruiters.

But college and college-bound students were not the only targets Cadet
Command Headquarters had in mind when it added market to the functions

157



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

give more support to junior units. Unfortunately, the increased demands were
not matched by any increases in administrative personnel or other support.'®

As a result of the difficulties encountered in the administration of the
JROTC, the Army Chief of Staff, General John A. Wickham, tasked General
Richardson in November 1985 to conduct a detailed review of JROTC opera-
tions and formulate a plan which would streamline program management and
improve instruction. The resultant plan, the JROTC Improvement Plan (JRIP),
outlined a three-year program to achieve these ends.”

In addition to the curriculum changes discussed earlier, the JRIP, in its
original form, involved a substantial revision of the regulations and laws gov-
erning the JROTC and addressed a number of exigencies. The new plan called
for, among other things, higher staffing levels, the funding of summer camps,
an automated statistical analysis system and the acquisition of texts and other
instructional materials. An especially pressing need addressed in the JRIP
was the development of a formal and coordinated JROTC growth policy since,
heretofore, programs had been established with no thought given to the over-
all distribution of JROTC units. The lack of such a policy helped explain why
there was no junior division representation in a number of states. The JRIP
also gave TRADOC greater control over the selection of cadre and provided
for improved cadre training through the establishment of regional instructor
orientation/refresher courses.”°

While TRADOC conducted its internal review of JROTC operations,
General Wickham directed the Army DCSPER, Lieutenant General Elton, to
undertake an independent evaluation of the entire ROTC program and deter-
mine what steps were required to develop a more robust precommissioning
military education system. This study included an assessment of the junior
program. After a year of investigation, the Chief of Staff’s ROTC Study Group,
the body charged with making this evaluation, found that the full potential of
the JROTC was not being exploited. Indeed, the study group viewed the past
performance of the JROTC as a failure. The program had not yielded many
candidates for enlistment, for the Senior ROTC program or for the service
academies. To improve the program’s productivity, the study group advanced
three recommendations.”!

The first recommendation was that TRADOC should clearly delineate
the goals of the JROTC. The junior program had functioned since 1916 with-
out a mission statement. The study group saw this as a fundamental weak-
ness, which caused confusion over the true purpose of the JROTC and led toa

265


ERA OF DOWNSIZING

messages in order to attract high school students into the program. He urged
ROTC instructors to focus on the fact that ROTC was a college course that led
to a commission. It taught leadership (a subject that, in many colleges, no
other department attempted to teach) and life skills and led to an above-aver-
age paying job. Obtaining a commission through ROTC, he went on to ob-
serve, should be especially attractive in an era when, although the number of
jobs was going up, the average starting salary for these jobs (with a few ex-
ceptions) was going down.”

Subsistence Allowance Increase

Cadet Command’s ability to draw college students into the Army ROTC
program was also enhanced by an increase in the cadet subsistence allowance
from $100 to $150 per month. This increase, approved by Congress in August
1994 and going into effect on 31 August 1995, partially restored the attrac-
tiveness of ROTC’s most basic financial incentive. Such financial incentives
had become especially important in recent years as the rising costs of educa-
tion made it increasingly difficult for middle class households to bear the fi-
nancial burdens of matriculation at a college or university.

The previous subsistence allowance of $100 per month was set in 1971.
At that time, it represented a substantial sum ($350 per month in FY 1995
dollars) for a college student. At $6 per hour, a student enrolled in college
today would have to work between 14 and 15 hours per week to earn its equiva-
lent. Over the years, inflation took its toll and by 1994, the $100 per month
allowance did not go far toward defraying living expenses. A student has
only to work between 4 and 5 hours per week (at $6 per hour) for an amount
equal to the stipend.

The three services had approached their respective service secretaries
and the Congress on numerous occasions between 1972 and 1994 requesting a
raise in the ROTC stipend. The effects of inflation and comparisons of the
relatively generous monthly emoluments afforded service academy cadets with
the more modest sums given ROTC cadets were factors advanced to justify
these requests. Only in 1994, with the ROTC program facing officer produc-
tion problems, did these arguments have their desired effect.

While Cadet Command was obviously pleased with the stipend increase,
it realized that more had to be done. Accordingly, it submitted a proposal in
1994 to raise the monthly subsistence allowance to $200 per month beginning
in FY 1996. Even if Cadet Command got this increase, the ROTC stipend
would be significantly below its 1971 level.”

177



GLOSSARY

Battalion Commander
See Professor of Military Science.

Cadet

A term that applies to all enrolled members of the ROTC program, including alien
students enrolled in MS | and MS II. As a grade of rank, this term applies only to
advanced course and scholarship cadets.

College Freshman
A student who is in the first year of college and has earned between one and 30
semester credit hours or between one and 45 quarter credit hours.

College Sophomore

A student who is in the second year of college and has earned more than 30
semester credit hours or 45 quarter credit hours, but less than 60 semester
credit hours or 90 quarter credit hours.

Completion Cadet Program
Cadets who complete all military science requirements but who do not yet meet
graduation requirements are administered under this program.

Distinguished Military Graduate
An ROTC graduate who has maintained a distinguished military student status
throughout MS IV and has graduated from a degree granting institution.

Early Commissioning Program

A program that allows ROTC cadets who have completed all ROTC requirements
except that of obtaining a baccalaureate degree to be commissioned. The
program now pertains only to graduates of Military Junior Colleges.

Enrollment Officer

The Army officer who conducts a recruiting and publicity program both on the
campus of the host institution and within the geographical area assigned by the
appropriate commander.

Military Junior College

A two-year institution that has contracted with the Secretary of the Army to
provide military science instruction. It provides high school and college-level
instruction but does not confer a baccalaureate degree.

MS WIN

Designations for the different levels of Military Science. For example, MS | is the
first year, while MS IV is the fourth year. MS III and MS IV are the designations
for the Advanced Course.

Military Qualification Standards

A system of sequential and progressive training designed to qualify cadets/
officers to perform duties at the second lieutenant level of professional develop-
ment.

339



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

equaled their active duty base pay plus allowances (subsistence, quarters, and
uniform allowances). Furthermore, half of the cost incurred by the school
district would be reimbursed by the military departments. Similar incentives
were not extended to NDCC schools and, as a result, the NDCC lost what
appeal it still possessed. By 1973, only 17 NDCC units remained in opera-
tion®

President Kennedy directed Secretary McNamara to conduct a thorough
study of the ROTC program for viability and cost-effectiveness before imple-
menting the ROTC Vitalization Act. The recommendations of the Depart-
ment of Defense study group charged with this task were codified in a De-
fense Department directive on ROTC published in 1965. The directive con-
tained a number of provisions designed to make the program more popular
among high school students and of greater value to the Army. First, it autho-
rized advanced placement for those junior cadets entering the Senior ROTC
or enlisting in the Armed Forces. Second, it established a two-track academic
curriculum with a college preparatory academic track and a technical track,
which combined military with vocational instruction. Third, the directive
specified that, with the exception of military high schools, the JROTC was to
be completely staffed with retired military personnel. Finally, the Army was
authorized a maximum of 650 units, twice as many as the other services. This
gave the Army the capacity to accept both NDCC schools wishing to convert
to JROTC and schools on the JROTC waiting list (some of which had been on
the list since the 1930s). The Vitalization Act did deliver the intended boost
to the JROTC. Between School Year 1963-1964 and School Year 1973-1974,
the program grew from 294 to 646 units, while enrollment increased from
74,421 to 110,839.”

The Post-Vietnam Era, 1970-1985

The end of the Vietnam War and the elimination of military conscrip-
tion in the early 1970s ushered in a new era for the JROTC, along with a set of
new challenges. At a time when public esteem for the military profession was
low, the Army felt compelled to exploit more fully the junior program’s po-
tential as a recruiting source. Accordingly, junior cadets were authorized to
enlist in the Regular Army in the advanced grades of E-2 through E-4 depend-
ing on their performance and experience in JROTC. Qualified JROTC gradu-
ates were given a special honors category for nomination to the United States
Military Academy.'” JROTC received another stimulus in July 1976 when

261



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

instruction per week for a period of three years. Any JROTC graduate who
completed this course of military instruction was authorized a certificate of
eligibility for a reserve commission to be honored at age 21 (although this
provision was allowed to lapse after World War J as the need for reserve offic-
ers sank). However, once the United States entered the conflict in 1917, there
were few resources to spare for the JROTC. Between 1916 and 1919, the
Army established units at only 30 schools.!

Federal support for and assistance to the JROTC program remained lim-
ited between the world wars. Due to funding constraints and a lack of enthu-
siasm on the part of the Army, the number of JROTC units increased only
gradually during this era. By 1939, 295 JROTC units were in operation—not an
impressive total for a program that had been in existence over two decades.”

Tf federal backing of the JROTC in this era was lukewarm, the backing
of certain secondary schools was downright frigid. Many high schools sched-
uled military classes and training at inconvenient and undesirable times. Some
restricted JROTC instruction to the lunch hour while others accorded it time
in the late afternoon or early evening. Student participation and enthusiasm
both suffered as a result. Shortages of space and resources also plagued many
units. If his facilities were merely inadequate, a Professor of Military Science
and Tactics could count himself fortunate. Many of his counterparts had to
operate virtually without facilities, sometimes without even so much as a desk.

During the interwar period, there arose another high school training pro-
gram that in many respects resembled the JROTC. It became known as the
National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC). The main difference between the
competing programs centered on the amount of support they got from the fed-
eral government. Whereas JROTC units received instructors and uniforms
from the Army, NDCC programs did not. Weapons and a few training aids
were the most NDCC schools could expect in the way of material assistance.
Many NDCC units wanted to join the JROTC program but were unable to do
so due to a lack of funds to support JROTC expansion.

Because the supervision and funding of NDCC units rested almost en-
tirely in the hands of local school authorities, the Army’s ability to exert its
influence over them was tenuous. Consequently, the Army exhibited even
less interest in the NDCC than it did the JROTC. Thus, the NDCC took on a
second class status and never attained the degree of military acceptance
enjoyed by the JROTC. This lack of acceptance was evidenced by the fact
that in 1939, only 34 units were in operation — a mere 27 percent of the
JROTC total.*

258



THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CADET COMMAND

its inception, Cadet command gave it a very different face. In the past, indif-
ference or antagonism had all too often characterized military-university rela-
tions. A siege mentality prevailed at many ROTC units, with the faculty and
university administration being viewed as the enemy.*' Under Wagner, the
command tried to make the collegiate environment if not exactly friendly, at
least benignly neutral by, as Wagner was so fond of putting it, “entering the
heart of the university.” ROTC instructors were enjoined to stop hiding in
their offices, volunteer for assignments on faculty committees and, in general,
become active and contributing members of the university community. Enter-
ing the heart of the university also had, as we have already seen, another mean-
ing. It reflected the command’s resolve to target students in the mainstream
rather than on the periphery of college life.”

Selection was another discrete function identified by Cadet Command
staff officers as a vital part of the commissioning process. For decades,
critics of the Army ROTC had complained of both the dearth and unevenness
of eligibility and retention criteria used to determine who would be allowed to
enroll in the program and, once enrolled, who would be allowed to stay. Army
ROTC’s failure to address this “selection” problem was a major cause of the
traditional unevenness of the ROTC product.

Over the years, various observers had pointed out the need for a single
national ROTC headquarters empowered to enforce uniform selection stan-
dards throughout the country. The creation of Cadet Command made such a
nationwide imposition of selection criteria possible. The new command, how-
ever, went beyond instituting uniform standards in the academic, moral, physi-
cal, and medical areas—the traditional areas of concern. It took the Leader-
ship Assessment Program (LAP), which evaluated the 16 leadership “di-
mensions” that the Cadet Command Training Division had identified as
essential for success as an Army officer, and incorporated its evaluation of
leadership ability into the selection process. To be sure, a weak form of
this assessment mechanism had been selectively used since the late 1970s
by ROTC detachments to weed out marginal performers; but its uniform,
across-the-board application to the officer selection process was a Cadet
Command innovation.

The third function singled out as key to the Cadet Command mission
was motivation. Sustaining a student’s commitment to the Army and to the
ROTC throughout his collegiate career had always been a difficult task. The
command addressed the motivation function in two principal ways. First, it
got better role models for cadets to emulate. Gone were the days when a

89


RECRUITING CADETS

Many ads grew out of the Spring Gold marketing plans. Like other as-
pects of the marketing program, most of them were designed to appeal to a
particular audience, at a particular time, and at a particular level. A television
commercial entitled “Businessman” was one of the more notable of these ads.
Command market analysts used “Businessman” to compliment and reinforce
national and regional advertising efforts.

In the commercial, two businessmen were pictured discussing how to fill
an intermediate-level management position in their company. One of these
men recommended the hiring of a recent ROTC graduate who through his
military training and experience had built up what the two businessmen con-
sidered to be an impressive management background. To supplement “Busi-
nessman,” the command’s Marketing Division contemporaneously released a
magazine ad entitled “Resume.” In this ad, the credentials of two college
graduates were compared: one had gone through ROTC, one had not. The
ROTC resume was much longer and reflected more management experience
than the non-ROTC graduate. Like “Businessman,” “Resume” was intended
to capitalize on the spate of newspaper and magazine articles that came out in
the late 1980s reporting how well junior military officers fared when they left
the service and entered the civilian job market. See Figure 5-2. The inspi-
ration for this theme, for which there was a considerable body of support-
ing empirical evidence, came from Young and Rubicam marketing agents
who had included the idea in their firm’s original 1986 bid for the Army’s
advertising contract."

The Advertising Media Mix

The use of television to advertise ROTC declined after 1988. The com-
mand simply did not have a sufficiently large advertising budget to sustain a
vigorous television effort. Beginning in the fall of 1989, funding constraints
limited the airing of the “Businessman” to a few cable channels.”

Magazine advertising, a much less expensive advertising means, was a
different story. The command could put together an extensive magazine cam-
paign aimed to support recruiting at the national and regional levels with the
financial resources at its disposal. This campaign was conducted in two
phases—a “fall flight” and a “spring flight,” which coincided with the larger
advertising surges that the command used to affect students at critical deci-
sion points in their academic careers. The “Resume” ad, which was found to
be especially effective in reaching high school seniors, was a mainstay of this

131



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

between the NSC Foundation, the private sector and the U.S. Army. A memo-
randum of understanding signed in 1984 formalized the relationship between
the Army and the Foundation. This understanding was amended in 1988 and
again in 1991 so that the evolving requirements of the project could be more
effectively met. The legal basis for the joint venture was Public Law 99-145
(1985), which lent official sanction to the U.S. Government’s relationship with
the National Science Center.”°

In August 1992, the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Gordon Sullivan,
expressed his support for the center’s outreach program and directed the Na-
tional Science Center Task Force to explore ways to expand it within the fis-
cal constraints imposed by the Base Force. General Sullivan approved a pilot
program for program expansion in October 1992 and directed the task force to
brief the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Senator Sam Nunn, Chair-
man of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on the Army’s plans.

The program had two principal facets: the Preview Discovery Center
(PDC) and the educational outreach programs which supported the goals of
the America 2000 program. The Army had operated the PDC since 1989. The
Center hosted exhibits and presentations designed to stimulate interest among
young people in mathematics, applied science and technology.

Of more immediate concern to Cadet Command, however, was that facet
of the joint educational venture involving educational outreach programs.
Those programs managed by the Army were implemented by the National
Science Center Task Force—a committee consisting of two military and 27
civilian members—and included: the National Electronic Educational Distri-
bution System, a computer data base that electronically distributed electron-
ics training information; the National Program for Electronics Training, which
shared information on electronics training with vocational educators through
workshops, seminars, and instructional materials; a science-by-mail program,
interactive satellite teleconferencing programs; summer and special workshops,
and a Mobile Discovery Center van program.”

By virtue of its close ties with the nation’s secondary schools developed
through the JROTC program, Cadet Command was destined to play a leading
role in the NSC project. The command established a formal partnership with
the NSC on 10 August 1992. A more extensive use of the Mobile Discovery
Center was one initiative the command decided to pursue. Housed in an eigh-
teen-wheel tractor-trailer rig, the Mobile Discovery Center was essentially a
miniature version of the Preview Discovery Center at Fort Gordon. Like its
parent, it contained exhibits and hosted demonstrations intended to increase

282



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

the command was doing its job. It also directed the recruiting program, to
include the operation of the Goldminer Teams, and managed the School of
Cadet Command (SOCC), which was created after the command’s inception
to instruct incoming ROTC cadre about the command’s mission philosophy
and operational methods.

The special staff consisted of individuals who held their position on the
basis of their specialized knowledge. The Inspector General inquired into the
state of the command’s efficiency, economy, discipline, and morale. The Com-
mand Surgeon dealt with health-related policies, superintended the command’s
preventive medicine and occupational health programs, and ruled on cadet
medical eligibility questions. The management of all automation systems was
a responsibility of the Information Management Office. The Army Reserve
Component Advisors gave advice on matters pertaining to Army Reserve and
Army National Guard activities. An independent internal audit capability
within the command was provided by the Office of Internal Review and Audit
Compliance. Its auditors evaluated all major activities and projects for regu-
latory compliance, economy, and efficiency. The Command Nurse headed the
nurse recruiting effort, coordinated nurse summer training, and, in general,
oversaw the complex process by which ROTC-trained nurses were brought
into the Army.?7

For the most part, Wagner hand-picked the officers who filled key
positions in the headquarters. He had served with many of them in the
past, was familiar with their capabilities and limitations, and knew that
they shared his philosophy about training in general and about
precommissioning training in particular. Through his personnel selections,
Major General Wagner imprinted his signet on the command and gave it
what he considered to be an appropriate focus.

Because he fitted jobs to the capabilities and peculiarities of the people
at hand, there was a distinct “task-force” orientation to the command in
those early days. This method of doing business usually resulted in the
most suitable people being selected for specific jobs but it also created orga-
nizational anomalies. The case of the School of Cadet Command illustrates
the point. This school was placed under the Operations Division solely be-
cause of the particular qualifications of the chief of that di
Colonel! Michael Hodson. Functionally, of course, it belonged under the
Training Division—the staff component responsible for the training and
professional development of both cadre and cadets. As the command ma-
tured, these anomalies gradually disappeared (the school was made part of

on, Lieutenant

82



306

ENDNOTES

INTRODUCTION

Gene M. Lyons and John W. Masland, Education and Military Leadership: A Study of the
R.O.T.C, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 28.
Ibid., p. 29.

CHAPTER I

Hugh Hastings, Public Papers of George Clinton: First Governor of New York,
1775-1795 and 1801-1804, (Albany: State Legislative Printer, 1899-1914), VIll: 145-46.
(1) Winfried Barthmus, Early College Military Training and the Establishment of R.O.T.C.,
M.A. Thesis, Ohio State University, 1971, p. 5. (2) James E. Pollard, Military Training in
the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities (The Ohio State University, 1962), p. 23.

(1) William A. Ellis, Norwich University, 1891-1911, Her History, Her Graduates, Her Role
of Honor (Montpelier, Vt.: Capital City Press, 1911), 1:484. (2) Lyons and Masland,
Education and Military Leadership, pp. 28-29.

(1) Lyons and Masland, Education and Military Leadership, p. 29. (2) George H. Rankin,
The Administration of Army Reserve Officers’ Corps (ROTC) Units, unpublished M.A.
Thesis, Syracuse University, 1949, p.8.

(1) Pollard, Military Training in the Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, p. 23. (2)
Adrienne Koch and William Peden, eds. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas
Jefferson (New York: Random House, 1944), pp. 105-106. (3) Andres A. Lipscomb, The
Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D.C.: The Jefferson Memorial Association of
the United States), XIll: 261. (4) U.S. War Department, Annual Report for Fiscal Year
ending 30 June 1897 (Washington D.C. Government Printing Office, 1897), p. 256. (5)
Richard A. Shrake, A Brief History of Army Training at Indiana University, Indiana
University Archives, n.d.

American State Papers, Military Affairs (Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832-
1861), IV: 285 and 683; V: 307 and 347; VI: 988; and Vil: 1-3 and 89.

(1) William B. Parker, The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill (New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1924), pp. 259-71. (2) The United States Statutes at Large,
Vol. XII, 1859-1863, pp. 503-505. (3) Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2d Session,
1862, XXIII, Part 4, p. 256.

(1) Survey of Land-Grant Colleges and Universities, Bulletin No. 9 (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office,1930), p. 300. (2) Barthmus, Early College Military
Training, p. 9.

Rankin, The Administration of Army ROTC Units, pp. 10-11.

(1) Proceedings of a Board of Officers Convened..for the Purpose of Making
the Annual Inspection of the Military Department of Educational Institutions at
which Officers of the Army are Detailed as Professors of Military Science and



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

SCHOLARSHIP ALLOCATION BEFORE TIERING

The Starting

Block

: Private| Out-State| In-state} CAT II} TOTAL
Avg Cost by Tier $10,903 $7,348 3,387) $2,000
Percent Budget 68% 15% 16% 1% 100%
Dollar Amount $44.4M $9.5M 10.7M 0.6M| $65.2M
Percent
Scholarships 46% 15% 36% 3% 100%
Number
Scholarships 4068 1291 3267 309 8835

Figure 7-4. Scholarship Allocation Before Tiering

SCHOLARSHIP ALLOCATION AFTER TIERING

Assumes $66M
(FY 95$) + Inflation

Tier Winners Can Attend School of Choice

Tier | Tier I] Tier I] Tier IV} TOTAL
Marketing Amount $12,000 $8,000] $5,000} $2,000
Avg Cost by Tier $12,000 $7,800] $3,700] $2,000
Percent Budget 36% 30% 25% 9%
Dollar Amount $24M $19.5M| $16.5M| $6.1M $66M
Percent
Scholarships 17% 21% 37% 25% 100%
Number
Scholarships 2000 2500 4460 3040] 12,000

Figure 7-5. Scholarship Allocation Plan After Tiering

210



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

itself in 1916. A General Staff study, dated November 1915, expressed the
fear that the proposed ROTC course would not attract students in sufficient
numbers to satisfy the Army’s need for reserve officers. To head off the an-
ticipated production shortfall, the authors of the study suggested that military
scholarships be provided by the federal government. Similar recommenda-
tions had previously been made by the Association of Land-Grant Schools
and Colleges and by the Association of Military Colleges and Schools. Noth-
ing came from these proposals.!

In the fiscally constrictive environment of the inter-war years, the case
for ROTC scholarships could make no headway. Indeed, the Army had a dif-
ficult time just maintaining the budgetary status quo. In the immediate after-
math of World War II, however, an opportunity arose to introduce scholar-
ships — an opportunity missed by the Army and the fledgling Air Force, but
eagerly grasped by the Navy.

Post-World War Il

The Naval ROTC scholarship program, fashioned in accordance with the
so-called Holloway Plan, received congressional approval on 20 July 1946.
The Holloway scholarship covered the costs of tuition, books, and laboratory
fees and included a small subsistence allowance. For a young person who
came from a family of limited financial means, it was a very attractive assis-
tance package.

According to Lyons and Masland, the Navy’s success in getting this leg-
islation through Congress was bound up with prevailing post-war political
sentiment which favored federal educational subsidies of various types. The
belief was that in order for the nation to retain its edge in such areas as sci-
ence, technology, and military affairs—areas vital to national security—the
federal government had to take the lead and provide incentives for college
students to go into these fields. Otherwise, they would tend to choose more
lucrative professions and the country might find itself in serious trouble in the
not too distant future.

The Navy was able to steal a march on the Army in part because it had
definite plans for the Naval ROTC, it implemented these plans early, and it
committed sufficient resources to execute them. The Navy, in fact, approached
America’s colleges and universities with its program early in 1945, even be-
fore the war ended. It based its planning on the assumptions that a separate
and well-defined naval service would continue to exist after the war (which

184



SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Department of the Army. Office of the Chief of Staff. A Review of Education and
Training for Officers (RETO). 5 Volumes, Washington, D.C.: July 1978.

Department of the Army. Office of the Comptroller of the Army. A Study of
Organization and Management of the Army ROTC/NDCC Program.
Washington, D.C.: March 1965.

HQ TRADOC, DCSROTC. Feasibility Study: ROTC as a Major Subordinate
Command of HQ TRADOC.

HQ USACC. Reports of the Annual Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Conference. Fort Monroe, Va.: 1985-1995.

HQ USCONARC. Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Basic and Advanced
Camps. Fort Monroe, Va.: October 1969.

HQ USCONARC. Reports of the Annual USCONARC ROTC/NDCC Conference.
Fort Monroe, Va.: 1963-1972.

USACGSC. Report of the 1986 Leadership Conference. Fort Leavenworth,
Ks.: February 1986.

War Department. General Staff Corps, War College Division. Study on
Educational Institutions Giving Military Training as a Source of Officers
for a National Army. Prepared as supplement to “The Statement of a
Proper Military Policy for the United States.” WCD 9053-121.
Washington, D.C., November 1915.

War Department. General Staff Corps, War College Division. The Standardiza-
tion of Methods of Military Instruction at Schools and Colleges in the
United States. Prepared as a supplement to “The Statement of a Proper
Military Policy for the United States." WCD 9089-8, Washington, D.C.,
November 1915.

U.S. GOVERNMENT MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS

Prillaman, BG John P. Manning the Force—ROTC Strategy for the 80s: The
Mission and the Product. DCSROTC, HQ TRADOC. 16 August 1983.

Girard, Marc. History of Cadet Command Cannons. HQ USAROTCCC, n.d.

Neale, James. ROTC: Everybody’s Business. HQ Fourth ROTC Region,
October 1983.

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS

Chapman, Anne with MG Robert E. Wagner, Cdr, USAROTCCC, 19 August 1988.
Coumbe, Arthur T. with MG(Ret) Daniel W. French, DCSROTC TRADOC, 21

and 23 September 1995.
aoe . with MG Wallace C. Arnold, Cdr, USAROTCCC,

oo with Mrs. Louise Banton, High School Directorate,
USACC, 4 May 1993.

oo with COL Douglas S. Becker, Assistant Chief of Staff,
ARNG, USACC, 4 October 1995.

_. with Dr. Larry Brown, Chief, Evaluation and Assessment
Division, Training Directorate, USACC, 2, 5 and 11 October 1995.

ee . with Mr. Sal Cannella, Chief, Management Division,
Resource Management Directorate, USACC, 27 September and 2
October 1995.

343



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

from its inception in 1916 until well into the 1980s.

This reputation, it must be admitted, was not entirely undeserved.
Considered as a group, the performance of ROTC graduates as junior
officers had been uneven over the years. In the two decades before World
War II, tight federal budgets and an inhospitable collegiate environment—
created in part by the pacifist sentiment that became prevalent in the
American collegiate community after World War I—limited the effec-
tiveness of the program. During this era, enthusiasm for military service
was low, training resources were scarce, and the number of officers who
could be assigned to ROTC instructor duty were few, at least relative to
enrollment. Moreover, only a small number of graduates were permitted
to serve on extended active duty. Most were shunted into the Organized
Reserve Corps (ORC). Once in the ORC, only a handful were given the
opportunity to attend any additional training. As a result, the profes-
sional skills and knowledge they did acquire soon eroded and within
a short time these officers became of marginal value to the Army.

Much has been made of the contribution of ROTC graduates to vic-
tory in World War II. It is true that they, along with other officers that
formed the ORC, constituted a leadership nucleus around which General
George Marshall mobilized the U.S. Army. However, the contribution
that these individuals made to the war effort was due more to their innate
abilities and on-the-job experience than to any training they received in
the ROTC. In fact, the program was suspended during the war in part
because, in the opinion of the Army Ground Forces Staff, college edu-
cated OCS graduates made more capable lieutenants than recent prod-
ucts of ROTC.!

After World War IL, the need for a better educated officer corps, a
desire to cut costs, and the fear of service academy elitism combined to
propel the ROTC program to a new prominence. The ROTC was now
expected to provide the bulk of officers for both the active and reserve
forces. Despite its new importance, the program experienced difficul-
ties producing second lieutenants in the quantity and of the quality de-
sired by Army leaders. Even some of the ROTC’s most ardent propo-
nents admitted these shortfalls. Lack of career motivation and an inad-
equate understanding of the roles, methods, and ethos of the military
service and the military profession were frequently voiced complaints
about ROTC graduates. Their lack of the most fundamental military skills



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Cadet Command Functions

At the time of Cadet Command’s establishment, Army ROTC was avail-
able to approximately 85 percent of the nation’s collegiate population through
its presence on over 400 college and university campuses across the United
States. Three different types of legal arrangements governed the relationship
between the Army and ROTC-affiliated institutions. A host institution was a
four-year college having a contractual agreement with the Secretary of the
Army to provide military science instruction through an ROTC battalion sta-
tioned on campus. The host was obligated to furnish facilities and adminis-
trative support. Extension centers existed at colleges where the officer pro-
duction potential was high but which, for one reason or another, could not or
did not want to enter into a formal contract with the Army. A center func-
tioned as a satellite of a host ROTC battalion. It relied upon its host to
provide it with a staff (six to 12 cadre members normally comprised the staff
of a host; two to four cadre members the staff of an extension center) and was
under the command of the PMS at the host. Cross-enrolled schools agreed to
allow their students to register for ROTC courses offered at hosts or extension
centers, but entered into no agreement with the Army and undertook no obli-
gations in relation to the ROTC program. Normally, no ROTC instructors or
staff members operated on the campuses of cross-enrolled institutions.

According to the doctrinal literature produced by its headquarters, Cadet
Command was created to meet three basic needs: first, producing career of-
ficers for the Regular Army; second, producing short-service lieutenants for
the active forces; and third, providing a pool of trained officers to lead reserve
units.>* From 1986 through 1990, it appears that Cadet Command was gener-
ally successful in meeting the officer production quotas set by the Army Staff.
In fact, by 1990, there was a glut of second lieutenants in the Individual Ready
Reserve, a pool of reserve officers which was managed and administered by
the Army Reserve Personnel Center in St. Louis, Missouri. However, the many
revisions to the quota during this period not only complicated Cadet
Command’s mission, but made a precise assessment of just how well the com-
mand did in meeting production requirements very difficult if not impossible.”

In order to ensure that no part of a cadet’s precommissioning training
experience was neglected, Cadet Command enlarged the word commission to
denote a multiplicity of functions and tasks. Six major developmental func-
tions were identified: recruit; select; motivate; train; retain; and commission.*°
Although the recruiting function had been with the ROTC program from

88



U.S. Army Signal Center, 281-283
U.S. Army Soldier Support
Center, 116, 117
U.S. Army Training Support
Center, 95
U.S. Military Academy, 8, 9, 22, 25,
30, 34, 43, 59, 60, 63-67
Universal Military Training Bill,
20, 185
Universal Training and Service Act of
1951, 187
University of Arizona, 168
University of California at Berkeley,
168
University of California at Los
Angeles, 168
University of Chicago, 116
University of Cincinnati, 218
University of Connecticut, 168
University of Georgia, 7, 190
University of Illinois, 77
University of Kansas, 124
University of Miami, 208
University of Nebraska, 12
University of Nevada-Reno, 114
University of New Hampshire, 168
University of New Mexico, 202
University of Northern lowa, 168
University of Notre Dame, 96
University of Puerto Rico, 112
University of Santa Clara, 241
University of Tennessee, 8
University of Virginia, 8
University of Washington, 96

Vv
Vanderbilt University, 173
Virginia Military Institute (VMI), 8, 12
voluntary release program, 161, 162
Vuono, Gen. Carl E., 49, 113, 120

Ww

Wagner, Maj. Gen. Robert E., 53-68
Walters, Brig. Gen. Floyd J. Jr., 242
War Department, 11, 12, 16, 17

Adjutant General Officer’s,

14-16

G-1, 16

G-3, 16, 18
Warner, Senator John, 54
Washington and Lee University, 54

INDEX

Washington, D.C., 14, 16, 53

Washington University, 247-248, 252

West Point (See U.S. Military
Academy)

West Virginia State College, 170

Westminster College, 96

Westmoreland, Gen. William C.,
34, 38

White, Gen. Issac D., 25

White Mountains High School, 279

Wickham, Gen. John A., 52, 54, 69,

265-267

Williamsburg, Virginia, 55, 162

women in ROTC, 41

Wood, Gen. Leonard, 13

Woods, Col. Alexander, 127

World War I, 13, 14

World War Il, 15, 18-20

Y
Yale University, 221
Young and Rubicam, 128-131

Zz
Zone of the Interior Army, 28, 30

357



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Scholarship Tiering

In 1994, Cadet Command formulated a plan for reallocating its scholar-
ship budget. This plan promised both to enhance the Command’s attractive-
ness to certain segments of America’s undergraduate population and to alter
the institutional and demographic composition of the Army ROTC. Because
of the tremendous impact that this program (which the Command designated
Scholarship Tiering) is likely to have on the future evolution of ROTC, it will
be treated in a separate chapter.

Command Name Change

On 19 November 1993, a request was submitted to change the name of
the command from U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command to U.S. Army Cadet
Command. Major General Lyle initiated the request because he wanted the
command’s name to more accurately reflect its mandate, which included, in
addition to directing the ROTC program, the responsibility for monitoring all
U.S. Army precommissioning training and acting as the TRADOC
Commander’s implementing agent for precommissioning Military Qualifica-
tion Standards for all commissioning sources.”

As we have seen, the command’s official name had been a source of
contention before. Surprisingly, Cadet Command’s 1993 request excited little
opposition within TRADOC Headquarters or at the Department of the Army.
The command received written approval for the new title on 5 January 1994,
just 47 days after the submission of the request. The reasons for the quick
acceptance years after the original controversy were not entirely clear but it
appeared that some parties who would have objected had they known that
such a proposal was being floated were “caught sleeping.”

The Commanding General’s request for a new name reflected the close
personal and philosophical relationship he had with Cadet Command’s first
chief, Major General Wagner. The former was a protege of the latter. The two
had served together in Europe from 1977 to 1981, when Wagner commanded
the 2d Armored Cavalry Regiment and Lyle was one of his squadron com-
manders, and had developed very similar training philosophies. When Wagner
returned to the United States to command first the Fourth Region and then
Cadet Command, Lyle continued to follow his mentor’s career. His personal
friendship with Wagner was one reason for his continued interest but an even
more powerful one was his daughter’s enrollment in the ROTC program at
Texas A&M University in 1986. Thus, the reforms that Wagner introduced in

178



CADET TRAINING

lieutenant, regardless of specialty, was supposed to master before attending
an Officer Basic Course. When the MQS system was introduced, there were
73 such tasks organized under 11 subject headings, which were: drill and
ceremonies; written and oral communications; inspections; operations and
tactics; land navigation; first aid; physical fitness; weapons; nuclear,
chemical, and biological defense training; army training, and radio and
wire communications.*

Professional knowledge subjects were intended to introduce the aspiring
officer to the customs and traditions of the military profession and to provide
him with a general understanding of the organization, administration, and doc-
trine of the U.S. Army. This component of MQS I was also divided into 11
subject areas—Airland Battle Doctrine; Combat Service Support; intelligence;
command and control; leadership; low intensity conflict; military history;
mobility and survivability; soldier support systems; the Total Army Concept;
and training.”

The professional military education requirements were introduced to
supplement the cadet’s regular academic workload with subjects that would
provide the “broader insights” necessary for a cadet’s subsequent develop-
ment as an officer. Unlike the other two components of the MQS I, profes-
sional military education subjects were not intended to prepare cadets to func-
tion as second lieutenants; rather, their purpose was to give cadets an educa-
tional and theoretical base from which they could grow. Cadets were required
to complete a course in each of three categories—written communication skills,
human behavior, and military history. They were also encouraged to enroll in
courses relating to management and national security studies. If possible,
regular academic departments were to teach professional military education
requirements. Uniformed instructors could teach them if the university did
not offer the appropriate courses. It was left to the discretion of the local
PMS to determine which college courses satisfied the various requirements.°

The MQS I contained elements of all three ROTC programs of instruc-
tion then in use—the General Military Science (GMS), the Modified GMS,
and the Military Science Core (Option C) curricula. It retained the practice of
academic substitution, a practice which Lyons and Masland had championed
so passionately in the late fifties and early sixties. The new program of in-
struction was meant to be flexible enough to be adapted to the academic envi-
ronments of most institutions of higher learning and still meet the military
standards set by the Department of the Army. Under MQS I, the PMS
could excuse the cadet from completing certain ROTC academic requirements

93


U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

at summer camp were just as important as SAT scores in predicting officer
potential. The slight drop in the SAT average for four-year scholarship
winners that occurred with the School Year 1995-1996 scholarship applica-
tion cycle was not a source of worry to him. In fact, he saw it as an almost
encouraging development. The ideal candidate for an ROTC commission, in
his opinion, was the above average student at a state supported school. Such
a student was more likely than the graduate of a prestigious college to make
the Army a career and was more likely to succeed as an officer.

Major General Lyle believed that Cadet Command would reap three im-
portant benefits from scholarship tiering. First, he was convinced that it would
produce more officers for the Army than the old system. Second, he was
certain that these officers would be, as a group, more committed to a military
career but, at the same time, every bit as competent as their forebears in ear-
lier year groups. And finally, the new award distribution system, he believed,
would permit the Army to manage the scholarship budget—something that it
had heretofore not been able to do.

In many respects, the tiering initiative represented a return to the phi-
losophies and beliefs expressed by Defense Department and Army officials
during the congressional hearing on the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964. These
spokesmen had shown a clear preference for a program which had a tuition
ceiling attached to it—a feature which would have freed it from its depen-
dence on those university administrators at expensive schools who set tuition
levels. Unfortunately for the Army and for the taxpayer, three decades would
pass before such a system would be adopted.

214



APPENDIX B

ADVANCED
SCHOOL COURSE OFFICER
YEAR TOTAL TOTAL PRODUCTION
1953-54 126,126 32,803 15,173
1954-55 122,558 30,538 13,691
1955-56 136,378 29,394 12,588
1956-57 143,928 29,731 13,211
1957-58 144,829 29,094 12,989
1958-59 147,964 28,148 11,830
1959-60 156,062 27,650 12,121
1960-61 162,994 26,494 11,581
1961-62 180,682 27,045 11,187
1962-63 169,641 27,432 11,443
1963-64 158,515 27,515 11,921
1964-65 157,607 25,630 10,850
1965-66 157,723 23,524 10,014
1966-67 177,422 32,652 10,727
1967-68 165,430 37,517 14,176
1968-69 150-982 37,110 16,306
1969-70 109,705 34,429 16,581
1970-71 73,963 25,410 13,970
1971-72 50,234 17,877 10,573
1972-73 41,294(212) 13,756 7,251
1973-74 33,220(3098) 10,855 5,367
1974-75 39,346(6354) 10,734 4,606
1975-76 48,400(9324) 12,197 4,567(150)
1976-77 54,671(11,838) 13,698 5,890(495)
1977-78 59,677(14,296) 14,487 5,835(712)
1978-79 61,185(15,365) 14,975 6,340(817)
1979-80 63,667(15,931) 16,019 6,343(974)
1980-81 69,663(16,314) 16,271 6,174(969)
1981-82 72,463(16,943) 17,686 7,079(1003)
1982-83 73,819(17,421) 19,676 8,345(1184)
1983-84 72,759(17,387) 19,812 8,284(1304)
1984-85 65,718(15,309) 19,053, 8,319(1322)
1985-86 61,487(14,370) 18,047 7,809(1384)
1986-87 63,160(14,180) 18,790 7,967(1401)
1987-88 61,566(13,540) 19,817 8,176(1389)
1988-89 55,592(11,930) 20,784 8,217(1395)
1989-90 51,846(11,175) 18,161 7,775(1317)
1990-91 40,051(8770) 13,238 3,912(667)
1991-92 33,204(6976) 10,542 4,683(790)
1992-93 30,964(6748) 9,931 4,284(665)
1993-94 30,494(6884) 10,496 3,924(612)
1994-95 34,470(8614) 11,340 3,963(659)

“ROTC cadets commissioned through OCS

() Female cadets in parenthesis

NOTE: Enrollment totals do not include completion cadets or participating cadets.

301



We
~ a8

CADET
TRAININ

Cadet Command gav
Reserve Officers’ Traini



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

scholarships in effect was scheduled to reach its statutory limit of 5,500. Later,
the date for CONARC’s assumption of management responsibility was moved
up to 1 July 1968.

Refining the Scholarship System

At CONARC Headquarters at Fort Monroe, Virginia, it was determined
that scholarship management functions properly belonged to both the ROTC/
NDCC Directorate within the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Indi-
vidual Training (DCSIT) and the Adjutant General’s Office. Accordingly, rep-
resentatives from both staff entities attended the Department of the Army Schol-
arship Selection Board held in March 1968. A CONARC officer even served
as the board’s recorder. The experience with the board opened the eyes of
CONARC staff officers to flaws in scholarship program management. The
“inadequacy of the method of recording field interview board results” was
identified as a particular problem. A revision of the field interview worksheet
was subsequently accomplished and distributed to the field in October 1968,
although the available evidence suggests that this revision did little to rectify
the system’s inadequacies.'*

A problem of greater magnitude came to light when the first scholarship
cadets started reporting to Advanced Camp. During these early years, the
scholarship selection process was heavily weighed in favor of academic and
intellectual prowess. Leadership and physical aptitude got little consideration.
Indeed, a physical fitness test was not even part of the application procedure.
As a result, according to Brigadier General Archelaus L. Hamblem, Jr., Com-
mander of the Fifth United States Army Advanced Camp at Fort Riley in 1971,
there were too many “fat and flabby people” among the scholarship students
who showed up at camp. Many of them, he complained, were so out of shape
that they could not do a single pull-up. Not only did they fail to meet stan-
dards, but they held back other cadets. “It seems to me,” he told the as-
sembled crowd at the CONARC camp commanders conference, “that it is
high time that we require our scholarship candidates to pass a minimum
set of physical tests."

Brigadier General Milton E. Key, chief of CONARC’s ROTC Director-
ate, echoed Hamblem. He observed to attendees at the Tenth Annual CONARC
ROTC Conference in 1972:

In his eagerness to obtain his fair share of cadets from this moun-
tain of pedantic humanity (those students with the very highest

192



CHAPTER VII

THE ARMY
SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The idea of awarding
federally funded scholarships to encourage
enrollment in the ROTC predated the
formal establishment of the
program itself in 1916.

The Army scholarship program began with the passage of the ROTC
Vitalization Act of 1964. Since the act’s passage, scholarships have become a
vital component of the Army ROTC program. At the beginning of 1995, over
70 percent of ROTC cadets were receiving some form of scholarship assis-
tance. Without scholarships, Cadet Command could not have approached even
the modest production goals that the Army set for it after 1990.

But the importance of scholarships and the scholarship management sys-
tem goes beyond the matter of meeting production goals. It also has to do
with the question of what type of officer corps the U.S. Army will have in the
future. This has become especially true in the 1990s when between 40 and 50
percent of the annual intake of new lieutenants into the Army has been com-
posed of ROTC scholarship recipients. It is a program of far greater signifi-
cance than some senior Army leaders realize. Before Cadet Command’s role
in the revamping of the scholarship management system can be fully appreci-
ated, it is necessary to know something about the creation and subsequent
development of the ROTC scholarship program.

Pre-World War Il

The idea of awarding federally funded scholarships to encourage
enrollment in the ROTC predated the formal establishment of the program

183



CADET TRAINING

Ranger Challenge

109



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Richardson and Wagner made an odd pair. It is true that the two had
served together in Vietnam and shared, in all essentials, a common training
philosophy; but it is difficult to imagine two men whose personalities were so
dissimilar. The staid Richardson, the son of missionary parents and the very
epitome of social correctness, was never heard to utter a profane word; Wagner,
on the other hand, often appeared as the archetypical cavalryman, laced his
conversations with earthy expressions and did not feel himself bound by so-
cial convention. While Richardson created the command climate that made
reform possible, it was Wagner who provided the blueprint for reform. Under
his command, the Fourth Region acted as a proving ground for new training
and leadership evaluation techniques—many of which were pioneered by
Wagner himself.

Brigadier General Wagner brought with him to his new command a de-
termination to rid the ROTC of what he considered to be one of its main flaws—
its reserve orientation. ROTC had become the primary source of career offic-
ers in the fifties, but had retained its reserve flavor and many of its original
reserve attributes—intense localism, operational diversity, informality, an
emphasis on individual skills, etc. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, he
attempted to do this by standardizing and centralizing ROTC operations, re-
placing individual skills with leadership development as the core of the pro-
gram, and making ROTC training more rigorous and demanding in an attempt
to replicate the atmosphere of a Regular Army unit.

He made several adjustments to the ROTC vocabulary to emphasize the
new direction that the Fourth Region was taking. For example, the ROTC
detachment received the more martial designation of cadet battalion. Area
commanders became brigade commanders. Critics complained that Wagner
was trying to take the “R” out of ROTC. He retorted that he wanted only to
bring the program on line with what had been its principal purpose for the
last three and a half decades—producing the bulk of junior officers for the
Active Army.”¢

The Performance Gap

When Wagner arrived at Fourth Region Headquarters, the staff was
preparing for the 1983 regional summer camp. For his edification, the staff
presented a series of briefings on training, the cadet leadership evaluation
process, the methods for selecting cadre, and various other aspects of camp
operations. As the planning process progressed, Brigadier General Wagner

56



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

Operation Horizon

As demonstrated in previous periods of demobilization, eliminating un-
economical units is more difficult than slashing production. Cadet Command
encapsulated its restructuring ideas (such as they were at this early stage)in a
plan that it named Operation Horizon. At the time of its implementation,
Horizon represented the largest institutional drawdown in the history of the
ROTC program. The origins of this operation can be traced back to a series of
briefings held at the Pentagon in November 1989, which had as their focus the
Effective Management Program. At these briefings, Major General Wagner
and members of his staff got wind of a study then in progress that was de-
signed to determine the best and least disruptive way of reducing Army end
strength (Operation Quicksilver) from approximately 750,000 to 580,000.
TRADOC, it was evident, would have to take its share of cuts. Cadet Com-
mand would not be in a particularly good position to resist these reductions
because it was of recent creation and because it was the command with the
greatest number of officers assigned to it and hence the biggest target. “

By the beginning of December 1989, the command, through contacts at
the Pentagon, had learned that the Quicksilver plan projected a 36 percent
reduction in its overall mission over the next fiscal year (from 7,800 to 5,000)
and a 33 percent reduction in ROTC active duty accessions (from 4,300 to
2,900) over the next two fiscal years—FY 1990 and FY 1991. Wagner be-
lieved such drastic cuts portended disaster for Cadet Command because of the
disruptive effects they would have on the officer accessions process and be-
cause of the morale problems it would create among cadets. In a 30 Novem-
ber 1989 letter to the TRADOC Commander he warned:

The Army is literally losing a national treasure. We are executing
precipitous changes driven by the MPA (Military Personnel,
Army) account and aimed at a six hundred thousand man Army
which we will not reach for several years. The cut is too rapid
and could damage our young officer corps...We must correct the
accessions problem by boosting the ROTC active duty accessions
by at least 550, achieving a 3,450 active duty level. This is a
time for incremental reductions...or we run the risk of devastating
the officer accession system, the leadership development
contributions of Cadet Command, cadet morale and the Army
image on the university campus.

233



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

regions. With the assistance of the Recruiting Command, TRADOC and N.W.
Ayer, the Army’s advertising agency, the region staff developed a nationwide
marketing and advertising scheme to support the proposed regional variants
of Operation Goldstrike. The scheme promoted the use of a “soldier-leader”
theme to complement the ads already employed by the Recruiting Command.
It had the advantage of obviating the need for expensive advertising devoted
exclusively to attracting officers.

The Fourth Region’s first real test of the Goldstrike methodology took
place in the Los Angeles Basin. The test was named Operation Goldminer
and was based on a market analysis by the region staff. The analysis revealed
that California contained 51 percent of the region’s potential market and the
Los Angeles Basin 45 percent of California’s market. In this latter market,
over 30,000 students entered institutions of higher learning each year. A pro-
totype ROTC Enrollment (Goldminer) Team, consisting of three officers and
one non-commissioned officer, canvassed the high school and college cam-
puses looking for prospects. A special media plan complemented TRADOC’s
national advertising scheme and provided basic program and scholarship in-
formation. The campaign used regional print media and campus newspaper
advertisement. It was supplemented by 630 radio spots during college regis-
tration periods. This allowed the ROTC detachment personnel to concentrate
their enrollment efforts on their own campuses. The success of Operation
Goldminer caused the Fourth Region to establish four additional Goldminer
teams, one each in Seattle, Minneapolis, Denver, and San Francisco. Major
General Prillaman was so impressed with the program that he established ten
additional Goldminer teams in other ROTC regions.*

To raise ROTC product quality, Wagner purposed to strictly enforce en-
rollment standards. He was especially eager to eliminate eligibility waivers
for students with a criminal past. Prior to his arrival in Fourth Region, grant-
ing waivers for felonies, moral turpitude offenses, and other crimes had been
common practice. It was a practice that had been denounced in the late 1970s
by Major General Charles C. Rogers, the DCSROTC during General William
E. DePuy’s tenure as TRADOC Commander. Rogers told region commanders
to stop commissioning students with criminal records but recruiting pressures
rendered his efforts in this area ineffectual. Wagner, because of his aggres-
sive follow-up and the support he received from the TRADOC Commander,
got better results.”

Intellectual standards were also vigorously enforced. All cadets, it
was decided, would have to pass the Officer Selection Battery, a standardized

62



THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

program would drive ROTC off the campuses of many prestigious private
institutions. To counter this objection, he recalled the case of the Korean GI
Bill. It was charged, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the
Korean GI Bill —

...would cause students to seek institutions with lower tuition
charges. A survey by the U.S. Office of Education showed that
this was not the case: that Korean GI Bill students tended to
distribute themselves in the same general ratios as non-veteran
students. It is absurd to think that a young man who desires to go
to a particular college will go to one which charges a lower fee
simply because he has a scholarship to help him to this end.'*

In the congressional hearings leading up to the passage of the Vitaliza-
tion Act, neither the Army nor the Air Force evidenced a desire for the four-
year, full-tuition scholarship of the type that the Congress eventually autho-
rized. The Army, in fact, was decidedly cool toward the idea. In his testi-
mony before Congress, Mr. Ailes pointed out that the Army did not need
Holloway-type benefits because its scholarship program would have a “dif-
ferent purpose” than the Navy’s. The Navy, he asserted, goes out and gets
“very talented, very able men in scientific fields, mathematicians and people
like that.” The Army, on the other hand, “could better be served by not going
for these men that have this great, particular isolated talent” but instead tar-
geting “different kinds of people.” The “different kinds of people” he never
specified. But it does seem clear that neither he nor the Army believed that a
750 math score on the SAT was by itself a particularly good indicator of a
young person’s aptitude or suitability for the officer profession. A two-year
scholarship with an $800 limitation would suffice to attract the type of indi-
vidual that the Army wanted as an officer.'°

CONARC and TRADOC Initiatives

The passage of the ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964 coincided with a shift
in the administrative and operational control of the program from the Depart-
ment of the Army to the Continental Army Command (CONARC). Origi-
nally, the Department had directed that CONARC would assume the responsi-
bility for the management of the scholarship program, except for certain policy
and budgetary functions, in School Year 1970-1971, when the number of ROTC

191



296

MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT E. WAGNER
Commanding General
U.S. Army ROTC Cadet Command
Fort Monroe, Virginia



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

20.

21.

22.

23.

24

25.

37.
38.

39.

322

Author interview with LTC Victor R. Coffenberry Il, 2 January 1996.

Author interview with LTC Victor R. Coffenberry Il, 12 December 1995.

DCSROTC TRADOC, Semiannual Historical Reports, April - September 1981, Sections
18 and 20; October 1981 - March 1982, Sections 16-18; October 1982 - March 1983,
Sections 20 and 30, HRDC.

Impact Paper, undated, subject: Congressional Action Eliminating the Assignment of
Full-Time Army National Guardsmen and Army Reservists to ROTC Units, HRDC.

(1) Author interview with COL J. G. Cretella, 15 March 1993. (2) Information Paper,
DAPE-MPO-D, LTC Kitchen, 30 October 1990, subject: Active Guard Reserve (AGR)
Assistant Professors of Military Science (APMS) in Cadet Command, HRDC.

(1) Memorandum for Record, ATCC-ZR, COL W. Ellis, Reserve Forces Advsor, 31
October 1991, subject: Removal of AGR Support from ROTC. (2) Memorandum for
Record, DAPE-MPO-D, MAJ Simpson, 1 November 1990, subject: Language in
Authorization Bill. (3) Issue Paper, ATCC-ZA, MG Arnold, 2 November 1990, subject:
Congressional Action Precludes the Assignment of RC AGRs to USAROTCCC Effective
30 September 1991, HRDC.

Author interview with COL H. Bowe, ATCC-NG, Reserve Forces Advisor,
15 April 1993.

(1) Information Sheet, ATOB-RC, LTC Crowson, ARNG Adviser, 2 October 1992,
subject; AGR APMS Placement Project. (2) Impact Paper, n.d., subject: Congressional
Action Eliminating the Assignment of Full Time National Guardsmen and Army
Reservists to ROTC Units, HRDC.

Ibid.

(1) Author interview with COL W. Napper, Reserve Forces Advisor, 15 April 1993.
(2) Issue Paper, ATCC-ZA, MG Arnold, 2 November 1990, subject: Congressional
Action Precludes the Assignment of RC AGRs to USAROTCCC Effective 30 September
1991. (3) Information Paper, DAPE-MPO-D, LTC Kitchen, 30 October 1990, subject:
Active Guard Reserve (AGR) Assistant Professors of Military Science (APMS) in Cadet
Command.

(1) Memorandum, ATCC-ZR, COL William Napper, Jr. to CAR, 23 December
1992, subject: Active Guard Reserve (AGR) Allocation. (2) Memorandum, ATCC-PC,
MG Arnold for DCSPER, 12 February 1993, subject: Request for Legislative Action
(AGR). (3) Author interview with LTC Victor R. Coffenberry Il, 12 December 1995.
(4) Author interview with COL Douglas §. Becker, 12 December 1995.

Author interview with LTC Michael Hodson, 22 November 1995.

Briefing Slides, n.d., Cadet Command Command Briefing.

Author interview with COL J.G. Cretella, 13 December 1995.

Author interview with COL J.G. Cretella, 14 December 1995.

Author interview with COL J.G. Cretella, 14 December 1995.

Ibid.

Ibid. (2) Author interview with COL Thomas Maciver, 7 December 1995. (3) Letter,
ATTNG-RC, 350/91 (ROTC), HQ CONARC, 15 March 1956, subject: Service
Orientation of ROTC Graduates. (4) Alfred F. Turner, “The Army ROTC—Yesterday,
Today and Tomorrow,” Air War College Report No. 3697, May 1968.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 10 March 1994.

Briefing Slides, ATCC-MO, n.d., subject: Command Update Briefing.

Author interview with MG James M. Lyle, 10 March 1994.

Ibid.

Briefing Slides, ATCC-MO, n.d., subject: Command Update Briefing.

(1) Richard H.P. Sia, “Army Faces Hard Battle for Recruits: Lifestyle Changes,
Cutbacks Blamed for Drop in Appeal,” Baltimore Sun, 27 December 1993, p. 1, as
contained in the Early Bird. (2) Grant Willis, “Young men continue to lose interest in
joining military,” Army Times, March 1, 1993, p. 26.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 5 April 1994.

Data provided by Marketing, Recruiting and Budget Division, ATCC-MM,
Marketing, Operations and Public Affairs Directorate.

Author interview with LTC James Janele, 5 April 1994.



CHAPTER I

THE CADET
COMMAND HERITAGE

Captain Alden Partridge, former superintendent
of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, founded
Norwich University in 1819 at Norwich, Vermont.
It is to this institution that the
modern ROTC program traces its heritage.

The idea of conducting the precommissioning military education and train-
ing of Army officers in America’s colleges and universities is as old as the
nation itself. In 1783, George Clinton, prominent statesman and six-term
Governor of New York, came forward with a plan that called for the introduc-
tion of military instruction at one civilian college in each state of the Union.
Under this plan, students, after completing their degree and the prescribed
course of military instruction, would be commissioned and serve a short stint
on active duty. Upon returning to civilian life, they would form a trained of-
ficer reserve that would be available in time of emergency. A system of in-
spections and reports was to give coherence and uniformity to his officer edu-
cation program.' Nothing came from Clinton’s proposal.

The University of Georgia claims to have hosted on-campus military in-
struction as early as 1807. Georgia state law in the early nineteenth century
required all male citizens (except clergy) between 18 and 45 to assemble five
times a year for a military muster. Because many university students fell into
the designated age group, they attended campus drills. The purpose of this
training was not to prepare its recipients to receive commissions but to allow
them to fulfill their military obligation.”

The first civilian institution of higher learning in the United States to
actually incorporate military education into its curriculum was the American

7



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

better than no lieutenant at all.'?

But the Early Commissioning Program had a negative side. Since only
officers with degrees could be considered for active duty upon commission-
ing, the perception arose that a lower caliber of officer was being sent into the
reserves—a perception that was not entirely groundless. Both General
Richardson and Wagner had felt this way. In June 1985, Richardson had told
the DCSPER that the Early Commissioning Program was:

.fundamentally wrong and contrary to our efforts to upgrade
quality. To allow thousands of officers, who are commissioned
without a college degree, to serve in reserve units (TPU) lowers
our standards and, in effect, establishes a double standard for the
AC and the RC."

Although ECP officers were supposed to get their degrees eventually,
many, due to academic failure, lack of motivation, or a shortage of financial
resources, never did so. Some enrolled in college for the sole purpose of

ROTC COMMISSIONS: 1986 - 1992
9
fy EP

8 | | 1 non-ecp

7H

6H

su

4H = =

3H z
ao
fal
Z2H H]
<
no
217 t— oa
fe}
=

FY86 FY87 FY88 $FY89  FY90 FY91  FY92

Figure 6-2. ROTC Commissions: 1986 - 1992

151



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

programs. It also directed that the service secretary must begin the
disestablishment process—i.e., issue a preliminary warning letter—if output
dropped below the prescribed minimum. Unit viability ratings were to be
based on the following factors: faculty and administration support, student
attitudes, facilities, quality and costs of production, the amount of academic
credit given, and the retention rate of graduates. Lowering production
minimums to the 15/10 level was a necessary adjustment to the emerging
pattern of more but smaller units.”

Units were indeed inactivated in the 1960s, but not very many. A major-
ity of those that were eliminated fell into the category of voluntary
disestablishments in which the university, not the Army, took the lead in get-
ting the ROTC off campus. In periods of military expansion like the one that
occurred coincident with the Vietnam build-up, officer requirements are on
the increase and the consensus necessary to closing unproductive units is, quite
naturally, difficult to form.

Post-Vietnam Demobilization

America’s disengagement from Vietnam and the consequent drawdown
of its Army once again pushed the issue of unproductive ROTC detachments
to the fore. The Army had faced a similar situation after the Korean Conflict.
The additional units created to meet wartime officer needs left the ROTC with
a bloated institutional establishment when hostilities ceased. After Vietnam,
however, the problem was of a greater magnitude. From 1964 to 1973, the
number of Army ROTC units expanded from 232 to 293 (a 26 percent in-
crease) while enrollment decreased from 168,742 to 72,459 (a 57 percent de-
crease). The enrollment decline was closely related to the end of conscription
and the advent of the all-volunteer Army in the early 1970s.

Department of Defense Directive 1215.8

The June 1971 edition of DOD Directive 1215.8, Policies Relating to
Senior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC), unlike previous versions of
that publication, contained specific guidance concerning the disestablishment
of ROTC units. It retained the minimum production standard of 15 officers
per year for four-year programs and 10 officers per year for two-year pro-
grams (with production being calculated on the basis of a four-year average)
established in 1965. It further directed that units failing to meet the prescribed
production minimum be placed in a evaluation status for a two-year period,

223



GLOSSARY

Accession Board

A board composed of between eight and 12 PMS/APMS who have at least two
years experience on campus and at Advanced Camp. The board develops the
overall order of merit list for all ROTC cadets whose graduation date falls within
the accession window.

Advanced Camp

Required field training period conducted at a military installation. Advanced
Camp is a part of the advanced course that is usually attended between MS III
and MS IV.

Advanced Course

The last two years of the Senior ROTC program (MS III and MS IV) including
Advanced Camp. This is normally pursued by the cadet during the junior and
senior years in college. For Military Junior College (MJC) cadets, the advanced
course includes freshman and sophomore years.

Alternate Entry Option Student
A student who completes the Senior ROTC Advanced Course in the following
progression: MS ill, Basic Camp, MS IV, and Advanced Camp.

Assistant Professor of Military Science

The primary instructor for ROTC cadets enrolled in Military Science. APMS
duties include, but are not limited to: recruiting, training, administration, coach-
ing and commissioning the future officer leadership of the Army.

Basic Camp

The six-week ROTC training course conducted at a military installation, normally
attended before the applicant's junior academic year, and a prerequisite for
enrollment in the two-year ROTC program.

Basic Camp Commander
The officer designated to command the ROTC Basic Camp.

Basic Course

The two-year Senior ROTC primary course of study (MS | and MS II), normally
pursued by the cadet during freshman and sophomore years in college.

338



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

“tired major” could “plug in his life-support system and coast to retire-
ment on a college campus.” Second, training, which was itself the fourth
discrete function in the commissioning process, was made more rigorous
and interesting.“ Training methods were brought on line with those of the
Active Army and cadet training assumed a purposefulness and an intensity
it had heretofore lacked.

Retention, the fifth developmental function, was closely bound up with
both training and motivation. Cadet Command, it is important to understand,
gave retention a very different look relative to the one it wore in the 1970s
and early 1980s. In that era, many ROTC detachments (with the Army’s sanc-
tion) sought to keep students in the ROTC program by demilitarizing it and
relaxing requirements. The curriculum was made “flexible,” uniform require-
ments were loosened, haircut policies were liberalized, and the time devoted
to military training was kept limited. Unfortunately for the Army, this slackening
of standards did not have the desired effect. In fact, some observers sug-
gested that the loosening of training standards and discipline which accompa-
nied demilitarization resulted in many cadets becoming bored and disillusioned
with ROTC and leaving the program.*°

Cadet Command took an opposite tack. Instead of lowering standards, it
raised and enforced them; instead of reducing demands on student time, it
increased them; and instead of working to demilitarize the program, it delib-
erately set out to give it an active duty air. Not all students, of course, re-
sponded to this approach, but Cadet Command observers believed that it helped
retain in the ROTC program the type of individual the Army wanted for its
officer corps.

The final function, commissioning, was viewed as an extended educa-
tional, training, and nurturing process that subsumed the five other functions.*°
In subsequent years, Cadet Command refined and expanded its functional pre-
view to accommodate a changing environment, but that is a story for later
chapters. The next chapter will treat the function most affected by the estab-
lishment of Cadet Command—training. The way the command trained and
evaluated its cadet charges will be its focus, but cadre orientation and prepara-
tion will also be covered in considerable detail. It is important not to mini-
mize this latter facet of the training function since the entire system depended
upon its leaders and executors becoming committed apostles and expert prac-
titioners of the command's distinctive training methodology.

90



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

A student at the Army War College complained that “college authorities usu-
ally designated the last hour of the school day for military work; a time when
the ordinary student had no enthusiasm for work or play.”'? The reluctance or
refusal of most college administrations to provide adequate facilities and re-
sources for their military departments only confirmed their apathy toward mili-
tary training in the minds of many military officers."

Student motivation for military training suffered because there were few
opportunities available for commissioned service either in the Regular Army
or in state militias. It is true that around the turn of the century, the War De-
partment started granting Regular Army commissions annually to one outstand-
ing student from each of the ten most highly rated land-grant and military
colleges—called “Distinguished Institutions.” George C. Marshall received
his commission in 1902 upon graduation from VMI as a result of this policy.
Yet only a relative handful of students could get commissions in this way.

It seemed odd to some regular officers that state militias (with two ex-
ceptions) did not take advantage of land-grant institutions to fill their officer
ranks. The fact was, however, that most state organizations wanted no part of
these colleges or their alumni. One state Adjutant General openly declared
that the graduate of a collegiate military training program was not “the mate-
rial desired for the militia of his state.” One college president explained the
situation as follows:

..The ordinary college graduate usually has difficulty in secur-
ing the approval of his untrained and uneducated compeers (in
the militia). They naturally look upon him as a college fellow
who is trying to show off what he has learned in college.'*

To be sure, there were units that achieved a relatively high state of mo-
rale and effectiveness. The unit at the University of Nebraska was one of
these. During the Spanish-American War, its cadet corps organized itself into
the First Nebraska Infantry, which fought with distinction in the Philippines.
Yet, despite occasional bright spots, collegiate military training in the half
century after the Civil War was, on the whole, an underfunded, fragmented,
and above all, non-uniform enterprise. The training it provided to students
was, in the words of one authority, “spotty and varied in time and intensity
from one institution to another.” It was primarily this lack of uniformity that
made the Army question the value of the program and the wisdom of dedicat-
ing money and resources to its operation.

12



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

A number of other special programs in the post-Vietnam era focused on
recruiting for the reserve components. The Early Commissioning Program,
initiated in 1966 for Military Junior Colleges, was broadened in 1979 to ac-
commodate cadets who had completed all ROTC requirements but still had
not received their undergraduate degree. It gave them a reserve commission
and allowed them to serve in reserve units. The Simultaneous Membership
Program permitted Advanced Course cadets to serve as officer trainees in re-
serve component units and receive the drill pay of a sergeant (E-5). Be-
ginning in School Year 1983-1984, 5,000 Guaranteed Reserve Forces Duty
contracts were reserved annually for cadets whose interest in the military
extended only to the reserves.”

The admission of women into the ROTC was another boon to enrollment.
After a successful test at ten schools during School Year 1972-1973, the entire
program was opened to female participation in the fall of 1973. Within two
years, women accounted for over 29 percent of ROTC enrollment.®”

Perhaps the most ambitious and fateful program undertaken to increase
officer production was the “Expand the Base” (ETB) initiative introduced at
the end of the 1970s. Its goal was to boost annual output to 10,500 by 1985
(“ten-five by eight-five” was the slogan coined to popularize the goal through-
out the ROTC community). This was to be accomplished by creating more
units. Over 100 extension centers along with 36 host institutions were to be
established by the end of FY 1983. Although the ETB did not reach its stated
objective, it did result in a substantial expansion of the program. Between FY
1978 and FY 1983, the number of ROTC units shot up by 40 percent (from 297
to 416).8!

The DCSROTC had attempted to raise production in the mid-1970s by
creating extension centers. He enjoyed only limited success because the Army
refused to give him more than the 1,500 officers he already had assigned. In
the ETB, the TRADOC Commander and his DCSROTC got around this road-
block by tapping the reserve component for the additional officers needed to
staff the new units. Originally, one Active Guard/Reserve officer was autho-
rized for each host unit. Later, this number was doubled. By the mid-1980s,
almost 630 reserve officers were authorized to serve in ROTC detachments on
a full-time basis. Not everyone in the reserves appreciated this arrangement,
but the TRADOC Commander and his DCSROTC thought it was appropriate
given the fact that most of the additional production would go into one of the
reserve components.*?

4



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Pueblo, Colorado, laid the blame for ROTC’s personnel misfortunes on the
Army’s senior leaders who had given the ROTC such a low priority. He had
spent the last 23 years in the Army, he told his readers, “listening to disparag-
ing remarks about ROTC.” The crux of the problem, as he saw it, was that the
“senior Army leadership” did not provide “the necessary emphasis to attract
qualified officers to seek ROTC assignments.” The prevailing sentiment in
the Army, he claimed, was that an ROTC assignment was “a necessary evil
that is to be avoided if one wants to advance one’s career.” ROTC duty, he
continued, was not “highly regarded by promotion boards” and “the Army’s
best officers” were not “encouraged to seek ROTC jobs.”*”

In light of the low importance attached to such duty by the Army, it is not
surprising that officers banished to ROTC units were often unenthusiastic about
their duties. Many, in fact, became transparently apathetic; who could blame
them? Even if they did a good job, their chances for advancement would not
be significantly improved. An ROTC tour came to be regarded as something
of a vacation. One student at the Army War College, writing of ROTC assign-
ments before the advent of Cadet Command, described them as opportunities
to get to know your family better, obtain an advanced degree, improve your
golf score, and recover from the rigors of the Regular Army.”

Something, it was evident, had to be done to raise the overall quality
of officers assigned to ROTC duty. A qualitative upgrade of the most criti-
cal position in the program—that of the PMS/battalion commander—was
the first order of business. Before the advent of Cadet Command, the PMS
selection process was, at best, unrefined. The U.S. Army Military Person-
nel Center in Washington, D.C., nominated officers for PMS positions ac-
cording to the normal officer assignment procedure. After being identi-
fied by the Military Personnel Center as a candidate, the name of the of-
ficer, along with the appropriate personnel records, were sent to the insti-
tution in need of a PMS. Typically, a review of a nominated officer’s
records would then be conducted by a college or university appointment
committee. The rejection of a PMS nominee by such a committee, however,
was extremely rare."

There were two major flaws in this assignment procedure, at least from
the Cadet Command perspective. First, there was no one to represent the
interests of the command in the selection process on the military side.
Assignment officers, some of whom knew little about the ROTC, often seemed
more concerned about filling a vacancy than with ensuring the presence of an

86



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

failing detachments and to give the requisite “intensified management” to get
troubled units healthy again. The Intensive Management Program could also
be used to determine which units should be eliminated.

TRADOC, publicly at least, expressed satisfaction with the Intensive
Management Program. Ina 1979 report, the TRADOC historical officer com-
mented that the impact of the program had been “extremely positive in that it
promotes the sense of urgency at all levels of command and provides the vis-
ibility needed to effect change.” However, the figures he cited to demonstrate
its effectiveness were not very convincing. For School Year 1976-1977, there
were 53 units on evaluation status but only three unit closures. In School Year
1977-1978, there were 214 units on an evaluation status but only one candi-
date for elimination.”*

A 1979 RAND Study concluded that the 1974 Defense Department clo-
sure criteria (and by implication, the TRADOC’s program for disestablishing
unproductive units) were ineffective. The probationary period accorded to
underachieving units, it complained, was too long. Any detachment could
enroll enough MS IIIs once every four years to stave off closure. It also took
the standard to task because it failed to identify units which performed poorly
on the basis of cadet quality and average cost per graduate.”

In truth, the Army’s poor track record in shutting down uneconomical units
in the late 1970s was due more to an unwillingness to enforce the Department of
Defense standard than to the standard itself. In an era when the ROTC program
was not meeting its prescribed production mission, sentiment for a large-scale
inactivation of marginally performing units in the Office of the DCSROTC or
among senior Army leaders was, understandably, not very strong.*

Substandard Training

The retention of substandard units had an adverse effect on the quality of
ROTC training and preprofessional education—an effect which neither the
Congress nor the General Accounting Office mentioned in their critiques of
the ROTC program. William Snyder, a former member of the political sci-
ence faculty at Texas A&M and PMS at Princeton University, noted that one-
half of all Army and Air Force ROTC detachments in the mid-1970s enrolled
fewer than 100 students. This was unfortunate, he believed, for two rea-
sons. First, the small size of these units coupled with the “inevitable ab-
sence of students because of required collegiate activities” reduced the
effectiveness of much on-campus military training. Second, a “meaningful
leadership experience” was a near impossibility when the number of cadets

229



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

answer, they insisted, was to substitute courses offered by regular academic
departments for military science courses whenever possible. Courses in man-
agement and communications, they pointed out, could be more effectively and
conveniently taught by civilian academicians than by military officers who
often did not have an appropriate academic background and who would be
on campus for at most three years. Moreover, the policy of “academic sub-
stitution” would allow the civilian faculty to participate in the education
of prospective officers—something that the two pane] members believed would
act to liberalize cadets. Like many others, Lyons and Masland urged that the
bulk of ROTC military training be conducted at summer camp. They held up
the Marine Corps’ Platoon Leader’s Course, where all training was accom-
plished in the summer, as an example for the Army to emulate.“

Army leaders agreed that academic substitution could strengthen the
ROTC curriculum but insisted that most on-campus instruction could not be
replaced without damaging the program. Regular and frequent cadet contact
with appropriate role models over an extended period of time, they asserted,
not the actual content of ROTC courses, lay at the heart of the officer develop-
ment process. Expedients like the Platoon Leader’s Course and “college-op-
tion” OCS could produce college-educated officers but their short duration
prevented their graduates from receiving the extended professional nurturing
so important to the development of an officer.

In the end, the Army responded to the Advisory Panel’s academic substi-
tution recommendation by developing a third curriculum option, the Modified
General Military Science Program. This option, introduced in 1960, reduced
the required number of Advanced Course contact hours from 300 to 210 and
bestowed the title of Professor of Military Science (PMS) on military depart-
ment heads in an effort to raise their status on campus. It also allowed cadets
to substitute academic courses in the fields of science comprehension, psy-
chology, communications, and political science for certain parts of the mili-
tary science curriculum.‘

The adoption of the Modified General Military Science Program only
partially mollified ROTC’s critics on campus. The old complaints about the
program’s narrowness and supposed incompatibility with the pursuit of a
baccalaureate degree continued unabated. In fact, it was while the new cur-
riculum was being introduced that the movement to abolish compulsory ROTC
at land-grant institutions gathered steam.

With the inevitable drawdown at the end of the Korean War, the Army

24

_


ERA OF DOWNSIZING

matter) for individuals coming from the hundreds of different institutions that
were affiliated in some way with the ROTC also presented major challenges.”

Many accessioning problems could be traced to the unwieldy and frag-
mented organization that regulated this process. In 1991, numerous Army
organizations ran a portion of it. The DCSPER, the Deputy Chief of Staff for
Operations and Plans, eighteen branch chiefs, and Cadet Command all played
semi-autonomous roles. Together, Arnold and Cretella engineered a mecha-
nism by which Cadet Command was inserted into each step of the accessioning
process, starting with the cadet’s completion of ROTC Advanced Camp and
ending with his reporting to an Officer Basic Course. Other agencies remained
involved but Cadet Command’s influence became pervasive and, in most re-
spects, dominant. What the Army once approached in a fragmented way was
now handled in an integrated fashion. To be sure, the new arrangement did
not change things overnight. Difficulties remained. There were, for example,
still cases of delayed entry into the basic course. Yet the contrast with the old
accessioning system was, by the time Major General Arnold relinquished com-
mand, very evident.”

The addition of access to the command’s list of essential functions had
another purpose. Prior to 1990, accessioning had a very narrow meaning in
the ROTC, at least at many schools. For the cadre, it often consisted of hav-
ing MS IV cadets fill out a preference statement, indicating whether they
wanted to go on active duty or into the reserves and listing their branch pref-
erence (or, to be more exact, their branch preferences, since they were re-
quired to list three choices). The whole process took several days. During
Arnold’s tenure in command, access came to connote a mentoring process
instead of a two or three day flurry of administrative activity. Cadre were
charged with the responsibility of helping cadets make an informed choice
about an Army career. Part of this involved explaining to them how their
initial choices would affect their subsequent career in the Army. Much of this
mentoring could fit under the rubric of “service orientation,” which, accord-
ing to CONARC and TRADOC records, had never been a forte of the Army
ROTC program. The listing of access as an essential function at the very least
focused attention on this heretofore largely neglected aspect of the command’s
mission.*!

159



U.S, ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Dodds, Harold W. “Your Boy and the ROTC,” The Atlantic Monthly, 1953.

Gignilliat, L.R. “Students and National Defense,” The World Tomorrow,
October 1926.

Grossman, Ron. “Under the Gun: ROTC shoots down ‘nerd’ image by giving
students a tough summer-school session,” Chicago Tribune,

July 19, 1989, p. 5D.

Halloran, Richard. “R.O.T.C., Shunned No More, Grows Increasingly Selective,”
New York Times, July 20, 1987, p. 2.

Hansen, Warren W. “ROTC: A national asset that transcends military needs,”
Army, August 1963.

Lyons, Gene M. and Masland, John W. “The ROTC on the Campus.”

AAVP Bulletin December, 1958.

Mair, George. “What's Wrong with the ROTC,” The American Mercury,
August 1963.

Marshall, S.L.A. “Leaders and Leadership.” in Robert L. Taylor and
William E. Rosenbach, eds., Military Leadership: In Pursuit of
Excellence. Boulder, San Francisco, and Oxford: Westview press, 1992.

Moon, Gorton A. “ROTC on the Rebound” Army, August 1967.

Moss, J. Jennings. “Military may not be meeting intent of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’,”
Washington Times, March 24, 1995, p. 3.

“ROTC Flourishes Under New Cadet Command: Provides Army with 75 Percent
of its Officers,” Army Times, September 21, 1987, p. 33.

Scott, Joseph W. “ROTC Retreat.” in The American Military, ed. Martin
Oppenheimer. Transaction Books, 1971.

Sears, Louis Martin. “The Structure of Government and War.” in Military
Instruction in Educational Institutions. Washington, D.C.:

Civilian Military Education Fund, n.d.

Sia, Richard H.P. “Army Faces Hard Battle for Recruits: Lifestyle Changes,
Cutbacks Blamed for Drop in Appeal,” Baltimore Sun,

27 December 1993, p. 1.

Snyder, William P. “Leaders for the Volunteer Force: The Problems and
Prospects of ROTC” in The System for Educating Officers in the U.S.,
ed. Lawrence J. Korb. Occasional Paper No. 9. International Studies
Association, 1976.

co “Officer Recruitment for the All-Volunteer Force: Trends
and Prospects,” Armed Forces and Society, Spring 1984.

Warren, Frederick M. “Army ROTC Looks to the Future.” Army Information
Digest, January, 1961.

Willis, Grant. “Young men continue to lose interest in joining military,”

Army Times, March 1, 1993, p. 26.
Young, David M. “ROTC Required or Elective,” Military Review, February 1962.
“Young and Rubicam Replaces N.W. Ayer as Army Ad Agency,”

Army Times, January 26, 1987, p. 2.

“Young and Rubicam Wins Army Pact: Largest Pentagon Ad Contract Let After
Rival Firm Suspended,” The Washington Post, January 28, 1987, p. 9.

DISSERTATIONS AND THESES
Bambery, J.R. “ROTC in Transition: A New Potential For Leadership,” USAWC.

Studies Program, January 1978.
Barthmus, Winfred. “Early College Military Training and the Establishment of

348



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Past Recruiting Practices

To get the type of officer corps it wanted, the Army had to do a better job
of recruiting for the ROTC. Unfortunately, Cadet Command inherited a re-
cruiting structure that was, as the Army Audit Agency Report stated, in need
of “refinement.”* In actuality, the situation was worse. ROTC recruiting and
marketing were in need of a drastic overhaul. Two civilian scholars, Dr. Donald
Jugenheimer of the University of Kansas and Dr. Vernon Fryburger of North-
western University, completed studies of ROTC recruiting and marketing prac-
tices in 1984. They prepared separate reports on their findings but there was
general agreement between the two about what was wrong with the extant
system. Fryburger was critical of the “highly decentralized” ROTC recruiting
and advertising apparatus. Such decentralization, he noted, inevitable led to a
fragmented and incoherent marketing effort and forfeited the advantages and
economies that could be achieved with a coordinated advertising campaign.
He recommended centralizing the marketing and advertising campaign in the
Office of the DCSROTC at Fort Monroe.

Jugenheimer took the ROTC marketing effort to task for the tremendous
variety of advertising and promotional materials it used. During the course of
his study, officers provided him with 32 different promotional items—bro-
chures, booklets, self-mailers, flyers, etc. He questioned the cost-effective-
ness of investing so heavily in such materials and believed that such a diversi-
fied collection of promotional items reflected a lack of advertising focus. His
solution to the recruiting problem involved providing the recruiting program
with a clearer mission statement and achieving Army-wide synergies in the
ROTC marketing and advertising efforts. Transferring at least some of ROTC’s
recruiting responsibilities to the Recruiting Command, Jugenheimer believed,
would create such synergies.*

All of the flaws in the ROTC advertising program were not caused by
decentralization. Some were due to a lack of training and guidance. ROTC
cadre, the individuals responsible for conducting local advertising, received
no instruction about how to put together an ad campaign or design an adver-
tisement. The usual result was advertising directed at a broad range of people
rather than targeted at a specific audience. Nor were ads normally linked to
the academic calendar. Ads would be run whenever the PMS became con-
cerned about recruiting.*

124



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Literary, Scientific and Military Academy—now Norwich University. Captain
Alden Partridge, former superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, founded the school in 1819 at Norwich, Vermont. It is to this institution
that the modern ROTC traces its heritage.

The citizen-soldier ideal was the driving force behind Partridge’s educa-
tional experiment. Partridge wanted officers who would be “identified in views,
in feelings, and in interests, with the great body of the community” and a col-
lege that would reconcile the efficiency and discipline demanded by a regular
army with the republican values and popular sentiments inherent in the militia
system. While most of the school’s graduates went into the militia, some en-
tered the regular army and thereby broadened the educational base and ex-
panded the political outlook of the professional officer corps.

The college’s curriculum was advanced for its time and much more
diverse than West Point’s. It included courses in agriculture and modern lan-
guages in addition to the sciences, liberal arts, and various military subjects.
Field exercises, for which Partridge borrowed cannon and muskets from the
federal and state governments, supplemented classroom instruction and added
an element of realism to the college’s program of military training.*

Between 1819 and the Civil War, a number of other essentially military
schools were established. Lafayette College, Oak Ridge Academy, and
Kemper and Marion Institutes were private institutions while the Virginia
Military Institute (VMI) and The Citadel were state-supported ventures. At
these latter two colleges, attachment to the citizen-soldier ideal was not as
strong as at Norwich. Their founding was bound up with the Southern mili-
tary tradition and the practical need to provide a management education for
the sons of the planter aristocracy.*

A number of civilian institutions hosted military instruction during the
antebellum period. St. John’s College (Annapolis, Maryland) began offering
it in 1826. The University of Tennessee and Indiana University purportedly
had it as early as 1840 while William Tecumseh Sherman introduced it at Loui-
siana State in 1859. Collegiate military training enjoyed a brief and checkered
run at the University of Virginia in the 1820s and 1830s. Upon founding the
university in 1825, Thomas Jefferson made tactical drill and training manda-
tory. Such training, he hoped, would produce qualified officers for a national
militia. He even foresaw military education developing into a recognized aca-
demic field of study. Jefferson’s dreams were soon dashed, however. Within
a decade of its activation, the university’s cadet company was disbanded after
a spirited confrontation with the university’s faculty.°



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

General Lyle frequently encountered junior units that had on their own initiative
come up with acreed. It seemed to the Commanding General that this reflected
a deep-seated need among cadets for such a statement of purpose. Accordingly,
he charged his High School Directorate with the task of drafting one. Mr. Cal
Foster took the lead in this project. Using a creed developed in the Fourth
Region as a base and incorporating suggestions received from the field, he
produced a creed that in its final form read:

1am an Army Junior ROTC Cadet. | will always conduct
myself to bring credit to my family, country, school
and the Corps of Cadets.

lam loyal and patriotic. | am the future of the United States
of America.

I do not lie, cheat or steal and will always be accountable
for my actions and deeds.

I will always practice good citizenship and patriotism.
| will work hard to improve my mind and strengthen my body.

| will seek the mantle of leadership and stand prepared to
uphold the Constitution and the American way of life.

My God grant me the strength to live by this creed.

This JROTC Cadet Creed was used for the first time during the 1995 Cadet
Command Spring Review.

Cadet Command and the JROTC

Under Cadet Command, the JROTC diverged from the path it had fol-
lowed since its creation in 1916. Once looked upon primarily as a source of
enlisted recruits and officer candidates, it became a citizenship program de-
voted to the moral, physical, and educational uplift of American youth. Al-
though the program retained its military structure, and the resultant ability to
infuse in its students a sense of discipline and order, it shed most of its
military content. The study of ethics, citizenship, communications, science,

286



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

inherent within a single command. Indeed, dividing officer train-
ing between a DA FOA and TRADOC would add a burdensome
management layer to the training and education process. ROTC
derives its credibility as an adjunct of the college academic cur-
riculum.... We would jeopardize this image by making ROTC a
DCSPER FOA. I believe it would be an error to imply (even
remotely) that ROTC is firstly a recruiting tool for officer acces-
sions and, secondly, an educational experience.'°

In October 1984, the Army Chief of Staff, General John A. Wickham,
became involved in the discussion about proposed changes to the ROTC man-
agement structure. He chartered an “ROTC Study Group” to conduct a “sys-
tematic, comprehensive” review of the program to assess its viability and to
consider alternatives to its present organizational make-up. The group pub-
lished its report in May 1986, although its findings were well known at
TRADOC and the department well before its publication date.

The study group found that “structural problems in the management or-
ganization” of the ROTC inhibited TRADOC’s ability to fulfill its
precommissioning training responsibilities. While it conceded that the 1973
Steadfast reorganization of the program and the subsequent addition of the
title ROTC Commander to the DCSROTC had been steps in the right direc-
tion, it recognized that many old structural dilemmas remained unresolved.
Existing command arrangements, the group wrote, suffered from “excessive
span of control, inappropriate division of labor, failure to provide for the ac-
complishment of all functions, and the absence of a centralized personnel man-
agement capability.” Decentralized logistics and administrative functions, it
was posited, posed particular problems at the regional level because they de-
tracted from the mid-level manager’s ability to concentrate on the operational
mission, which included recruiting, training, retaining, and commission-
ing lieutenants.”

Eight organizational alternatives were considered. They were: (1) a field
operating agency of TRADOC; (2) a field operating agency of the DCSPER;
(3) a major subordinate command of TRADOC; (4) the organizational status
quo; (5) a major subordinate command of the proposed Personnel Command;
(7) the ROTC Study Group alternative; and (8) a functional realignment under
which each function in the officer production process would be isolated and
placed in the most appropriate organizational environment available. Alterna-
tive three (TRADOC major subordinate command) and seven (study group

52



U.S, ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Scholarship Tiering

One of the principal challenges facing Major General Lyle when he took
over Cadet Command in the summer of 1993 was bringing the scholarship
program under control. The challenge had two aspects. One had to do with
making the program amenable to fiscal management, something that the Army
had been unable to do since the inception of the scholarship program in 1964;
the other with the need to make scholarships work to boost officer production,
which had fallen precipitously over the last two years.

The Scholarship Allocation Plan, more commonly known as scholar-
ship tiering, was the system devised to effect the requisite changes. The
plan provided for four award tiers or levels, each of which had an upper limit
or ceiling. Tier I scholarships had a ceiling of $12,000, Tier II of $8,000, Tier
ILL of $5,000, and Tier IV of $2,000. A specified percentage of the scholar-
ship budget was allocated to each level. Under the tiering system, students
could not receive an amount in excess of their tuition and fees. Thus, a Tier I
student could not take his $12,000 award, matriculate at a university that carried a
$4,000 per year tuition price tag, and pocket the remainder. The new system had
the effect of increasing the number of scholarships but, as we will see in subse-
quent paragraphs, reducing the average value of the award. See Figure 7-3.

The pre-tiering and post-tiering scholarship programs differed in many re-
spects. Perhaps the most apparent and, to certain staff officers at the Pentagon
and certain members of the academic community, disconcerting difference cen-
tered on the relatively low percentage of scholarship awards allocated to Tier I.
See Figures 7-4 and 7-5. Only 17 percent of award recipients, accounting for 36
percent of the scholarship budget, received the most generous award. With the
$12,000 limit, even individuals in this select group could not cover tuition
payments at many private institutions with Army scholarship money alone.**

Preliminary evidence suggested that scholarship tiering had, in fact, re-
sulted in lowering ROTC enrollment at some of the nation’s most expensive
schools.” Alarmed by the implications that the new scholarship system held
for their school, officials at the University of Miami even decided to sever
their connection with the Army ROTC entirely. In a letter dated November
13, 1995, Edward T. Foote, II, President of the University of Miami, informed
Major General Lyle that:

Our decision to terminate our partnership with the Department
of the Army was based strictly on the declining (to almost

208



CADET TRAINING

for the purpose of impressing on future ROTC instructors the critical role
they were about to assume in the Army’s precommissioning education and
training system. Guest speakers included some of the highest ranking officers
in the Army—Generals Vuono and Thurman being among them.

In another major move that same year, Cadet Command eliminated the
National Guard ROTC instructor course at Camp Robinson and integrated re-
serve officers into the school at Fort Monroe. This course consolidation elimi-
nated redundancy, ensured uniformity of training, and achieved monetary sav-
ings. It also integrated reserve component and active component cadre to-
gether before instead of after they arrived on campus. By undergoing the
same training, the differences in outlook and attitude that existed between
active and reserve cadre members, it was hoped, could be reduced. Finally, it
rid Cadet Command of ROTC Action-Management Training. Wagner had never
liked the fadishness of the Sales-Management approach and was only too happy
to redirect the reserve cadre training along other lines.

In an attempt to keep the SOCC curriculum attuned to campus needs,
Lieutenant Colonel Hodson introduced a course evaluation system that
provided both short-term and long-term feedback. In this system, instructor-
students completed abbreviated course critiques upon graduation. It was as-
sumed that cadre could not give a fully informed evaluation of instruction
until they had a chance to apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills in
a university environment so they were required to complete a second critique
three to six months after their arrival on campus. The evaluation results formed
the basis for quarterly curriculum revisions."

Because its staff members were in a position to keep abreast of cur-
rent trends on campus and because they all were seasoned instructors with
recent battalion experience, Major General Wagner saddled the School of
Cadet Command with an additional responsibility—writing doctrine and policy
guidance for the command. The school’s staff wrote and compiled Cadet Com-
mand Pamphlet series 145-1 through 145-3. These publications provided guide-
lines on all major aspects of on-campus operations. They included:

Cadet Command Pamphlet 145-1, Operation Goldstrike:
The Goldstrike Management System

Cadet Command Pamphlet 145-2, Operation Goldminer:
The Goldminer Team Management System

Cadet Command Pamphlet 145-3, Staking Your Claim:
The Goldminer Recruiting Handbook

121



CADET TRAINING

Since its inception, ROTC had been generally regarded as the easy way
to get a commission. Its charges faced no rites of passage similar to those
encountered by officer aspirants at West Point or in the OCS system. Reports
of ROTC summer encampments in the 1920s told of cadets being received by
coeds from local colleges and of the many social activities available during
the evenings and on weekends. Things tightened up over the ensuing de-
cades, but even in the first half of the 1980s, ROTC Advanced Camp was little
more than a kind of watered down basic training. Cadets basically had a 40-
hour training week with weekends off. The mood at the camp among the
cadets and cadre was relaxed. Success at Advanced Camp involved becoming
adept at certain basic military skills (like map reading, first aid, marksman-
ship, etc.). The lecture-demonstration form of instruction prevailed over hands-
on participation. Leadership ability and the capacity to function under pres-
sure were not qualities systematically evaluated in summer training.

Wagner began his effort to transform the ROTC into an organization with
an Active Army ethos and outlook at Advanced Camp. Free weekends were
among the first features of the old system to go. The informal and relaxed
instructional style followed soon thereafter. In Wagner’s system of summer
training, cadets were allowed to make mistakes, cadre were not. He insisted
that all training and instruction be thoroughly rehearsed, presented with pre-
cision and crispness, and conducted to standard. The example set by the in-
structor, in this system, was considered every bit as important as the content
of instruction. Stories of cadre members being “Duelerized” (a term used by
cadre members to describe a dressing down by Wagner) for failing to measure
up to the new instructional standards spread throughout the four regions. Un-
doubtedly, the degree of Wagner’s ferocity was exaggerated in the telling.
Nevertheless, these stories did convey a sense of the new spirit that was ani-
mating the ROTC program.

Cadets also felt the pressure. The taking away of their discretionary
time certainly added to their strain. It was the shift in the focus of Advanced
Camp from the teaching of military skills to leadership evaluation, however,
that really ratcheted up cadet stress levels. Under the new system, the Leader-
ship Assessment Program occupied a preeminent position. Cadets were evalu-
ated on the basis of the LAP's 16 leadership dimensions (Cadet Command had
expanded the original 12 dimensions to 16) in every leadership role to which
they were assigned, the average cadet receiving between five and seven lead-
ership positions over the course of the summer. This had the effect of putting
cadets under a kind of leadership microscope through which their actions and

105



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

FORSCOM authorities contended, took away valuable training time and di-
verted attention away from supposedly more pressing operational responsi-
bilities. It was by no means a new concern. Numerous complaints about the
alleged negative impact summer camp exerted on unit readiness are contained
in DCSROTC and Cadet Command historical files. In the past, such com-
plaints have been dismissed as, in the words of one former DCSROTC, a “red
herring.” This time around, though, these time-worn complaints seem to have
gotten a more sympathetic hearing.”

Cadet Command just as strenuously insisted that Advanced Camp had to
be conducted on a post with FORSCOM troop units in residence. In the dis-
cussions preceding the Steadfast reorganization of 1973, the colocation of tac-
tical units with ROTC Advanced Camps had been a subject of heated debate.
But in those discussions, ROTC program administrators successfully made
the point that exposure to the atmosphere and ethos of a tactical unit was a
vital part of a cadet’s education—or should be. Their experience in the 1950s
and 1960s with camps held at posts that did not host troop units convinced
them of the correctness of their position.

The TRADOC study ordered by General Reimer identified Fort Benning
as a possible site for the First Region Headquarters and Advanced Camp. At
the same time, it attached two conditions to its recommendation of Benning.
First, the study emphasized that an extensive renovation of temporary build-
ings would be necessary before that post could house the Advanced Camp
population during the summer months. Second, it pointed out that FORSCOM
troop units would have to be imported to assist in the conduct of camp, since
there were not enough at Benning to accomplish this task. Fort Knox was
specifically ruled out by the authors of the TRADOC study because it lacked
sufficient training and maneuver space. Senator Ford and Representative Lewis
questioned the wisdom and cost-effectiveness of moving to Benning and away
from Knox when the latter post already had a regional headquarters and the
Basic Camp organization in place. This explains why they included the pro-
hibition against moving the ROTC region headquarters away from Bragg in
the defense appropriations bill. As of January 1996, a final determination
about the fate of Second Region Headquarters had not been made. *

More Personnel Cuts

In September 1995, TRADOC informed Cadet Command that it (i.e.,
Cadet Command) was about to lose an additional 100 officers (roughly 9
percent of the command’s officer strength). As had happened so often in the

251



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

USACC, ATCC-MO, “Taking Steady Aim on the Future by Winning the Recruiting
Battle Now,” n.d.

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTED MATERIALS

Cadet Command Cir 145-87-2. ROTC Military Qualification Standards
(MQS) | Campaign Plan. n.d.

Cadet Command Pam 145-1. Operation Goldstrike: The Goldstrike Management
System. 1987.

Cadet Command Pam 145-2. Operation Goldminer: The Goldminer Team
Management System. 1988.

Cadet Command Pam 145-3. Staking Your Claim: The Goldminer Recruiting
Handbook. 1989.

Army Reg 145-1. Senior ROTC Program-Organization, Administration, and
Training. 1979, 1982.

Cadet Command Reg 10-5. Organization and Functions (O&F). 1986,
1987, 1989.

Cadet Command Reg 145-3. Military Qualifications Standards | (MQS |)
Campaign Plan. 1987 through 1991.

Cadet Command Reg 145-4. Marketing, Advertising and Publicity to Support
Enrollment. 1987.

Cadet Command Reg 145-6. Green to Gold Prospecting. 1988.

Cadet Command Reg 145-7. Operation Goldminer. 1989.

Cadet Command Reg 145-9. Accessioning and Commissioning. 1992.

Comptroller General of the United States. Reserve Officer Training Corps:
Management Deficiencies Still to be Corrected. Report B-146947,
March 15, 1977.

Department of Defense Directive 1215.8 Policies Relating to Senior Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) Program. 1971, 1974, 1984, 1994.

Department of the Army. Military Qualification Standards (MQS) Manual |. 1984.

oe ROTCM 145-4-1. The Junior ROTC Manual. 1939,
1948, 1955, 1958, 1962, 1968, 1972.

we. STP 21-I-MQS. Military Qualification Standards
1, Manual of Common Tasks (Precommissioning Requirements). 1990.

Fourth ROTC Region Pam 145-3. Operation Goldstrike. 1984, 1985.

USACC. Advanced Camp How-To-Fight Manual. 1987 through 1990.

Cadet Leaders How-To-Fight Manual. 1990.

_ ’ Camp Challenge How-To-Fight Manual. 1987

~~ through 1990.

Leadership Assessment Program (LAP) Assessor's

Leadership Assessment Program (LAP) How-To-

Fight Manual. 1989.

ARMY STUDIES

Department of the Army. Office of the Chief of Staff. Professional Development
of Officers’ Study (PDOS). Washington, D.C.: February 1984..

Department of the Army. Office of the Chief of Staff. Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps Study Group Report. 5 Volumes, Washington, D.C.: May 1986.

342


U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

with the task force orientation of the command in its formative years—an
orientation which resulted in the organization being sculpted to fit the capa-
bilities of the personnel on hand.*°

Operation Capital

Of all JROTC initiatives introduced during Wagner’s tenure as Cadet
Command Commander, Operation Capital was by far the most ambitious in
scope. The inspiration for this program came from a visit made by Wagner
and his long-time associate, Calvin Foster, to Roosevelt High School in Wash-
ington, D.C. in March 1989. During the visit, they saw first-hand the deplor-
able condition of an inner-city school. Upon entering the school, they saw in
the foyer a marble copy of the school creed:

I believe in Roosevelt High School, as a citadel of learning, where
democracy is a permanent part of the curriculum of every sub-
ject, and where the law of fair play and sponsorship are taught.

I believe in Roosevelt High School as a bulwark against igno-
rance and prejudice.

I believe it is my duty to work in Roosevelt High School and to
be sincere in my attitude toward it and its traditions, so that I
may receive the very best benefits it offers.

I further believe that such an attitude will reflect well upon my
schoo] and thus preserve those traditions which are my heritage
as a student.

The creed had been defaced, spray-painted, and marked with vulgar graffiti.
The hallways of the school were in a similar condition.

When they reached the school’s small gymnasium, the two men saw the
JROTC battalion drawn up in formation and standing at “present arms.” This
scene offered a striking contrast to the one they had just witnessed. Accord-
ing to their later recollections, this episode was a defining experience for them.
From then on, both were convinced of the necessity of devoting more resources
to inner-city JROTC programs.”

272



CADET TRAINING

for the Basic and Advanced Camps as his models, Cox produced a “campaign
plan” for on-campus use. Through the campaign plan, the training director
hoped to bring a high degree of uniformity to on-campus MQS I training and
instruction. But uniformity was not his sole concern. He also wanted the plan
to be acceptable to the many types of institutions that hosted ROTC units and
to be so framed so as not to restrict the freedom of action of the battalion
commander. Reconciling these in many respects conflicting goals, he real-
ized, would not be an easy task.

Cox began by circulating a prototype of his campaign plan in the form of
acommand letter. The letter, which was sent out just before the beginning of
camp, called for the field-testing of the new program during School Year 1986-
1987. In reality, the decision to institute the program had already been made;
the real purpose of the so-called field-test was to correct flaws in the plan’s
implementation. As anticipated, the feedback that soon began to trickle in
from the field was not overwhelmingly positive. Many battalion commanders
recoiled from the limitations that the plan imposed on their traditional free-
dom of action.

Cadet Command staff officers, however, brushed aside all such ob-
jections. In fact, they even devised new mechanisms to guarantee strict
compliance with the campaign plan’s provisions. A structured review pro-
cess, a more intensive command visitation program, and a revised com-
mand briefing format were all designed to keep close tabs on how the plan
was being implemented at battalion level. To recognize its centrality to
the on-campus training program, the campaign plan was made a command
regulation in July 1987.

Linking the camp performance of its cadets to the evaluation of the qual-
ity of a battalion’s on-campus training program was another way that Cadet
Command promoted standardization and at the same time increased the tempo
and intensity of training during the academic year. The system of Training
Management Indicators (TMI) was introduced in the fall of 1986 to establish
this linkage. With the TMI, Cadet Command Headquarters could gauge the
comparative performance of battalions at Advanced Camp and, hence, the rela-
tive quality of their on-campus training program by assigning each a compos-
ite score, which equated to the average rating of its cadets at Advanced Camp.
Categories of green, amber, and red served as general indictors of a battalion’s
training condition. The PMS whose battalion was green could rest easy; the
PMS with a red rating definitely had cause for concern. Through the intro-
duction of the TMI system, intense pressure was brought to bear on the PMS

107



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

“Operation Young Citizen,” was the name that Cadet Command attached
to its restructuring of the JROTC. Through this operation, high school stu-
dents were to be prepared for “success” through the accomplishment of
certain objectives; namely,

— Develop leadership and patriotism.

— Develop informed and responsible citizens.

— Strengthen character.

— Acquaint students with the technical requirements
of the modern age.

— Develop an interest in the military services as a
possible career.

— Develop oral and written communication skills.

— Familiarize students with the MQS I.

— Acquaint students with the history, purpose, and
structure of military services, emphasizing
the accomplishments of the U.S. Army.

— Develop an appreciation of the value of physical
and mental fitness.

— Develop the basic skills necessary to work
effectively as a team member.

— Provide the motivation and means to graduate
from high school.

— Develop self-confidence, responsibility, and a
respect for authority.

Ms. Donna Marks, the chief of the JROTC Branch of the Training Divi-
sion, headed up the program of instruction review process that included a com-
prehensive cadre survey, a series of national workshops, and numerous con-
sultations with civilian educators. The results obtained from this review pro-
cess were used to prepare a final curriculum outline which contained the fol-
lowing major subject headings: introduction to JROTC, military history, tech-
nology, citizenship, communications, leadership and leadership lab, Cadet
Challenge, map reading, first aid, and drug awareness. For each of the four
Leadership Education and Training instruction levels, student texts, student
workbooks, instructor guides, and test banks were produced. The project was
completed and the program of instruction fully implemented by the spring of
1990,** The new curriculum differed markedly from the old one, which had been
adopted in 1980. Gone were the weapons training and tactical instruction that had
been such a big part of the JROTC curricula in pre-Cadet Command days.

270



RESTRUCTURING CADET COMMAND

for closure: units with “low viability” located near more viable ROTC units;
units that depended on “cross-enrolled” schools to sustain their enrollment;
and units that gave the least return on investment and that had evidenced “de-
clining viability” in the recent past. The proposed reductions would have
affected 731 cadets or approximately 2.2 percent of Cadet Command’s total
enrollment. Units slotted for the first round of inactivations (FY 1993) were
concentrated in the Northeast. See Table 4. *

Table 4

Proposed Closures FY 93
Unit Units

State Closures Remaining
Pennsylvania 9 21
Kentucky 3 6
New York 3 14
Missouri 2 12
Massachusetts 1 7
Georgia 1 1
North Carolina I 12
Virginia 1 16
Ohio 1 13
Indiana 1 6
Montana 1 2
California 1 16

Only if an ROTC unit was the only one in the state, an Historically Black
College or University (HBCU), or located in the state of Arkansas was it ex-
cluded from consideration. Wide geographic representation and cultural di-
versity, it was believed, were important qualities of the ROTC program that
had to be preserved—even at the expense of production efficiency if need be.
The prohibition against eliminating Arkansas units stemmed from the
command’s experience in Operation Horizon, which had resulted in six of the
state’s 10 programs being shut down. Arnold was determined that Arkansas
would suffer no further cuts.”

Both the TRADOC Commander, General Frederick M. Franks, Jr., and
the Secretary of the Army, Mr. Michael Stone, accepted Major General Arnold’s
closure recommendation. (The Secretary of the Army gave his approval with

239



MAJOR GENERAL JAMES M. LYLE
Commanding General
U.S. Army Cadet Command
Fort Monroe, Virginia

298



CONTENTS

Chapter 6
ERA OF DOWNSIZING ....
Major General Arnold's Emphasis on Quality
Building a Four-Year Program...
Elimination of the Early Commissioning Program

Elimination and Reinstatement of the

Active Guard/Reserve Force .......escsescsecsseesseeesseesnsesssessesesaeenseeensees
Change in Command Functions
Lyle Takes Command
Officer Production in the Post-Cold War Era

Declining Advertising Budget..
Increased Market Competition
Increased Time to Graduate .......
Financial Squeeze/Time Constraints
The Defense Department's Exclusionary Policy ..
Department of the Army Complacency
Personnel Shortages .
Personnel Turbulence
Enrollment Increase.......
Command Emphasis on Recruiting
Subsistence Allowance Increase...
Scholarship Tiering .
Command Name Change
Cadet Evaluation System wo... cesesseeesnessssseessessscsssseesescnseseeseeneess

Chapter 7
THE ARMY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
Pre-World War II
Post-World War II
Korea....
Post-Korea
The ROTC Vitalization Act of 1964
CONARC and TRADOC Initiatives .
Refining the Scholarship System
CONARC Scholarship Study...
Scholarship Diversification .... ae
Public Law 92-171 and Public Law 92-166
More Scholarship Varieties
Adjusting the Scholarship Mix
The Army Scholarship Analysis

vii



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

STATE LOCATIONS OF BRIGADE COMMANDERS (1986)

AL 1BDE/4RGN 2BDE/ARGN,

2BDE/SAGN

SBDE/4RGN 4BDE/4RGN

Figure 3-6. State Locations of Brigade Commanders (1986)

sity life. When Wagner took charge,” Colonel William Hausman, a brigade
commander in the Fourth Region, explained to a reporter from the Chicago
Tribune in a July 1989 interview, “he took as his mission to de-nerdify the
ROTC. To get rid of the image of pimply-faced kids with slide rules hanging
from their belts.”°°

The basic building block of the Cadet Command organizational struc-
ture was the cadet battalion. A PMS/battalion commander stood at the head
of each battalion—the PMS title signifying his responsibilities as an academic
department chairman, the battalion commander title his military role. Since
the end of the Korean War, the PMS was usually an Active Army colonel or
lieutenant colonel assigned to a campus for a three-year period. The Army
and the university both had a say in selecting the PMS; the Army nominated
him and the university either accepted or rejected him. A staff of five to ten
officers and noncommissioned officers assisted the PMS. In addition to

84



THE CADET COMMAND HERITAGE

“detailed uniform supervision” that the Comptroller’s study group felt was
necessary to put the ROTC program on a sound footing.**

The Comptroller’s report enumerated five alternatives to the existing
ROTC management structure. They were: (1) a special staff agency at the
Department of the Army; (2) a major command reporting directly to the De-
partment; (3) a separate command under Headquarters, CONARC; (4) an inte-
grated staff/command at Headquarters, CONARC; and (5) the organizational
status quo modified by augmenting the staffs at both CONARC and the Zone
of the Interior Army Headquarters.

Of the five alternatives, only two seem to have been seriously considered—
namely, alternatives three and four. Alternative three was patterned after the
Air Force ROTC organization. It called for a separate command reporting
directly to the Commanding General, CONARC. Alternative four entailed the
creation of a dual Deputy Chief of Staff for ROTC (DCSROTC)/ROTC Com-
mand in CONARC Headquarters exercising operational control over the pro-
gram. Under both alternatives, all ROTC units were to be withdrawn from the
control of the Zone of the Interior Armies and subordinated to the ROTC Com-
mander or the DCSROTC/ROTC Command. Control over ROTC units was to
be exercised through “area supervisors” or “area commandants,” who were to
be permanently stationed at CONARC Headquarters.

The Comptroller’s report recommended alternative three, a separate com-
mand under CONARC, as the “best” solution to ROTC’s organizational prob-
lem. This solution, the authors of the report maintained,

...features uniform, authoritative control over all ROTC/NDCC
operations. It is in sharp contrast to the present, diverse, decen-
tralized, loosely governed system. It provides a direct channel
between the PMS and the directing authority. Policy, guidance,
and support are thus made immediately available to the PMS, in
aradical departure from the present multi-layered channel through
which the PMS must find his way to get response to requests for
information or to urgent needs for administrative and logistical
support. The separate command under USCONARC establishes
a clean, clear-cut command with a clearly defined mission to ac-
complish.*°

The results of adopting this solution, it was predicted, would be the long-
sought after standardization of the program and the bestowal upon the ROTC

29



ERA OF DOWNSIZING

promoting quality over quantity. After a period of deliberation, he made the
decision to reinstate the incentive scholarship for School Year 1992-1993. To
do this, Major General Arnold had to take funds away from the more competi-
tive three- and four-year scholarship programs.®

Another move Major General Arnold made to enhance quality was to
adjust the criteria used to measure unit success. Under Wagner, production
totals were paramount. Arnold gave more weight to Advanced Camp scores
and the academic mix ratio, factors used to assess quality in precommissioning
preparation. So much weight was attached to Advanced Camp performance
that, in some battalions, cadets who appeared incapable of achieving a supe-
rior summer rating were discouraged from continuing in the ROTC. With
greater emphasis placed on the academic mix ratio, students pursuing “high
tech” majors like engineering and physics were at a premium. In an era when
the officer corps was shrinking, the feeling was, the command could afford to
be more discriminating in the type of individual it commissioned.’

Elimination of the Early Commissioning Program

Of all the measures taken in the Arnold regime to promote product qual-
ity, the elimination of the Early Commissioning Program (ECP) in 1991 was
perhaps the most far-reaching and consequential. After 1991, the program
lived on only in the six Military Junior Colleges associated with Cadet Com-
mand. While downsizing pressures did not directly cause the abandonment of
the Early Commissioning Program, they did create conditions that made the
abandonment practicable.

The roots of the ECP went back to 1966. Prior to that year, the granting
of an ROTC commission implied the concurrent award of a baccalaureate de-
gree. To meet the manpower requirements of the Vietnam War, the Congress
approved in 1966 a measure that allowed cadets at Military Junior Colleges
who had completed all the requirements of the ROTC Advanced Course to be
commissioned as second lieutenants and to be called to active duty. In some
respects, it was an officer’s version of “McNamara’s 100,000”.

After the war, widespread anti-military sentiment left over from Viet-
nam and the elimination of the draft led to officer recruiting problems, espe-
cially in the reserve components. To address these difficulties, the ECP was
introduced in 1978. The program permitted cadets who had successfully com-
pleted Advanced Camp and their MS IV year but who had not yet earned their
four-year degree to be commissioned in the reserves, provided that they were
slotted against a valid lieutenant vacancy in a troop program unit.?

149



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

students. The course’s five-day program of instruction emphasized both prod-
uct knowledge and recruiting techniques. On 9 July, the normal sequencing
of classes began by iterations of 40 students each, and by year’s end over 200
cadre had completed the training.

In the summer of 1980, the DCSROTC embarked upon a parallel cadre
training venture when it opened a cadre training center at the University of
Chicago under the direction of Morris Janowitz, the eminent military sociolo-
gist. At the center, the Atlanta-based Sales-Management firm, under contract
with the Army, offered a course that it called “ROTC Action-Management
Training.” In all, 30 ROTC instructors attended the first class. The following
summer, the course was repeated, but this time enrollment was limited to PMSs.
In April 1981, an orientation course for Active Guard/Reserve officers opened
at the National Guard Professional Education Center at Camp Robinson, Ar-
kansas again featuring “ROTC Action-Management Training.”

The “ROTC Action-Management Training” was something of a misno-
mer, for it did not always result in much action—at least not of the type de-
sired by Cadet Command. Extended motivational exercises crowded out classes
on product knowledge. In the opinion of Cadet Command staff members who
inherited the program, recipients of this training often returned to their cam-
puses little better prepared for their duties than they had been before they
left.”

After 1981, the TRADOC-taught Recruiting and Cadre Orientation
Course, which itself left much to be desired in the way of preparing ROTC
instructors for campus duty, grew rapidly in size and cost. TRADOC instruc-
tors trained more than 400 officers in 1982 and almost 800 in 1983. To
accommodate this enrollment increase, the DCSROTC had to establish 14
additional training sites at other locations throughout the country. Moreover,
in 1983, a five-day Marketing Manager’s Course, designed exclusively for
PMSs, and an Experienced ROTC Instructor Course, a refresher course for
veteran cadre, were added to the DCSROTC’s training program.

The proliferation of cadre training programs soon began to alarm
TRADOC staff officers. They were concerned that the DCSROTC’s instruc-
tor training efforts had no central focus and were not realizing the econo-
mies which could be achieved by closer Recruiting Command-DCSROTC
interaction. The upshot of all this unease was the decision to consolidate all
ROTC cadre training at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, and to establish an
ROTC school within the U.S. Army Soldier Support Center located at that
installation. The signing of a memorandum of understanding in February 1984

116



THE JUNIOR RESERVE OFFICERS' TRAINING CORPS

By mid-summer 1989, the High School Division had developed the Op-
eration Capital concept into a program that the District of Columbia’s educa-
tional administrators could endorse. It represented a partnership between the
Army and the Washington, D.C. school system aimed at improving the quality
of education by reducing drug abuse and drop-out rates and promoting good
citizenship.

One advantage of Operation Capital was that it could function within the
existing JROTC infrastructure without any additional resources or funding.
The operation involved a total of 874 Army cadets in JROTC battalions at
eight District of Columbia high schools. To ensure adequate coordination
between its headquarters and school authorities, Cadet Command assigned a
captain as liaison officer to the staff of the Washington, D.C. school
administration.*®

The program action plan consisted of eight activities intended to
supplement the Leadership, Education and Training program of instruc-
tion, namely: enrollment and retention, role model program, drill compe-
tition, summer camp, data collection, mentorship, orientation clinic, and
peer counseling. Based on these categories, each school was asked to de-
vise its own action plan, capitalizing on the strengths of its program, and,
at the same time, promoting cooperation and interaction between schools.
In this way, those schools with successful programs in one of the areas
(such as drill competition or enrollment) would help the others to reach
comparable levels of achievement.

The objective of the enrollment and retention program was to encourage
students to join JROTC. This was done primarily by soliciting the help of
officials in the high schools. In the role model program, cadets were treated
to a series of military and civilian guest speakers who advocated remaining in
school and staying drug-free as the keys to a good future. Drill competition
meets were considered necessary to build self-discipline, pride, unit cohesion
and teamwork. They were also intended to bring visibility to the benefits of
belonging to a JROTC battalion. Cadet Command and city school adminis-
tration-sponsored summer camps satisfied the student need for sports, adven-
ture, and individual skill development. Data collection (surveys, file
searches, and interviews) kept the information flow between the school
authorities and Cadet Command going and helped to develop programs
relevant to the needs of the students. A one-on-one relationship (or mentorship)
was encouraged between local businessmen or university students and cadets
to give them encouragement and support. Peer counseling allowed mature

273



CHAPTER IV

CADET TRAINING

One of the most important byproducts of the standardized
camp system was a more rational and effective training
sequence. The tiered training system with its staggered
reporting format was introduced at all Advanced Camps.

Consequently, all ROTC cadets now experienced sequential,
progressive and identical training.

The seeds of the revolution that Cadet Command was to effect in
precommissioning education and training in the mid-1980s were planted in
the late 1970s by a committee of officers known as the Officer Training and
Education Review Group. In the summer of 1977, the Army Chief of Staff,
within whose office the group operated, had entrusted this ad hoc committee
with the rather broad task of determining “officer education and training re-
quirements based on Army missions and individual career development needs.”
A complete revamping of the extant officer development system was neces-
sary, senior Army leaders agreed, because the Army was not “producing offic-
ers with the desired level of military competency.” This was particularly dis-
turbing, they felt, in an age when sophisticated weaponry put leader compe-
tency at a premium.!

The October 1973 Arab-Israeli War had initiated a period of introspec-
tion within the Army. The conflict had illustrated not only the lethality of
new weapons technology but also the effects of technological advances on
command and control. The accelerated operational tempo and battlefield dis-
persion that accompanied the new military calculus demanded more of lead-
ers, especially junior leaders, than ever before. Technical competence was
important but not in and of itself sufficient. Even lieutenants now had to
possess leadership qualities of the first order and be capable of making

91



U.S. ARMY CADET COMMAND: THE 10 YEAR HISTORY

Directorate, each army headquarters engaged its own local “experts” to
engineer an organization to its own liking. Thus, one army created an Office
of the DCSROTC. Another directed the ROTC through an ROTC Division
within the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. A third placed
its ROTC Division within the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Reserve
Forces and a fourth within the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
and Training.” With such an organization, standardization was impossible.

The impact of the reorganization initiative on the program was not great,
at least in the near term. It is true that as a result of this initiative, the ROTC
was identified more closely with the Active Army at the Department of the
Army level than previously and that the CONARC staff section responsible

ROTC/NDCC DIRECTORATE,
DCSIT, CONARC

ROTC/NDCC
Directorate

1 Technica
| ASSISTANCE

(Scholarships)
L___BRANCH

SERVICES & EVALUATION TRAINING & |'] PUBLIC AFFAIRS
SUPPORT & PLANS EDUCATION & RECRUITING
DIVISION DIVISION DIVISION DIVISION

|
STATISTICAL | INSTRUCTIONAL, PUBLIC
BRANCH | MATERIALS AFFAIRS
I BRANCH BRANCH
MANAGEMENT | | I !
BRANCH | OPERATIONS RECRUITING
z I \ BRANCH BRANCH
ADMINISTRATIVE |
BRANCH |
t

Figure 1-2. ROTC/NDCC Directorate, DCSIT, CONARC

32