CAS3 merged with Officer Advanced Courses

Army Logistician, July-August, 2004

The last class of the 5-week Combined Arms and Services Staff School (CAS3) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, graduated in May, and the responsibility for staff officer skills training was transferred to the branch proponent schools. The branch schools will expand their Officer Advanced Courses (OACs) by 1 week to include a combined arms exercise to provide captains with much of the combined-arms experience that was a critical part of CAS3.

The merger of the course curriculums resulted from approval by the Secretary of the Army of the Army's plan to merge CAS3 and OACs to eliminate redundant instruction and minimize captains' time away from operational assignments and their families.

In the past, instruction in areas such as problem-solving and military decisionmaking has been a part of the curriculum of both the OACs and CAS3. Decisionmaking also is taught later in an officer's career at the Army Command and General Staff College. "Some repetition is good," said Colonel David S. Thompson, CAS3 director at Fort Leavenworth. "What we're trying to do is eliminate any redundancy in instruction."

The merger, planned as part of the transformation of the Officer Education System, was originally scheduled for fiscal year 2005 but was moved up for operational reasons. "With the Army at war, captains need to get back to their units," Thompson said. The course merger will get them back to units almost 4 weeks earlier.

Fort Leavenworth has been conducting 7 CAS3 classes per year with about 450 students each. Active-duty captains have been attending CAS3 at Leavenworth immediately after finishing the OAC at their branch schools. In recent years, most captains have gone to their advanced course as a permanent change of station move. Now they will go in a temporary duty status and return to their units.

Army National Guard and Army Reserve captains may continue to take CAS3 at Army Reserve Forces Schools at least until the current courses finish at the end of fiscal year 2004.