What Do You Think About Opportunities or Lack Thereof Regarding Military Specialty Schools?

Functional fit? I'm not going to send my cook to dive school...

Schools are not toys to be given out like candy because someone feels they deserve it. The Army owes nothing but MOS and NCOES training in the form of schools. The fact that schools are hard to get, makes them more desirable. The needs of the Army trump any personal entitlement to a school.
Also, there are a lot of opportunities for these schools. I went to Airborne School and Ranger School as a cook
cook. Fort Benning has a policy of allowing any resident to walk on to their schools. Campbell sends everyone to Air Assault.
The opportunities are there, it's up to the Soldier to stand out by making the most of them.

The school should fit the MOS in my opinion. As we all know, sometimes slots are used by a BN or BDE on a soldier who may not fit the bill for that particular school, but is available to go when others can't or won't. For exampl, I'm a 42r (Band) and I just attended Air Assault in March while serving in the National Guard. Don't ask me how we got a slot, because I don't know and I don't care, but I went on to be the Honor Grad!! The opportunities come around and every dog has his day. But overall we can't afford to send everybody who wants to go to any school they want. In my opinion, the Army should strive to give opportunity where available, but schools should go to the necessary MOSs first and for most.

I must agree with most here. The Army isn't there to educate and provide competence not needed for a Soldier. The needs of the Army - I know that it doesn't sit right with the millennium generation, but we can't just send Soldiers to school just because the Soldier wants it. It has to be a sound investment. No company would send personnel to training if they wouldn't get that investment back in some form or another. Sending a cook to dive school would be a waste of taxpayers money.

As a CDR, I think of these as retention, recruitment or promotion incentives for Soldiers. In the end most are aligned with where the Soldier is assigned. Makes sense if you are in 82nd, 101st or SOF units (Airborne, Air Assault, Ranger, Scuba etc..) there is a purpose for training requirements regardless of MOS.

The problem with limiting schools by MOS or Unit is that it grants people an unfair advantage. You are essentially punished for "not being assigned MOS X" or "not being assigned to unit Z", neither of which you have any control over. That's all arbitrarily assigned by the Army deities that be.

CPT (Join to see), at the risk of being highly unpopular, I am going to have to say "NO." Not because I want to be a jerk, or deny anyone the chance to ruin their back and knees jumping out of a perfectly good airplane, but because we are an organization that exists for a purpose and that lives within certain budget realities.

Functional fit and budget are the REASONS for the organization TO send people to schools - to allow them to grow and better serve the organization in whatever current or projected future role they hold.

To use me as an example, I would love to go to dive school (civilian diver). Same with Combatives through level 4 (avid kickboxer and several years MMA), and a host of others. However, the odds are exactly zero that I will ever dive or train divers for the Army in the time remaining in my career. While the odds aren't exactly zero with respect to combatives, they are close enough for government work.

Sending people to schools because they are "fun", "cool", or because they have a Pokimon approach to badges is fraud, waste, and abuse. It is a failure to steward the profession and care for Soldiers as a whole. Blowing budgets for schools will mean that we will have to take the axe somewhere else. Filling slots with people whom we believe will never USE what is taught in the interests of the DoD means that we are not sending people who WILL use those skills.

Likewise, in my civilian role, I would send anyone who wanted to go to project management classes to them, whether they were PMs or coders, on the logic that it would increase their value to the organization. However, I would NOT send a PM to a coding class, even if they were a really great employee, were really enthusiastic, and really wanted to go. Nor, except in truly exceptional cases, would I pay for an accounting course. The organization would gain nothing from any "increase in skills."

The one exception is schools with slots that are going to waste and Soldiers who are available to fill them at little to no marginal cost. An example would be at JBLM, where they teach Combatives Level 1. My understanding is that the schoolhouse will let you "walk on" a class if they have an empty slot the day the class starts, and you have all the appropriate paperwork ready to go. If I had a motivated Soldier who was ready to go and local to JBLM, and I could afford to lose them for a week, go for it. Generally, you are not going to see that a lot on the reserve side, unless the Soldier is local and willing to train in a points only status (otherwise they are on orders for pay, and likely travel, and eating into one of your budgeted pools of money). And they are going to need to be in some official status in order to protect them in case of injury.

I think it's worth noting that nobody is beating down the doors for the Field Sanitation courses that you actually need people to attend...

I would say budget, slots, functional really come into play. Would you rather pay for a Soldier to go to WLC or airborne school? Both help with promotions but one is required and a metrics and probably has more slots. I say have a few Hooah schools and send your best warriors or top of the lot if you get slots. That rewards them and the command buys into it as bragging rights of having a best warrior.

Officers are different. We have no competition and if selfless service we would give all alots to our enlisted. However, you have to take care of yourself and your leaders, so there needs to be some kind of balance like every fourth slot got officer or something. Still super competitive, but helps motivate the officer corps.

The military is for the defense of our nation. The people who sign up have a chance to become a diver or a cook according to their abilities and the needs of the military. How many people would go hungry while waiting on the cook to return back from dive school? Is this a question about why life isn't fair?

BLUF: budget restrictions and MTOE will always drive school slotting. Period.

On the enlisted side, NCOES takes precedence over all schools. It's fiscally irresponsible to send a mechanic from a heavy unit to Airborne School unless they have reenlisted for an Airborne Unit, and that takes away from the unit's combat power while that Soldier is at Fort Benning for three weeks, as an example. For more technical schools, such as Pathfinder or Air Assault that teach a more universally applicable skills, the Soldier in question must display an aptitude for the skill set and meet the prerequisites, which do not always guarantee success. However, there also has to be a need for those special qualifications within that unit, hence why the MTOE calls for certain ASI/SQIs.

On the officer side, most Cadets are afforded the opportunity to go to Aiborne or Air Assault because they have not been either branched or assigned to a specific type of unit, thereby making them more marketable to the HRC manning cycles. Further schooling, such as Pathfinder, ARC, RSLC, CLC, Ranger etc. are driven by necessity, MTOE and to a certain extent, the vision of the Commander and how he/she wants their organization to look and operate. Other specialty schools will be attended if a selection program is attended and successfully completed. At that point, it's once again driven by necessity of that organization to which you belong or will belong. I suggest you look at DA PAM 600-3 to see what your branch deems as applicable schools to your professional development as well as your timeline.

Schools can be used as an incentive for reenlistment, with the due caution on the back end that if you go here and successfully complete the school, you will PROBABLY be reassigned to that specific type of unit, thus hindering the unit's combat power in the long run. This is mostly referring to Airborne School.

Does that help?