Military Review English Edition May-June 2016 | Page 79

RIGOROUS EDUCATION
DC: Department of the Army, March 2015), 7–8. A more immediate
example appears in the refocusing of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team,
1st Cavalry Division, in Justin Naylor, “New ‘Black Jack’ Command
Team Focused on Basics,” U.S. Army Homepage, 14 April 2010,
accessed 15 March 2016, http://www.army.mil/article/37347/.
8. The Army War College Defense Strategy Course and the Army
G-3/5 (Operations and Plans) Strategic Education and Development
Program (formerly the Harvard Strategist Program) confer the additional skill identifier (ASI) 6Z, the same as the strategic studies track.
Graduates of the Joint and Combined Warfighting School administered through the Joint Forces Staff College receive ASI 3H, the same
ASI as the Joint Planner track at Leavenworth.
9. Requirements for strategic education are laid out in AR 350‑1,
“Army Training and Leader Development,” 19 August 2014, 77.
10. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jon Griese, former HQDA G-3/5 (Operations and Plans) functional area (FA) 59 proponent, email to author,
25 August 2015; HQDA G-3/5, periodic memoranda regarding
distribution of advanced military studies program (AMSP) students
(Washington, DC: HQDA G-3/5, 2005–2013). The FA 59 proponent officer at the Army G-3/5 Strategic Leadership Division is also
responsible for distribution of AMSP students after graduation and
handles requests for AMSP graduates from the force. The application process for AMSP has been in effect with minor changes since
the inception of the course. Harold R. Winton, interview by Richard
Mustion, 5 April 2001, U.S. Army War College Senior Officer Oral
History Program, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL; School of Advanced
Military Studies, Program Guide AY 2016 (Fort Leavenworth, KS:
School of Advanced Military Studies, 2015), 18.
11. OPMS XXI Task Force, Tab 17, “Officer Education System
Revisions,” dated in Annex D, “OPMS XXI Task Force Recommendations,” Officer Personnel Management System XXI Final Report, vol.
III, prepared for the Chief of Staff of the Army (Washington, DC:
Headquarters, OPMS XXI Task Force, 1997); Leonard D. Holder and
Williamson Murray, “Prospects for Military Education,” Joint Forces
Quarterly 18 (Spring 1998): 86–88.
12. Holder and Murray, “Prospects for Military Education”: 90;
Charles D. Allen and George J. Woods, “Developing Army Enterprise
Leaders,” Military Review 95(4) ( July–August 2015): 42–49; Jason
Warren, “The Centurion Mindset and the Army’s Strategic Leader
Paradigm,” Parameters 45(3) (Autumn 2015): 28–38.
13. The legacy GRE General Test standard for advanced civil
schooling was 500 verbal, 500 quantitative, and 4.0 for writing. Based

on the ETS conversion table for scores prior to 1 August 2011, the
current GRE General Test scores are 143 verbal, 147 quantitative,
and 4.0 for writing.
14. The U.S. Army War College publishes a list of strategic topics
of special interest to the U.S. Army annually as the Key Strategic
Issues List. CGSC is accredited by the North Central Association of
Colleges and Schools to grant master’s degrees. The component for
accreditation that would be affected by an increase in the number
of MMAS degrees being conferred is Core Component 2b, “The
organization’s resource base supports its educational programs and
its plans for maintaining and strengthening their quality in the future,”
U.S. Army CGSC, CGSC Bulletin 933, CGSC Accreditation Program,
14 July 2011, 16.
15. Merit-based CSC selection boards were reinstated per
Secretary of the Army John McHugh, memorandum to Principal
Officials of Headquarters, Department of the Army, et al., Army
Directive 2012-21, Optimization of Intermediate-Level Education, 14
September 2012.
16. The process for application to SAMS involves a written entrance examination lengthier than the GRE verbal or written sections.
17. The “no-major-left-behind” label, a common expression
among CGSC students (to include the author’s own) and graduates
when universal resident attendance was the norm, owes to the perceived relaxing of standards to accommodate the greater population
of officers attending resident ILE in the absence of a selection board.
Tanya Biank, Undaunted: The Real Story of America’s Servicewomen in
Today’s Military (New York: NAL Caliber, 2013), 170.
18. U.S. Army CGSC, CGSC Bulletin 903, Command and General
Staff College Academic Performance, Graduation and Awards Policies
and Procedures (Fort Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Army CGSC, 30 January
2012), 9.
19. Thomas E. Ricks, “A Field Grade Army Officer on What the
Problem is with U.S. Military Education,” Foreign Policy online, 11
December 2014, accessed 15 March 2016, http://foreignpolicy.
com/2014/12/11/a-field-grade-army-officer-on-what-the-problemis-with-u-s-military-education/.
20. Brown, “The Army University: Educating Leaders to Win in a
Complex World”: 19–20.
21. John M. McHugh and Raymond T. Odierno, The Army Vision
(Washington: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 2015), 7.
22. Jon Griese, email to author; HQDA G-3/5, memoranda
regarding distribution of AMSP students.

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