JANUARY 21, 2026 – The Washington National Guard is cutting the timeline for commissioning officers through its Officer Candidate School, or OCS, by four months while maintaining the exact training-hour requirements and adhering to the same standards as in the traditional 18-month-long course.
Qualified individuals who would like to commission through the Washington state OCS program typically have a timeline of 18 to 24 months. The timeline begins with an unofficial pre-OCS program lasting anywhere from two months to one year, followed by a two-week resident course for OCS Phase I, then one weekend a month for 12 months for OCS Phase II, culminating in a two-week OCS Phase III just before earning their commission.
“The compressed cycle drops down into eight drill weekends, so we shaved four months off the traditional program from 12 to eight,” said Lt. Col. Nicholas Zaharavech, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 205th Regiment, Regional Training Institute, which runs the Washington OCS program.
They accomplish this by extending drill weekends to three days rather than the traditional two during OCS Phase II.
The change was initiated by nationwide National Guard necessities, Zaharavech said. This change aligns the Washington National Guard OCS program with many other states and synchronizes the timing of their Phase III training programs.
Unconcerned by the administrative reasons for the change, the current students welcome it.
“I was very excited when I was told it was shorter,” said officer candidate Jonathan Mahoney, a student in the Phase II class that started Aug. 8, 2025.
Mahoney, a software engineer from Seattle, is an O9S, meaning he enlisted in the National Guard solely to complete OCS and commission.
More recent graduates celebrate the shorter timeline and have their own thoughts on the impacts of the schedule change.
“Absolutely, I would have preferred the compressed [schedule] to get in and out quickly to evaluate my leadership capabilities,” said 1st Lt. Josh Peters, who earned his commission in 2022 (class 65).
The cadre is taking a measured approach to the new OCS Phase II timeline.
“We will get a good feel for it this year,” said Capt. Eric Dunkley, the OCS company commander.
Dunkley said his cadre will get to exercise different skills with this condensed timeline.
“Where you separate the science of leadership and the art of leadership, and this goes into the art of leadership, providing the same quality in a different package,” Dunkley said.
Officer candidates are expected to meet the same curriculum benchmarks, pass exams on military history and other topics, complete 9- and 12-mile ruck marches for time and with specific weight requirements, complete a 4-mile run and successfully execute a field training exercise. Each candidate also will undergo leadership evaluations.
Washington’s OCS program is challenging, and the compressed timeline will pose its own challenges.
“I see challenges in being prepared for all the material,” Mahoney said. “But I think with the dedication of my class, our motivation I think that we are all going to do great.”
Mahoney added that he believes planning on the shortened timeline may better prepare them for when they become platoon leaders, a sentiment shared by Peters.
“It may be a firehose, but an officer should be prepared to execute many tasks in between [drill weekends] to ensure readiness for the following [drill weekend],” Peters said.
“Honestly, I see things as kind of a cosmic zero,” said Dunkley about the pros and cons of a long versus short OCS program.
While the cadre has fewer months to work with the candidates, cadre members will have more extended weekends to observe and mentor them. The cadre will also, for the first time, have a break between cycles, enabling them to take some much-needed rest.
“There is worry, but since we haven’t executed it yet, we don’t know what we don’t know,” Dunkley said.
National Guard units, including OCS, typically drill on Saturday and Sunday. The three-day timeline over nine months is quite unusual and could prove tough on schedules.
Peters doesn’t think the extended drill weekends will be an issue.
“It would have had minimal impact for most of my peers,” Peters said.
His class started with 23 candidates and graduated five. Peters believes a lengthy commitment was a significant cause of that attrition, and he thinks the three-day, eight-month commitment for Phase II would have resulted in a better retention rate among his peers.
According to Zaharavich, the attrition rate for the class that commissioned on Aug. 8 was high, with five candidates graduating. While no one knows the impact of the shorter timeline, the attrition rate may be lower.
Now that Washington’s OCS Phase II will finish in March, it will conduct its Phase III in March/April, aligning with most other state OCS programs, which have switched already to an eight-month Phase II program. While this enables candidates to earn their commissions earlier, having Phase III in March poses obvious challenges, including the weather.
“I think it will be more realistic to the conditions we have here in the state,” Mahoney said. “We will understand what our soldiers are going through. And how your soldiers are feeling when they are on that long, two-week annual training. If they are out in the rain for two weeks, that will be similar,” Mahoney said about the weather conditions in Washington in March/April.
“Yes, March-April timeline is probably not ideal, it is what it is, we gotta fight through it. We identify the risk and mitigate them,” Dunkley said about Phase III, where planners are already mitigating those risks.
Medical staff members are preparing for an increase in cold and wet-weather injuries. The cadre is considering getting more dryers to the barracks to ensure candidates can dry their gear between the two field portions of Phase III, and to have backup plans should aircraft not be available for the two air infiltrations the course usually conducts.
“Also, there is something to be said for embracing the suck. It’s learning that resiliency by facing adversity,” Dunkely said.
A potential boost to OCS recruitment may counterbalance the challenges of conducting field training in early spring.
Dunkley believes there may be benefits to both potential OCS candidates and schoolhouse cadre recruitment under the new program timeline. Reducing the training pipeline by three months and including a break for cadre greatly improves the quality of life.
“We will have to see what those numbers bear out,” Dunkley said.
Specifically, the schoolhouse team is looking to attract current noncommissioned officers into the program. Zaharavich confirms that NCOs seeking commissioning prefer the 12-week program, but the state doesn’t have the funding for it, so sometimes interested, qualified NCOs forgo the opportunity to commission because of the program’s intensive time commitment.
Regardless of the timeline, students still need to get through the program, and Peters has some advice for them.
“Spend time in the doctrine. Go above the expectations of the cadre. Do not be risk-averse – OCS is the class to make informed risks. Make mistakes and fall forward. You will be corrected by your cadre, and it is worth it,” Peters said.
By Capt. Ann Marie Schult-Slosser
Washington National Guard