For enlisted men, there were still many pathways available to receive specialized training in the Army, based on factors such as age, test scores, and the level of education you had attained prior to enlistment. The Army needed doctors, engineers, and soldiers who had proficiency in various foreign languages, among other skills.
Citation: Howard University. (n.d.). Men of the Basic Engineering Course at Howard University standing at Attention During Retreat. Digital Howard. photograph, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from https://dh.howard.edu/ccjphotos_astp/3/.
Identifier: ccJ_282
The following object description information includes basic elements from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). An additional notes field is included to list dates from the actual letter, envelope postmark locations, and any other identifying details.
Notes – Handwritten letter, four pages. Includes envelope, postmarked March 11, 1943, 4:30PM, from Frederick, MD.
Bud's wife Grace Isabel Dolin also worked in the shoe store and according to the article below she would have at least two of the criteria to make a hireable woman in 1943.
Citation: Street, D. (2016, April 12). The 1943 Guide to Hiring Women. History Daily. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://historydaily.org/the-1943-guide-to-hiring-women
Assignment and Promotion
In this letter, Isabel references her husband Bud, who has enlisted and is waiting to enter Officer training (OCS, or Officer Candidate School). There was definitely a divide between enlisted and officer ranks, although when John mentions Bud he doesn't seem to reference this in any way. While we get no clues as to why Bud was eligible for OCS and John wasn't, the following description sheds some light:
"The officer class, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, was smaller and more selective than the enlisted population. Four pathways to entering that class existed: the United States Military Academy, Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs, direct commissioning, and Officer Candidate Schools (OCS). Combined, the first three produced less than half of officers during WWII. The most common pathway was an OCS program. Created in 1941, OCS turned enlisted men into officers through twelve- to seventeen-week courses. It also provided a bridge across the officer-enlisted social chasm, though crossing opportunities narrowed in late 1943 to prevent a junior officer surplus."
For more information, please visit the Assignment and Promotion page of The American Soldier in World War II website.
Citation: Gatzemeyer, Garret. “Assignment & Promotion.” The American Soldier in World War II. Edited by Edward J.K. Gitre. Virginia Tech, 2021. https://americansoldierww2.org/topics/assignment-promotion.