Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP)

In order to make sure that the 103rd Infantry Division contained enough infantrymen, the division needed additional men assigned to its ranks at Camp Howze. Many of the men assigned to join the 103rd Infantry Division at Camp Howze came from the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP). Henry L. Stimson, the U.S. Secretary of War, first approved the ASTP in September 1942, anticipating that the draft age would be lowered from twenty to eighteen. When the Army lowered the draft age, it would be impossible to procure properly trained officers without the use of deferments. Continuously replenishing the national stock of young men with such training was an urgent necessity, especially if the war should last more than four or five years. Additionally, many believed that the Army's training and educational facilities were insufficient in extent and character to give the type of education required, so there were solid arguments for training potential officers in colleges and universities. Moreover, utilizing colleges and universities for the ASTP would protect these institutions from impoverishment or collapse, and the Army hoped that it might also minimize civilian educators' resistance to the draft age reduction. 

General Lesley J. McNair, who served as the Commander of the Army Ground Forces at the time, took a grave view of the nation’s requirements for adequate strength in combat. When confronted with the ASTP proposal on September 30, 1942, General McNair worried that a college program could threaten the military's existing training structures and strictly based his opposition to the ASTP on military considerations. The Ground Forces already had difficulties filling quotas for both Officer Candidate School (OCS) and ground units, and fourteen percent of the men who entered the Army in 1942 had some college education. McNair observed that the ASTP would remove even more highly qualified men from these forces. He believed that given the general policy of providing liberal opportunities for promotion and tapping all available manpower, not more than a quarter of the officer corps needed to be college graduates. In his opinion, the Army had a sufficient backlog of college-trained men at this time. Also fearing that the military discipline and the limited hours of military training received by ASTP men in colleges might be considered the equivalent of Regular Army training, he advised against introducing this phase of the program. He recommended that the college program not be launched until it was clear that the war would last beyond 1944, stating that: "if it is necessary to keep men in college to provide Army officers, then their whole effort might well be placed on academic studies, because, presumably, that is the reason for their going to college." 

The Army had already made the decision to institute the program when General McNair submitted these observations on October 4, 1942. With these submissions, he also included an ASTP plan as requested by the Army. The Army Ground Force's plan contained hurried estimates outlining how many graduates of the proposed program they could use. However, the program organizers construed these estimates as a statement that the Ground Forces "required" these graduates. Army Ground Forces immediately disclaimed this interpretation. They still believed that their forces had a sufficient supply of college men that would last through 1944, and they also thought that the OCS was sufficient for officer training. Despite these protests, the Army formally established the ASTP in December 1942. Instead of focusing on the production of officers as stated in preliminary proposals, the ASTP focused on the production of specialists that the Army might or might not ultimately commission as officers. The United States Government established the program primarily to ensure a continuous flow of technically and professionally trained men for the war effort. They designed the ASTP to identify, train, and educate academically-talented enlisted men at major colleges and universities across the country. The academic specialties were chiefly scientific, engineering, medical, and linguistic fields. Eligible candidates were enlisted men under twenty-two with an Army General Classification Test (AGCT) score above 110. For more advanced study, the program waived the age limit. 

In February 1943, the Army announced that "the mission of the Army Specialized Training Program is to prepare personnel for Officer Candidate Schools and for other military tasks." The Army accepted enlisted men into this program, providing a four-year college education combined with specialized Army technical training for one and one-half years. Men in the ASTP wore the insignia of the program on their uniforms. This insignia featured an octagon shoulder patch and depicted the lamp of knowledge crossed with the sword of valor — an allusion to the mental and physical capabilities of these officers-in-training. Men recruited for the ASTP came from both exisiting military division and new recruitment centers. The Army designed the ASTP to ensure they would receive men with advanced training shaped by military requirements, and they firmly tied the ASTP to their military program to avoid the shortcomings of the Student Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.) of World War I.

When men joined the ASTP, they were assigned to a regiment and attended thirteen weeks of basic training. After this, the ASTP assigned the selected enlisted men to various colleges and universities for academic instruction. Their college coursework followed an accelerated, two year plan of study. While enrolled in college, most men took at least 24 hours of course work while also continuing to receive 11 hours of military and physical training under a cadet organization each week. They were also required to study another 24 hours each week. They had to additionally maintain stringent grade requirements or risk being kicked out of the program and being sent overseas immediately. While enrolled in college, these men wore Army uniforms and received Army pay. The Army planned for ASTP soldiers to serve as a specialized corp of Army officers in both the successful prosecution of the war and the restoration of civilian governments in Nazi-occupied Europe after the war's end. 

At first, the Army contemplated that most of these men would attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) and commission as officers after completing college work. However, the critical shortage of infantrymen in the winter of 1943-44 was primarily responsible for the February 1944 liquidation of the ASTP. For two years, a crisis had been developing in the Ground Arms. Quantitatively, the provision for combat troops in the Troop Basis, especially for infantrymen, left no margin of safety. Qualitatively, the Army persistently denied the ground combat arms a proportionate share of high-intelligence personnel. The extension of ground combat made the consequences fully apparent by late 1943. As the invasion of France loomed, the Army could not ignore this shortage of infantrymen. Though the military contemplated converting manpower from the Air and Service Forces to the Ground Forces, such a move was too tricky. Sacrificing the ASTP was one way to speedily meet the critical need to rehabilitate the ground arms. When the program ended, men in the early stages of study were almost immediately drafted as replacements after being allowed to finish out their current semester. After leaving the ASTP, most men became privates in the infantry and lost any rank they may have gained before joining the program. Most divisions received at least 500 former ASTP men into their program, but many stateside or smaller divisions (including the 103rd Infantry Division) received a larger amount of men.

The Army Specialized Training Program was a series of disillusionments for many participants. After repeated declarations by the War Department to justify the program, it seemed arbitrary to suddenly snatch away the select group of young men undergoing such training (only two percent of the Army) to convert them into infantry privates. When the Army suddenly made the ASTP soldiers infantrymen instead of officers, some disappointments were bound to occur. Had they not been sent to college for this program, some ASTP men would undoubtedly have gone to Officer Candidate Schools (OCS). Going to OCS would have been an advantage for both these men and the Army Ground Forces, although the ASTP did come at a time when OCS quotas declined. The civilian educators participating in the ASTP also struggled to understand the abrupt termination of their efforts, even if they accepted it as a military necessity. Since many of the 103rd infantrymen came from the liquidated ASTP, you can explore their personal thoughts on the program’s abrupt end and their feelings about its dissolution in their personal accounts. After the dissolution of the ASTP, many participants from colleges in the surrounding area joined the 103rd Infantry Division while they were stationed at Camp Howze in Gainesville, Texas.