Re: New Face at DPMO

Date: June 04, 2004

"Military science prof in OU's ROTC program wins national recognition

By Nick Claussen Athens NEWS Associate Editor

While most students at Ohio University are training for careers and advanced educational programs, a few are also training to fight wars in Iraq and other places.

These students are in the Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC), and if they're in the Army division they are under the command of Lt. Col. Doug Orr, professor of military science. OU also has an Air Force ROTC program.

Many, but not all, of the students in the Army ROTC program receive scholarships, and many in the program go on to serve in the military.

The program received high praise from the Army recently when Orr was named the Professor of Military Science of the Year. Orr competed against leaders from the other 270 ROTC programs in the country, and he said it's an honor to be given this national award.

"I was surprised," he said about winning the national prize.

He sees the award as an honor for the OU ROTC program, especially recognizing the improvements it has made in recent years.

The program currently has 55 cadets, in addition to 20 students taking the ROTC classes for credit. Currently, the breakdown is 15 seniors, 21 juniors and 19 freshmen and sophomores, Orr said.

The number of students in the program has stayed about the same over the last few years, but Orr said the OU program has made some changes to improve the quality of the cadets produced by the program.

"We have raised the standards," Orr confirmed.

The national ROTC program is now pushing the OU program to recruit and produce more cadets in future years, Orr said. Increasing the number of cadets is a good goal he thinks can be achieved, he said.

In order to do that, the program probably will increase the number of scholarships it gives out, and increase its number of staff members in future years, Orr said. The Army and Air Force ROTC programs are based in Lindley Hall on the OU campus, and Orr said there's room to grow in the building.

Lindley Hall provides the classroom and office space, but the ROTC programs also use other spaces on campus for physical training and laboratory programs, Orr said.

Physical training programs are held on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for 90 minutes each day, and the cadets have three lab hours each week.

In past years, the ROTC program prepared the students for Army life when they got out of school, and that Army life would be dedicated to protecting the country. All of that still rings true, but today the cadets are also being prepared to possibly go fight in a war.

Orr said that he has brought back former OU ROTC cadets who have been in war situations in Iraq or Afghanistan to talk to the OU cadets about their experiences. The cadets are anxious to hear from the former OU students, and Orr said he and the other staff members do everything they can to get the OU students ready for what they'll face after they leave Athens.

IRONICALLY, WHILE ORR has been given a national honor for his teaching and leadership skills with the OU program, he is being transferred out of the program this summer.

Orr's specialty in the Army is strategic intelligence, and he worked in that area before he came to OU to lead the ROTC program four years ago. In his previous duty, Orr was based in Hawaii, but he could not discuss much of what he did.

He is now being transferred to Washington, D.C., to work in the Office of the Secretary of Defense POW/MIA (prisoner of war/missing in action) Affairs.

Orr will assist the POW/MIA situation in North Korea. He will not travel with teams to North Korea, but will be doing research and contacting families when the Army has new information on any soldiers who were listed as POW/MIAs in the Korean War.

New information becomes available all the time, and plenty of research work needs to be done, Orr said.

He has enjoyed teaching and working with OU students and staff for the last four years, but now said he's looking toward his next challenge.

Orr and his family have enjoyed life in Athens so much, though, that after he serves a year in Washington, D.C, Orr plans to retire from the military and return to Athens to live and work in the private sector."