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Army announces updated General Omar N. Bradley Fellowship Program

By Maj. Brigid Hickman, Maj. Nick Bono and Maj. Tyler HoranApril 6, 2023

General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley, Chief of Staff, United States Army
General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley, Chief of Staff, United States Army (Photo Credit: Portrait by Clarence Lamont MacNelly, 1972) VIEW ORIGINAL

WASHINGTON — The Army continues to demonstrate progress implementing the 2020 Army People Strategy with the recent decision to update one of its longest-running and most important broadening opportunity programs.

For 40 years, the former Joint Chiefs of Staff/Office of the Secretary of Defense/Army Staff Internship (JCS Internship) served as the Army’s de facto junior executive program. Each year, the Army board-selects 20 senior captains for graduate-level public policy education and follow-on assignments within the Department of Defense’s most senior staffs.

Recently, the Director of the Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt, and the Headquarters, Department of the Army G-3/5/7, Lt. Gen. Patrick Matlock, endorsed and approved a rebranding to the General Omar N. Bradley Fellowship Program. This shift aligns the program’s outcomes with the Army People Strategy’s four lines of effort — acquire, develop, employ, and retain talent — and Army 2030 objectives by forging new partnerships with organizations leading defense innovation. Bradley Fellowship alum, and the Commanding General of Army Futures Command, Gen. James Rainey, noted in an interview with the Army Times, “modernizing and not transforming is going to end up with a bunch of kit without the right leaders.”

Named in honor of Gen. Omar N. Bradley, who served as both Chief of Staff of the Army and the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this fellowship builds cohorts of officers that think strategically, communicate effectively, collaborate constructively and act confidently to address the most challenging defense problems.

The program phasing remains unchanged: Bradley Fellows receive graduate education at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, gain experience through utilization tours across OSD, the Joint Staff and the Army Staff, and are broadened through immersive experiences with Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational organizations. New program additions include innovation and policy-related training coordinated through the Defense Innovation Unit’s National Security Innovation Network. Both an innovation bootcamp and a policy capstone seminar now provide Fellows the tools to address Army-directed problems, an avenue for submitting solutions directly to Army Headquarters, and a network to support innovation when they return to the Operating Force.

Commanders are encouraged to identify their best officers to apply. Interested candidates can find more information about the Bradley Fellowship through Human Resource Command’s Broadening Opportunity Programs Catalog (CAC-enabled) and on the Bradley Fellowship’s website.