<p>Tonight is Branch Night for the Firsties when they officially find out if they are going to be assigned their 1st choice Branch selection....Good luck to the Firsties of 2009 and hopefully we all get a phone call tonight!!</p>
<p>Shogun - I hope your daughter gets her first choice - let us know when you get a phone call...
I second your good luck wishes to all of the Firsties!</p>
<p>Got a call this evening--she did get her first choice---</p>
<p>what is branch night?</p>
<p>Great news Shogun :)</p>
<p>kpsong - branch night is the night when all of the Firsties find out what branch of service they will assigned to within the army when they graduate.</p>
<p>Congratulations to your daughter, Shogun! Branch night already! Wow!</p>
<p>Shogun,</p>
<p>Congratulations on your daughter getting her first choice in branch assignments.</p>
<p>I haven't heard from our firstie son about his assignment but am hopeful he has gotten his first choice.</p>
<p>For those unfamiliar with Branch Night, this is the event at which the Firstie cadets are informed which branch (infantry, aviation, military intelligence, field artillary, and so on) they will be assigned to after graduation. Cadets submit their preferences in advance and the assignments are allocated to cadets based on their class rank and branch preferences. Each year, the Army Personnel(G-1) sets the number of available positions in each branch. </p>
<p>About six months later, the firsties get their post assigments (location within their branch) in a similar manner, again based on cadet preference and cadet ranking.</p>
<p>shogun,</p>
<p>Congrats to your daughter on getting her 1st choice last night. My daughter did also. </p>
<p>aspen,</p>
<p>Sure hope you know something soon. </p>
<p>Question: Isn't post night sometime in January. I can't remember why I think so.</p>
<p>I believe Post Night is Feb 26, the night before 100th Night Show..</p>
<p>Heard from our son that he got his first choice branch of Military Intelligence. Now he's looking at the various posts offered for MI.</p>
<p>Shogun, you are probably right (as usual) about the date for Post Night. The timing would be about right.</p>
<p>Anyone else notice that the USMA online academic and master calendars are no longer available? Any info on why?</p>
<p>RE: the calendar....on parent-net the moderator told us USMA took the calendars down but she said they did not give a reason. I am hoping it is only a temporary thing and they will put it back up eventually.</p>
<p>I got my first choice--Aviation. Pretty excited! Both me and my roommate will be going down to Rucker together. Should be fun!</p>
<p>Congrats Marines4Me!!!!
Aspen, glad to hear abt your son--looks like our kids (if we can still call them that) will be training together!</p>
<p>Branch night is when each Senior (Firstie) Cadet is given their 'Branch' from a submitted priority list. ( Infantry, Armor, Aviation, SIgnal Corps, etc) . AS I understand it preferences are assigned based on class rank. Post night, is when (in the same process) their first post (location is assigned. Somewhere is an ROTC site that gives a good description of the branches. </p>
<p>ALSO, shogun, marines4me and others were my 'guienna (sp) pigs' for my son .. he graduated the same HS year, but ultimately got civil prep at nmmi in june. I watched in sadness as those got accepted and got LOAs... but for those out there watching and waitin; be open to the options of getting in , it is all good. My S is a very sucessful Cow (Junior). SO all the angst from 4 years ago, is replaced by pride in these cadets ... in the end it is the results that matter</p>
<p>ALL THE BEST</p>
<p>Here is a website that gives a great description of all the branches-</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://www.branchorientation.com%5DHome%5B/url">http://www.branchorientation.com]Home[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Congrats to all the Firsties!!
Does anyone know when the stats for branch night will be released?</p>
<p>Branch Night for the Class of 2009 </p>
<p>This past Sunday evening, 2 November 2008, the West Point Class of 2009 received their eagerly-awaited branch assignments. Although the procedure now is completely computerized, the uncertainty for many was not diminished. The current process is a far cry from that of the past, when the number of slots available in each branch was displayed on an overhead projector (earlier, it had been a blackboard) and the names of the cadets were called one by one in order of merit. As each cadet proclaimed his choice, the number adjacent to a given branch (only five were available then) was diminished by one until it reached zero. As each branch filled, many cadets still awaiting their turn had to adjust their expectations accordingly. In days of yore, the Corps of Engineers almost always reached capacity first, while the limited slots available in the Air Force before Colorado Springs was running at full capacity caused much consternation as well.</p>
<p>This past Sunday, the first member of the Class of 2009 in order of general merit chose Aviation, but the second chose the Queen of Battle, followed by 199 other men, including 50 who opted to incur an additional active duty service obligation (ADSO) in return for the honor of being called a “Grunt” and earning a Combat Infantryman Badge. Another 141 chose the King of Battle, the Field Artillery, including three women and five ADSO, while 130 selected the Corps of Engineers (which closed out 11th), including 22 women and 26 ADSO. Many of those selecting the latter two branches may find themselves spending more time than was common in the past on Infantry-type missions.</p>
<p>The Combat Arm of Decision, Armor, drew 94 men, including 24 ADSO, while Aviation, closing out second (Finance was first, attracting six, including one woman and one ADSO) drew 85, including 13 women and 21 ADSO. Military Intelligence was next in sheer numbers, with 79, including 14 women and 19 ADSO, while Air Defense Artillery followed with 57, including five women. </p>
<p>In Combat Support/Combat Service Support, the Signal Corps appealed to the most, 52, with 10 women and 10 ADSO, while the Medical Service Corps, closing out third, accounted for 25, with 17 women and six ADSO. (Infantry closed out fourth). The Quartermaster Corps attracted 15 women and eight men, while the Ordnance Corps and the Adjutant General’s Corps each attracted 20, including nine women choosing the former and 14 women and three ADSO opting for the latter. The class provided 17 potential future doctors, including three women; ten Transportation Corps, including two women; and eight Chemical Corps, including one woman. Finally, one woman and two men opted for an inter-service transfer, two to the Navy and one to the Marine Corps. Overall, the Class of 2009 soon will provide 988 commissioned leaders of character to assist in the Global War on Terror, including 169 who accepted an additional active duty obligation in order to receive their branch of choice.</p>
<p>The ceremony differed in two significant ways this year. First, upon entering the Eisenhower Hall auditorium, each member of the Class of 2009 was presented a personal copy of a book written expressly for them by members of the 50-Year Affiliate Class of 1959. The volume is Leadership: Combat Leaders and Lessons and was published by Stand Up America, USA. A number of the graduates who provided essays for the book were on hand, including GEN (Ret.) Fred Franks (originally commissioned in Armor) and BG (Ret.) Pete Dawkins (originally commissioned in the Infantry), who spoke during the ceremony. Seven other members of the Class of 1959, representing Field Artillery, Engineers, Military Intelligence, and Logistics also attended.</p>
<p>When BG Dawkins approached the lectern, the Class of 2009 greeted him with an enthusiastic, standing ovation. Then he spoke to them in conversational tones about the significance of Branch Night in their overall development as officers and as human beings. He began by noting that his reflections on life had made him realize that our sense of who we are—our lives—are really a sequence of experiences that become “knit together” into what we think of as the fabric of our lives. The more meaningful of those experiences are the passages—the periodic transformations we undergo at formative times. In a military career, branching is one of those passages, setting an officer onto a path to the field of his profession. Pinning their branch insignia onto their uniforms gave them, in effect, a new identity. BG Dawkins concluded with brief remarks on the centrality of leadership to their profession and the absolute, unwavering commitment the cadets had made to being leaders of character. This commitment to character seemed the core bond, tying them all together as Army officers and defining their professional stance.</p>
<p>The second major difference this year concerned the envelope that each member of the class received. This year, it did not contain a branch insignia gift from the 50-Year Affiliate Class. Instead, the sealed envelope, opened at a specific point in the ceremony, merely indicated the assigned branch. The actual brass was located at various tables throughout Ike Hall, where formations and official brass pinning ceremonies were held with branch representatives from the Department of Military Instruction, the Class of 1959, and elsewhere before the cadets enjoyed refreshments and received various mementoes from the branch representatives in attendance to accompany their “First Brass,” courtesy of the Class of 1959.</p>
<p>Your humble servant, J. Phoenix, Esquire</p>
<p>Please forward guest articles, comments and suggestions for future topics to <a href="mailto:JPhoenix@wpaog.org">JPhoenix@wpaog.org</a>. </p>
<p>To sign up for Gray Matter and other electronic publications from the West Point Association of Graduates, visit West</a> Point AOG - Association of Graduates, log in as a graduate, associate member, parent, or Friend, and click on Update Your Profile. Then click on My e-Newsletters, select those you want to receive, and then click on Update. You will begin receiving any that you wish; you may delete newsletters in the same manner.</p>
<p>Did you know that a number of previous Gray Matter essays may be found at West</a> Point AOG - Association of Graduates Click on “Publications” and then scroll down and click on “Gray Matter e-Newsletter.”</p>
<p>Shogun - thanks for sharing this!</p>
<p>Branch Night is also where Firsties provide some of the first input to selected Plebes as how they are doing. It is high honor if a somewhat inebriated Firstie (they celebrate at the Firsties's club until late at night) crashes into the honored Plebe and insists the Plebe "blood pin" the Firstie's branch insignia on. The Plebe takes the branch insignia and without the backing slams the insignia onto the Firsties uniform in the correct place, but obviously without the pin backing it is pinned deep into the Firstie's chest. Ergo: "blood pinning". It seems Firsties use this as a ritual to honor those Plebes they feel have character, often those Plebes that they might have been very hard on during the first term via hazing who they feel have responded correctly. Or Plebes they feel are exceptional. I dont think a Firtstie would pick a dweeb to do this considering the high significance to the Firsties. Warrior stuff.</p>
<p>I'd have to disagree... While that may happen occasionally, myself and all the other Firsties I saw in my Company were simply having anyone we saw in the hallway bloodpin is. The key word you were using was "inebriated," lol</p>