The Branches

When a cadet reaches their final year in the ROTC program, they order their branch choices by priority to determine their Army specialty.  Their selections are sent before the accessioning board, which convenes in October.  By January, cadets receive their branch selections and begin to prepare for their new Army careers.  Branches are divided generally into three categories: 

• Combat Arms (CA)
• consisting of branches involved in direct combat
• Combat Support (CS)
• consisting of branches which directly aid Combat Arms
• Combat Service Support (CSS)
• consisting of branches providing logistical or other forms of support to the Army.

Adjutant General Corps (AG)

Category: CSS

Officers in the Adjutant General's Corps serve at all organization levels of the Army where they plan, develop, and operate the Army's personnel management support systems: a vital responsibility in both peace and war. Personnel systems include all life cycle functions such as personnel requisitioning, reassignments, evaluations, promotions, awards and decorations, reenlistment, casualty reporting, strength accounting, and replacement operations. Administrative systems management includes courier and postal services. The Army's Adjutants General shoulder a huge amount of responsibility for the smooth running of day to day Army operations.

Air Defense Artillery (AD)

Category: CS

Air Defense Artillery encompasses positions concerned with the employment of a family of Air Defense Artillery weapons in support of military land combat operations and against enemy aircraft and missile attacks. Depending upon the mission, Air Defense Artillery units are found defending the ground-gaining combat arms units or critical units/areas against enemy air attack. When not in combat, Air Defense Artillery units maintain an around-the-clock state of readiness to respond immediately to hostile action.

Armor (AR)

Category: CA

The Armor Branch is responsible for all the tank and cavalry/forward reconnaissance operations on the battlefield. The role of an Armor Officer is to be a leader in operations specific to the Armor Branch and to lead others in many areas of combat operations. As an Armor Officer, you may either work with tank units that utilize the M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams Tanks, or cavalry units responsible for forward reconnaissance operations.

Army Nurse Corps (AN)

Category: CSS

The Army Nurse Corps is a part of the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) and is a special branch of the Army. The mission of the Army Nurse Corps is to provide quality nursing support and nursing leadership. To fulfill its mission, the Army Nurse Corps officers specialize as nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists and serve as staff officers at all levels throughout the AMEDD.

Aviation (AV)

Category: CA

Aviation is a combat arms branch which encompasses 80 percent of the commissioned officer operational flying positions within the Army (less those in Aviation Material Management and Medical Service Corps). Army Aviation is concerned with the accomplishment of the assigned mission to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations. Upon completion of flight training, the newly rated officer can expect challenging leadership positions with aviation units.

Chaplain Corps (CH)

Category: CSS

The Chaplains Corps is a special branch which has the primary mission to perform or provide for comprehensive religious support for soldiers and their family members in war and peace. Chaplains assist commanders in facilitating the right to free exercise of religion for all personnel. Chaplains are commissioned officers and accredited clergy endorsed by a recognized denomination or faith group for the military ministry.

Chemical Corps (CM)

Category: CS

Chemical officers develop doctrine, equipment, and training to protect the Army against Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction. They also provide the Army with smoke, obscurant, and flame capabilities on the battlefield.

Civil Affairs (CA)

Category: CSS

Civil Affairs is a non-accesssions branch (non-entry level). CA officers use their interpersonal skills and cultural expertise to provide a liaison between the Army commander and the indigenous people in a the area. The vast majority of officers in this branch are in the Army Reserves.

Engineers (EN)

Category: CA

The Corps of Engineers is a Combat Arms Branch which also has combat support and combat service support roles. Engineer officers plan and execute missions relating to engineer support on the battlefield in light, heavy, airborne, and topographic missions. They coordinate and control all facilities and housing support at military installations. On a tactical level, Combat Engineers are responsible for helping the movement of friendly troops (building bridges) and hindering the movement of enemy troops (blowing up bridges). Engineering units are augmented with, among other things, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and bulldozers. Additionally, the engineer officer serves as the Army's component to the Department of Defense (DOD) team charged with mapping, charting, geodesy, and military geographic responsibilities.

Field Artillery (FA)

Category: CA

The Field Artillery is the King of Battle. They are sound leaders of soldiers as well as astute managers of the most deadly resources on the modern battlefield. They blend a knowledge of tactics and a technical expertise of many weapons systems to provide all types of fire support to the ground-gaining arms. They are experts in the capabilities of cannons, rockets, missiles, naval gunfire, and close air support.

Finance Corps (FC)

Category: CSS

All officers commissioned in the Finance Corps (FC) serve in a variety of financial management and leadership positions in today's Army. The ultimate mission of the FC is to support the soldiers and commanders in the field and provide the Army with expertise concerning all aspects of financial management. Finance officers are required to be both technically and tactically proficient to perform their mission in wartime as well as peacetime. They must continuously develop their professional skills and knowledge in order to stay abreast of evolving doctrine and stay current in the finance and accounting profession.

Infantry (IN)

Category: CA

The Infantry encompasses positions concerned with the employment of the combined arms to close with the enemy by means of fire and maneuver in order to destroy or capture him, or repel his assault by fire, close combat, and counterattack. Infantry forces fight dismounted or mounted according to the mobility means provided. They form the nucleus of the Army's fighting strength around which the other arms and services are grouped.

Judge Advocate General Corps (JG)

Category: CSS

The Judge Advocate General's Corps is a special branch of the Army whose officers are all lawyers. Their duties include all areas of legal practice including criminal law, administrative and civil law, contract law, and international law.

Medical Service Corps (MS)

Category: CSS

Medical Service officers run hospitals and clinics as patient administrators and provide patient care on the battlefield. There are three functional areas in the Army Medical Corps: Clinical Medicine, Staff and Command, and Research.

Military Intelligence (MI)

Category: CS

Military Intelligence encompasses the application and integration of all Military Intelligence functions at both the tactical and strategic levels. Officers serving in this specialty plan, conduct, and supervise intelligence collection resources, analysis of the resultant raw intelligence information, and the production and dissemination of finished all-source intelligence in the form of briefings and written reports to the ultimate consumer, the commander.

Military Police (MP)

Category: CS

The Military Police Corps encompasses positions concerned with Military Police (MP) support to combat operations, law enforcement, security of U.S. Government resources, criminal investigation, and corrections. The combat support role provides a vital link in our national defense, and the MPs provide the tactical commander with a force that is highly organized, trained, and responsive to the battlefield commander. Military Police also serve as peacekeeping forces in a low-intensity conflict and provide security in war and peace to critical Army facilities and resources.

Ordnance (OD)

Category: CSS

The purpose of the Ordnance Corps is to develop, produce, acquire, and support weapons systems, ammunition, missiles and ground mobility material during peace and war in order to provide combat power for the U.S. Army. The Ordnance Branch encompasses all functions related to the life cycle management of its three commodities: tank/automotive materiel, munitions materiel, and missile materiel.

Quartermaster (QM)

Category: CSS

The Quartermaster Corps offers a broad spectrum of opportunities. The Quartermaster Corps officer plans and directs the activities of Army units and organizations engaged in the acquisition, receipt, storage, preservation, and issue of equipment, repair parts, fortification/construction material, subsistence, petroleum products, water, and other general supplies. Quartermaster Officers must be both meticulous in their record keeping and far-sighted in their planning for future needs.

Signal Corps (SC)

Category: CS

Signal Corps officers must blend together combat leadership skills and technical proficiency as they plan and manage information systems that support the command and control of the Army's forces. Signal officer assignments and career opportunities are diverse and challenging. They direct and control the installation, operations, maintenance, and reconfiguration of networks of information systems for theater/tactical, strategic, and sustaining base operations and the operation of the Army portion of the global defense communications systems

Special Forces (SF)

Special Forces is a non-accesssions branch (non-entry level). Special Forces conduct the missions of unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, direct action, strategic reconnaissance, and counterterrorism. Special Forces unit members are airborne qualified, language trained and area oriented. Since potential missions are worldwide, soldiers train in forest, desert, mountain, arctic, jungle, and urban environments.

Transportation Corps (TC)

Category: CSS

"Nothing Happens Until Something Moves." No matter how deadly a unit's firepower, it has no effect on the enemy unless that unit can get to the battlefield. The monumental task of moving the Army from one place to another falls upon the Transportation Corps, encompassing those positions related to the multi-modal movement of personnel and cargo over land, sea, and air, anywhere in the world.