Officer Candidate School Graduation (18 April 2008)

{OCS Class 08-02 on graduation day on April 18th, 2008}

On April 18th 2008 the third officer candidate school class (08-02) under the U.S.-funded Security Sector Reform program graduated 18 future lieutenants for the new Armed Forces of Liberia at the Barclay Training Center in Monrovia. Upon commissioning the 18 graduates will raise the number of U.S trained officers in the AFL from 27 to 45. This is more than 50 percent of the 88 lieutenants the program is expected to recruit and train for the new army. This was also the largest OCS class thus far. The SSR program will run two more OCS classes before all initial entry training is completed in December 2008. Getting officer training past the half way point in the program is an exciting event.