With the assistance of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, the Army's Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis published a series of monographs that were intended to provide a theoretical and conceptual framework for the development of an Army Officer Corps Strategy. These monographs consider the creation and maintenance of a highly skilled Officer Corps in the context of the nation's continuing commitment to an all-volunteer military, its far flung international interests, and ongoing changes in its domestic labor market. The authors of the various monographs believe that the confluence of these factors demands a comprehensive Officer Corps strategy that recognizes the interdependency of accessing, developing, retaining, and employing talent. In their view, building a talent-focused strategy around this four-activity human capital model would best enable the Army to match individual officer competencies to specific competency requirements. Dr. Arthur Coumbe of the Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis has prepared a monograph that provides a historical overview of the Army Officer Corps and its management in the modern era. Like the earlier monographs, this volume is organized around what the Office of Economic and Manpower analysis see as the functionally interdependent concepts of accessing, developing, retaining, and employing talent. This book is a prologue to the earlier monographs that begin their story in the late-1980s.