Week 10 of the Army JAG School

In this post, I discuss my experience during the tenth week of Army JAG School, which focused primarily on legal assistance.

*Photo by The U.S. Army is licensed under CC 2.0. This content uses referral links. *

Week 10 of Army JAG School is now complete, and we have completed both the last block of academic instruction and the last full week of training. We graduate at 10:00 am next Thursday.

Class

This week was a pretty slow week. On Monday we finished our legal assistance instruction with various issues of family and consumer law.

On Tuesday morning, we took an exam on family law, which essentially covered the military-specific aspects of family law—particularly child support obligations and how potential alimony schemes intersect with military benefits.

On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, we covered some other blocks of instruction that the faculty thought would be beneficial to know—such as claims and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act (USERRA)—but were not testable.

We also discussed issues of practical value to us during our military careers, such as Officer Evaluation Reports and financial management advice. Overall, a pretty easy week, as death by PowerPoint finally came to an end.

Sports at Army JAG School

This week our class played the faculty in ultimate football—which I discussed in my previous post. As I discussed previously, there is a rivalry between the faculty and OBC students that has apparently been going on for a while. They even have a trophy that they call the commander’s cup. Whoever can win at least two out of the three events wins the cup.

The 192nd OBC won the cup, so there was some self-inflicted pressure to maintain it. The faculty beat us pretty badly in ultimate Frisbee, but we returned the favor in ultimate football. So, we are now 1-1. Whoever wins the softball game next week will win the whole thing.

Next Week

We have the Gauntlet on Monday, which is a simulated exercise for international law. The idea is that it is supposed to emulate the types of issues we may have to address in a deployed environment.

On Tuesday night we have our dining in, and Thursday we graduate. The rest of the time that week will be spent preparing to leave Charlottesville.

I will provide my last update next week, so please check back if you are interested.

I provide a more expansive account of my experience at the Army JAG School in my book The JAG School Survival Guide: Succeeding at the Army’s Judge Advocate Officer Basic Course.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are the author’s own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Army, the National Guard Bureau, the Arkansas National Guard, the Department of Defense, or the United States Government.

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See also:

Week 9 of the Army JAG School

Week 11 of the Army JAG School