Aug. 16 Staff Sergeant Joseph Culbert of Menlo, Ga. accepted his commission into the United States Officer Corps as a 2nd Lieutenant. Culbert was a member of the Traditional Officer Candidate School Class 52 from the Tennessee Military Academy. Sixty-eight sol-diers started the journey last April with only seventeen completing the physically and men-tally challenging course. The course is designed to cause induced mental and physical stress to test and assess the candidate’s leadership attributes in simulated stressful combat conditions. It also teaches an array of courses such as tactics, combatives, land navigation, supply, military justice, military history, urban operations and other courses key to leadership development. Culbert received the Outstanding Leadership Award presented by the Associa-tion of the Army. He was pinned by his wife Angie and daughter Chayse. He received his first salute from 1st Sergeant Diane Webb. Culbert is branching Infantry and will be going to 2nd Squadron H-Troop 278th Armored Calvary Regiment as an infantry platoon leader. After completing his officer basic courses, Culbert will be deploying with the 278th ACR in early 2010 in support of the global war on terrorism. This will be Culbert’s third deployment following deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.