Reserve Officers Association
organization
The ROA (d/b/a Reserve Organization of America) is a professional association of commissioned officers, non-commissioned officers, former officers, enlisted and spouses of the uniformed services of the United States, primarily with the Reserve and National Guard.
Founded in 1922 and under congressional charter since 1950, Reserve Officers Association of the United States (ROA), now doing business as the Reserve Organization of America, advocates for adequate funding of equipment and training requirements, recruiting and retention incentives, and employment rights for all members of the Reserve. It also advises and educates the Congress, the president, and the American people on national security.
Formation
The ROA was founded on October 2, 1922, when several hundred officers, many of them combat veterans of World War I, first gathered with General of the Armies John J. "Black Jack" Pershing at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., to formally establish a new organization.
From 1924 until 1938, the ROA was headquartered in The Lee House at 1653 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, it moved in 1938 only a block away from the original headquarters.
Between the World Wars, the right of the Reservist to appear before Congress in support of appropriations and matters affecting the national defense was established. Also during this time, Reserve programs, which were to prove invaluable in the mobilization period of 1941 and 1942, became established on the foundations laid by the citizen-soldiers who had served in World War I.
During World War II, the Association became inactive "for the duration" as its members went off to war. The lease on the headquarters at 1762 Pennsylvania Avenue NW was given up during World War II and was signed again in 1945. ROA was reactivated in 1946, and in 1948, Reserve Officers of the Naval Services (RONS) merged with ROA. The Marine Corps and Coast Guard entered at about the same time. When law created a separate Department of the Air Force, for the first time the nation had, in ROA, a Reserve association embracing all the Services.
The public source identifies “Reserve Officers Association” as organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Reserve, Officers and Association.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7315257. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 1950, 1924 and 1938.
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This entry incorporates text from “Reserve Officers Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.