Lake Victoria Specials Academy has been training cadets for the OZ Specials services since AC 87, when it was built on the site of the old Federation Space Academy. It is located in Kenya on the waters of Lake Victoria, the second largest freshwater lake in the world. It is also the most prestigous military academy in the world, accepting less than 1% of applicants who apply yearly. Competition is fierce, and those who manage to graduate from its rigorous training are considered among the top military officers in the world.

The Academy spans 40 acres of land and is composed of sixteen buildings: three student dormitories, five academic buildings, a fine arts building, a cadet and officer meal hall, a stables, a cadet office building, an officer and staff office building, a chapel, an indoor sports center, and a mobile suit repair facility. In addition, it also boasts three rifle ranges, a golf course, a polo and lacrosse course, a track and field course, a sports stadium, five mobile suit training yards, and three acres of off-campus airfields. The Academy houses state-of-the art technology such as a zero-G laboratory, three hundred chemical and engineering laboratories, and holovid flight simulators.

Academy cadets come from all over the world and the colonies, with the bulk being from Europe and the Americas. Cadets must be at least nine years of age to be accepted into the four-year program, though cadets up to twelve years of age are eligible for the program. The much more rigorous two-year program requires cadets to be at least thirteen years of age. The application process consists of interviews, recommendations from OZ or Federation officers or political figures, a physical fitness test, a medical examination, and a five-week field training camp from which cadets must graduate before being officially accepted into the Academy.

The Academy offers degrees in various areas of study, though most cadets choose to major in engineering and/or physics. All who complete the program are commissioned as officers in the OZ Specials forces and must serve an eight-year committment in the Specials forces. Most who graduated from the Academy elect to become career military.

The cadre of the academy are all OZ Specials officers, most of which are themselves graduates of the Academy. The cadets are supervised by a commandant of cadets, who reports in turn to the Academy Commander, who is directly responsible to the OZ commander. Other cadre at the Academy are academic professors, having earned an education degree along with an officer's commission, or are miltary instructors.

Cadets have their own chain of command, which mimicks the actual OZ chain of the command. First year cadets (C/A) have no positions, focusing instead on drilling and study. Once a cadet becomes a second year cadet, he or she is eligible for positions of enlisted personnel rank in the cadet wing structure (C/A1C through C/CMSgt). Third and fourth year cadets are eligible for officer positions (C/2d Lt through C/Col). At the head of the wing is the cadet wing commander, with the rank of cadet colonel (C/Col). Below the cadet colonel are members of the cadet wing staff.

Click here to view the cadet wing structure.

A cadet commander is chosen by the cadre at the end of every Academy school year and replaces the former cadet commander at graduation and commissioning. A cadet must be entering the fourth year of the four-year program to be considered for the cadet commander position. 95% of all former Academy cadet wing commanders have gone on to become some of the highest ranking officers in the Specials.

Academy Cadets will receive extensive mobile suit training during their third and fourth years, as well as special operations training, munitions and arms training, and intelligence training. Cadets at the Academy also understand that their status as cadets makes them eligible to be called into real combat at any time. Several cadets have been killed while in combat and have been graduated posthumously. Cadets who take their training seriously and follow orders have returned from combat training with a new level of awareness as to what it means to be a Specials officer.

The cadet program at the Lake Victoria Military Academy is vigorous and demanding, yet those who choose to take part in it have been granted the honor of a lifetime: to serve under the Federation as part of the OZ Special Forces.

 
Rank abbreviation chart:

C/Col : Cadet Colonel
C/Lt Col : Cadet Lieutenant Colonel
C/Maj : Cadet Major
C/Capt : Cadet Captain
C/1st Lt : Cadet First Lieutenant
C/2d Lt : Cadet Second Lieutenant

C/CMSgt : Cadet Chief Master Sergeant
C/SMSgt : Cadet Senior Master Sergeant
C/MSgt : Cadet Master Sergeant
C/Tsgt : Cadet Tech Sergeant
C/SSgt : Cadet Staff Sergeant
C/SA : Cadet Senior Airman
C/A1C : Cadet Airman First Class

C/A : Cadet Airman

Note: Rank structure based on the rank structure of the United States Air Force. All information for the Lake Victoria Academy is entirely the creative product of author Gerald Tarrant, has not come from any official Gundam Wing source, and may contradict any official published information on the Academy that may exist.