and then there was OCS

[thebrad]

Officer Candidate School

The next day after graduation from basic training all of the now-declared ?soldiers? were lined up by where they were going to next. Because the 09S?s (officer candidates) were only going across post we were dressed in out BDUs while all of the others going off to AIT and would be traveling were in Class A?s.

We had no idea what to expect. By reputation OCS has a reputation of being a lot rougher than basic? and we?ve all seen ?An Officer and a Gentleman.? We would have an advantage over everyone else though ? the brotherhood we developed while in basic together. There were about 25 of us mixed up in the four platoons of our basic training company.

We were loaded into two deuces (2.5 ton trucks) and drove over from Sand Hill to Main Post. OCS is literally right under the Airborne jump towers and is the closest barracks to Building 4? the infantry school.

As soon as we arrived we were put into the barracks for our training company as our cycle was picking up in two days. We were given most of the day to ourselves? as soon as we stripped all of the hall floors in the building. We did get a little bit of free-time over the weekend. I spent all of it shopping. The school has a very extensive packing list ? and with everyone going out to buy the same things, it became quite a task to find all the items. Off on business or not ? it felt great to be out and about, and in civilian clothes for the first time in ten weeks? but everyone knew we were trainees anyway ? a group of guys out with no hair.

School started on Sunday with a quick briefing and filling out a couple of forms. Then there was a shake-down to check for unauthorized items. We also discovered at this time that a lot of what we bought was worthless? because it did not match what the candidate on my left and my right had.

A large portion of OCS is classroom. Not the most interesting as far as narrative goes? we would get a break every hour or so. For breaks we would have to file out to the hallway and get into formation and then go the latrines by ?firing teams.? The latrines are pretty much the only place that you could go and be away from the Cadre. Otherwise while on break we would be standing at a modified parade rest reading our knowledge cards which were part of the uniform.

At night we would be put to bed with lights-out procedures. Standing in the hallway we would wait? and wait? until the duty TAC came up to put us to bed. We would do the exercise of the day, drink a full canteen of water, sing the OCS Alma Mater and all verses of the Army Song and then ?prepare to mount!? ?mount!? wait while a quick inspection would go on, laying in the position of attention and then ?sleep!?

In the morning we would be woken up with at the most ten minutes before our first formation ? physical training. Before this formation we would have to make our bunks ?to standard,? get into uniform, use the latrine, shave and assure our rooms were inspection ready.

For Physical Training (PT) we did the Army?s new PRT program. Not very many places are using this. I will not be recommending it. We did not get the opportunity to do any PT on our own other than a quick set of pushups at night or something very quick as we did not get time. While at OCS my PT score dropped from a 297 to a 240 something. Once we hit senior phase we were able to start doing some on our own. I would run with a buddy in the reserves who wanted to be military intelligence but was branched transportation (he has since been able to find an MI unit to take him in). He could run me into the ground ? so really pushed me a lot.

The worst part of the entire school was by far going to chow ? which was my favorite at basic! At OCS the chow hall is filled with procedures to numerous to even attempt to mention. The worst of which was that our entire company had to eat in around 30 minutes depending on schedule? sometimes at little as 20. I used only a spoon because you can eat a lot faster ? and the food was always very hot ? so I kept a glass of water in the other hand. Manners were not required. And then more procedures? none of them entertaining in prose.

My squad was by far the best in the company. We won all of the competitions and for one of them we were allowed to leave five hours earlier than everyone else on our first pass in civilian clothes? we were able to do all of the errands everyone else had to do? and beat the lines. We actually did get to have fun ? most everyone didn?t get the chance.

At the confidence course I watched as two candidates were eliminated from the course and one TAC NCO make his last appearance. On one obstacle several candidates asked to have a spotter where they would have to swing down on to some monkey bars from a balance beam. The TAC NCO told them that it was not needed, it was not far to the ground. The first female to fall at this point happened while I was at most 15 meters away. She did not fall far. But after her feet hit she fell back on her arm ? which she complained about later hurting. The next day she went to sick call and found out that it was broken. She would be recycled to a later class. The other female to fall at the exact same place had spent most of the day crying ? she was terrified of heights. She was the oldest candidate in the company ? I have no idea how she even got a slot. She also had a very public resentment of all of us ?college-ops.? She was holding onto the first monkey bar, but it didn?t slow her down when she tried to swing down? she hit the ground hard. Her toes were pointing up the back of her leg, with the top of her foot against her ankle. There was no doubt that it was broke very badly. She sent a letter to her bunk-mate, a very good friend of mine, saying that her expected return to OCS was estimated to be in January of 2005.

We did a lot of land-navigation at OCS. Even though I have never done any land-navigation with a compass before I was very good at it because when I grew up I was forced to play outside and was very comfortable in the wilderness. During our first FTX all we did was land-nav. It worked-out that when the heavy rain started my buddy and I were already back at our site so we were able to hide-out in our shelter-half tent after we went through our platoon?s camp to move all the dumb-asses crap into their tents they had left out. This was my buddy for all of our field time and is one of my closest friends.

The next FTX for land-nav was five days long ? longer if you didn?t get ?first-time goes? on day and night land navigation. I didn?t have to stay any longer. The testing was at the end of the five days. Mostly we ate MREs during this exercise ? which have a tendency to mess the digestion up a little bit. I had to make an emergency run for the bushes while out on my own between points ? and all I had on my was index cards!

Our last to field exercises were back to back for nine days in the field. We did squad and platoon movements and infantry tactics for the entire time. When I was to lead a patrol it was mid-movement. The previous leadership pointed to what intersection we were at on the map? but the directions the roads went on the map and where they went on the ground were different. After a couple of minutes myself and a buddy to double-check my reasoning figured out we were at a different place on the map with one road not marked? over a kilometer away from where we were told we were.

My squad was split into two and put into two groups with other squads. I picked two members of my squad to lead in the front ? we were forced by our TAC to lead from the middle of the file rather than the front. We came upon two candidates playing the roles of civilians that did not speak English. The TAC summed it up as I lost control over one of my soldiers ? I sum it up as a buddy trying to be chief? he thought that since he was a reserve soldier (not the same one that I ran with) and was a cop back home he was more qualified to be in control with the situation. End result he pretty much executed the two civilians because he thought they were armed? they were not. This snagged us a huge lecture, but I was still given a go ? I have no idea why.

For the nine days it pretty much rained the entire time. At Benning physics means nothing and the rain is wetter. By the end of the exercise my feet were already pretty messed up from being wet and me being on them most the time with a ruck on my back. Before the last road-march of OCS, a 12 miler, the sky opened up on us just long enough to completely soak us, making us and our gear wet and heavy and to fill the puddles all the more.

Only about 50 meters after we started my TAC Officer, a once-upon-a-time Nebraskan like myself stopped the candidate in front of me because his E-Tool was on the wrong side of his ruck-sack. He made me stop too so I could move it over for him. The problem was is that we were standing in a puddle that was deeper then our boots ? which were by now completely soaked. I would have had a lot less trouble if I had packed an extra pair in addition to the packing list for the march, but I didn?t.

My feet were killing me by about half-way through? but after a few more miles they went numb to the pain, but I could still feel the skin sliding the wrong way every step I took. After the last march we had only one more short exercise ? I was put in a position very near where we were dropped off by good fortune.
The next morning I went to sick-call after I was able to see my feet in the light. Wish I had some more film in the camera for this one. They looked like a severe case of athelete?s foot, wrinkling from being in the bath-tub too long, and odd blistering ? not to mention the bleeding through raw spots and from places where some holes were kind of just eaten away. At sick call they called it trench-foot and wanted to put me onto a profile where I would have to wear some dorky foam-shoe. I managed to talk them down to a soft-shoe profile ? which didn?t matter because for recovery of equipment and preparation for senior inspection was to be in physical training uniform anyway.

I was platoon leader during field recovery and senior inspection ? the busiest and least fun week of OCS. Everyone was exhausted after going to the field but I had a great platoon and an even better squad ? we worked together very well and being in charge of their efforts was not really a challenge at all. Of course there were a few candidates that were difficult, but others more than picked up their slack.

In senior phase we were allowed freedom ? a lot of times it was dangled in front of us and then taken away or delayed. For me apathy toward it all took over after the head-games through the school up until this point. I was anxious to just be done with this school and get the hell away from it ? and then get back near it as soon as I could for Airborne ? which I am still trying to finagle my way into.

The best part of OCS was leaving it behind on Aug 7. I will definitely miss a lot of the buddies that I met there ? but this is the Army? I?ll see them again sometime.

[SEATJERKER]

...Your doing fine olive,...

...good to see your conditioning is paying off,...

..."The future is yours"...

...

[colmurph]

The Brad is now a "Butter Bar"? Congradulations!

Of course "Benning School for Boys" has always been known to be a whole lot easier than "Robinson Barracks" (FA OCS which is now defunct)

I found that OCS, all 26 weeks of it, was easier than the 7 weeks of 2d Army NCO Academy that I went through about a year before attending OCS. And that was only half as tough as 7th Army NCO Academy (5 Weeks) that I went through at Bad Toelz about 5 years before I went to OCSA at Ft. Sill. The hazing and harassment at OCS was a joke, the Gunnery, High Angle Fire, Meteorological Data, Artillery Survey and other exams were the killer. In the first 8 weeks we lost about 10% to quitters who couldn't take the BS, in the next few months everybody we lost was due to academics, in the last two weeks or so we lost two or three to "Honor Code Violations". The schoolwork was the "Killer" at FA OCS. Well...welcome to the "Club", I can't really call you a "Mustang" cause you didn't spend much more than Basic, AIT and OCS as an Enlisted man. I did 7 1/2 years before I went to OCS so I can call myself a "Mustang".