Knee Deep in the Hooah!

Thus continues the saga, “He teacheth mine hands to fight …” by Mr.Hooah.

It was a heck of a summer vacation. When last we spoke I was leaving BCT for OCS.

Therefore I’m titling this second half:

“Audacity, audacity, audacity!”

I chose a quote by General George Patton, on whose ground I was now about to tread. He said, “There are only three principles of warfare: Audacity, audacity, audacity!”

Thus far I had the audacity to join the military at an advanced age, go through and pull off BCT at Ft. Benning (of all places). For my next trick I will obtain a Commission through Officer Candidacy School. Who do I think I am?

The bus from Sand Hill dropped me and my brothers from BCT ( a couple dozen of us) off in front of the OCS battalion S-1 building in plenty of time to report in for the weekend. We were all so very hopeful of getting a much needed break over the weekend before finally classing up Monday morning. My experience on Sand Hill told me to never take promised break time for granted so I wasn’t sure I could really count on getting the weekend. My family was still in town on account of BCT graduation and it was the weekend of my anniversary. Coincidentally it was my wife‘s anniversary as well (That was a joke in case your wondering). “Oh please, oh please, let us have the weekend off,” I thought to myself. My wife was having similar thoughts but like me she wasn’t going to take it for granted that we would get the time.

As it turns out we were both right and wrong about getting the weekend together. Myself and my brothers in arms did indeed get the weekend off. Yeah! Yet the holding company we were checked into didn’t have enough room to house everyone coming in to the new OCS class start-up so they put is in the company barracks, apart from the holding company barracks. Ok. That means one less move for us. Instead of moving into the holding area and then later moving into the class company area we can just stay put. Good. Too bad it also meant we had to set up our own separate duty roster meaning we all had to pull duty for a least an hour or so sometime over the weekend. Eh, that’s not too bad. Right? My duty landed square in the middle of the night. No cozy anniversary for my wife and I.

Well now I’m starting to whine. I was starving for time with my wife, kids, wife, my folks, and did I mention my wife? My fellow officer candidates from Sand Hill came to my rescue. They made a few phone calls and shazam. The guy who served as the student platoon leader from my BCT platoon came to the rescue. He worked my duty for me. It may not sound like a big deal as you read this. At the time it happened it was a huge deal. I got to spend my anniversary night with my wife undisturbed. Hubba hubba.

I owe my buddy big time. This was his history though. He took care of his men during BCT. Even though we were in different platoons during OCS I have no doubt he took care of his men there as well.

For things like that and so much more — I feel like I owe my fellow Candidates more than I could ever repay in a lifetime. They’re all a bunch of green cherries now but they’re MY green cherries and a fine mess of Officers.

Through out the weekend Officer Candidates arrived. Most of the new guys had prior service time under their belt. Only a few Candidates were coming from other BCT units. The new barracks were full to overflowing.

Concerning those Candidates coming from BCT units other than Ft.Benning I will make this quick observation. They were not quite as disciplined nor as physically up to par as those coming from Ft.Benning. I love ‘em but that’s how I saw them when they arrived. They really weren’t as adequately prepared for OCS as I expected them to be. I think their Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) scores bore that out as well as their reaction to stress. I have heard stories from other OCS classes that offer up anecdotal evidence corroborating my observations. Maybe I’m biased having been through Sand Hill however, I’m a firm believer that any man coming to OCS who has to take BCT first should be required to go through Sand Hill. Period. No exceptions.

At the end of the weekend when my family dropped me off on the curb in front of my new home I had a tough time telling them good-bye. They had a rough go of it as well. But we all knew life at OCS would be different from BCT. We consoled ourselves with knowing we could, likely, keep in touch much better now. Many of my friends went through the same thing. It was on account of this more than anything else that we bugged the OCS training Cadre day and night for cell phone/laptop privileges from day one on until it drove them nearly insane. Like the widow in scripture who constantly petitioned the judge until she got justice, we too hounded them all cycle long.

Now that I was not concentrating on family I could take in my surroundings. The weight of the history of my new home began to bear down on me. My new found freedoms began to release my spirit. Everything was amazing to me. I officially had on my rose colored glasses. I remember going to sleep to the sound of military music coming in over a speaker from somewhere around the Infantry Hall of Excellence. A huge smile crossed my face. It seemed I was walking around in a movie. Like the “Truman Show” or something.

My classmates were adults much nearer my age. A couple of them were a year older than me. Most all of them had families. Most all of them had prior service. They, every one of them, were NCO’s (Non-Commissioned Officers) just before signing in at Battalion where they became Candidates, just like me. There were Drill Instructors, First Sergeants, lots of Sergeants First Class, and a few Staff Sergeants. I and all my friends from BCT had been promoted to just plain Sergeant upon arrival at OCS. It is not for nothing that OCS is often referred to as the NCO Officer Candidacy School.

Of course I’m assuming as I write that everybody knows what the Army Officer Candidacy School is. The Officer Candidacy School is one of 5 ways to receive an officers commission in the United States Army. The others, in no particular order, are Direct Commission for medical, legal, or Chaplin types, graduation from Military Academy such as West Point, Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC) through one of any number of colleges and universities, and battle field promotions what I call “the last man standing award.” I have an uncle who got one of these back in ‘Nam.

For a good history of OCS you can follow the link provide here. It will take you to the OCS Foundation Army Museum website. LINK

OCS used to be a 17-week course back in the day. The course was lengthened from 17 to 22 weeks in 1951 during the Korean conflict. In April 1973, the length of the course was reduced to 14 weeks. It was the 14 week course that I attended in 2007. As of January 2008 the course has been reduced to 12 weeks. I personally think they could take at least one more week out if they would simply cut more of the social events away (field trip, dinning-in, Lt. Colonels social) but I’m apparently in the minority to think so.

During the 14 week course a man has a lot of information thrown at him. Such things as machine gun theory (if you have the right instructor), risk assessment, troop leading procedures, situation assessment, the five paragraph operational order, the call for fire, the 9-line med evac call, drill & ceremony, day land navigation, night land navigation, hand-to-hand combative techniques, team building, personal and career counseling, support logistics management, general budgeting (I have to feed all my men, ship the stuff, and still find money for ammo with only ‘that‘ much money? Can I start a charity drive??), military history, military justice, and the list goes on and on. You are tested on everything.

We had a few textbooks and a LOT of manuals. There was so much good reading material I lament that I didn’t have time to read it all. I could only skim for the most important information consoling myself that I would have time after graduation to come back and read it as it should be read. My friends tell me that you never get the time to catch up your reading after graduation. You just plow ahead continually telling yourself, “I’ll get back to it later”.

OCS is physically demanding as well. Not only did we have regular PT but there are several more physical hurdles to be met in order to fulfill graduation requirements. The APFT is certainly required but so are several release runs, road marches, and field exercises. There are more physical graduation requirements as compared to BCT but the regular physical demands are about on par with BCT except that you have much, much, much more recovery time. Weekends are a God send. I’m not sure if this still holds true for the 12 week version.

Most of this is already out there in the public body of knowledge so I won’t go over the training schedule anymore except to say this: running is a big deal at OCS. It is one of the methods they use to evaluate Candidates. A certain school of thought believes that a large portion of one’s distance running ability is tied to the mental aspects of tenacity, endurance, and self-discipline. Maybe so. If anyone reading this plans to attend OCS, be prepared to run your glutes off.

Ah, yes. We finally all made it; my classmates and I. We showed up for our first formation only to find that the class has been overbooked. There are more Candidates than there are bunks. This is not atypical for OCS these days. The primary method used to whittle the number of Candidates down is the APFT. We knew we would all be taking a diagnostic APFT which would determine whether or not we got to class-up as well as determining our initial class standing. We knew the APFT was coming. We just didn’t know when.

In the meantime the training Cadre broke us up into platoons during our first roll call. That’s where I finally met the two men who were going to be responsible for my training over the next 14 weeks (great guys, a First Lieutenant and a Sergeant First Class; our Cadre Platoon Leader and our Cadre Platoon Sergeant) as well as the men and women who would become like family to me during our training together. We were now 4th platoon. We will forever be 4th platoon. I can’t imagine any other platoon being as tight knit, as supportive, and as fun as my OCS 4th platoon was. As I sit here and type this I find my emotions for that group running high. I wish I could have them all back together again. Maybe I will, someday.

As fate would have it, out of some random draw I was selected to be the student Platoon Leader (PL) for 4th platoon during the opening of OCS. That meant I would be PL for two weeks as opposed to the standard one. All Candidates are required to get a passing grade on at least one student leadership position in garrison before graduation. There are so few positions and so many students that any given position in garrison only lasts for a week. I got two weeks because the first week of OCS doesn’t count toward graduation. It is mostly for inprocessing. Yet student leadership is still required to make the week go smoothly. I didn’t relish the idea of being under the spot-light for two weeks. In hindsight it was gift that I’m glad I received. This was my opportunity to get my first “go”. There was only one problem.

I didn’t know what the freak I was doing.

I had never filled the student PL position at BCT for any reason except as back up for my friend (who held the position for the entire BCT cycle) or during field training exercises where several of us rotated thru the position. In fact, at BCT we didn’t call the position by the title PL. Nor did we use it in BCT the same way it was traditionally used in the “real” Army. So when the Cadre Lt told me I was the new PL I just looked at him like a deer caught in the headlights. My Cadre Platoon Sgt picked up on it. He quickly said, “Just walk around and act like you know what you’re doing. But don’t do anything, ok?” “Roger that Sgt.,” was all I could muster for a response. Off I ran to take up my position — which was where? I didn’t even know where to stand. Heaven help me. Heaven help my platoon!

Tags: Army, military //