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| OCS Juniors Graduation, 2006 |
Officer Candidate School or, "OCS" was the first step I took to become a Marine Officer. In the spring of 2005, I can still remember walking into the Officer Selection Office in Williamsville, NY and telling Larry at the front desk, "I want to be a Marine pilot." Larry, a retired 20+ year Marine First Sergeant yelled, "Hey Captain, come out here." A dark skinny man instantly appeared from a back office. "We need to set this guy up with an interview and get him started on a flight contract." Larry, the Captain, and I talked for a little while and I was back in their office only three days later to conduct a formal interview. Even though I was only 18, I had been through several job interviews in my life and never had I been so confident or excited for this one. I wore my best (only) suit and carried my resume in a binder into the small back room. Talk about a non-standard office environment: Here I am in a suit and tie while sitting in an office with Ka-Bar knives stabbed into a 2-in thick wooden desk, camouflage netting on the walls and ceiling, dummy grenades and artillery shell decor, and the standard, red USMC pull-up bar you see at recruiting events. Capt Levin, who was dressed in PT gear (workout clothes- PT stands for Physical Training) told me to take a seat and said, "Tell me a little about yourself." I must have talked for an hour about how I grew up in the country and spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid. How I used to build things with my dad and go hunting and fishing all the time. I talked about how many sports I played and all the awards I won. I was president of my junior HS class (but I may have failed to mention that I got elected because I was the only one to run against the girl no one liked). I mentioned how I was a certified NYS asbestos project manager and was responsible for the largest demolition project in the history of Buffalo, NY. During the previous summer, I supervised 30 men and the safe containment of the old forge, a 750,000 sq ft. building. At this point, the Capt. said, "Holy shit, stop talking. If you cant tell by the look on my face im impressed. I've never met anyone close to your age with those qualifications. Lets work out a time for me to come to your school and we can do the PFT (Physical fitness test) and fill out some paperwork." Within a month, I completed all the written and physical exams and submitted my package to attend OCS the following summer.
I finished classes at RIT on Friday and left for OCS on Sunday May, 28 2006. Its been exactly four years and 11 months since that date and I still recall every detail. I arrived at Washington Regan Int'l Airport and walked outside the terminal. I located a Marine Corporal in khakis and asked him where the bus to get to OCS was. He barked, "Get the fuck over there and wait with everyone else." Over there, was outside under the carport against a wall with 30 other guys standing silently. A bus eventually picked us up and it took an hour to get from the airport to Quantico, VA. We drove through base to a remote location to the south. We got dropped off short of Brown Field, next to railroad tracks and a bridge. We couldnt just simply cross the tracks, we had to walk at an extremely fast pace to cross the bridge. From the other side, I carried my small bag of gear over a large black top area and into the top floor of the, "squad bay," or barracks. The scenic overlook from my squad bay window was a prison yard: The brig where the military's worst criminals, including the most recent "wikileaker" are held while they wait trial in DC.
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About 3 days went by where I wore the same clothes and did paperwork and medical in-processing for 12hrs/day. We finally finished checking in and were ready for the infamous, "Pickup." Well, thats a lie. We weren't ready, no one could ever be ready. In an 85-degree room of 200 sweaty, foul smelling candidates we received brief after brief for no less than six hours straight. We were told about a dozen times that if we felt we weren't
ready, we could walk out no questions asked. OCS was purely voluntary (Unlike boot camp where you're stuck until you die or graduate. And no I'm not bullshitting you).
Eventually, our instructors entered the room marching in perfect unison. They each stepped forward as the CO introduced them individually. The staff of 20 well built extremely intimidating men and women marched back between the aisles, halted, and about faced. The CO said a few more words followed by the phrase no Marine Officer forgets, "Sergeant Instructors, you got 'em." Now the closest I can justify what happend is by saying, "Holy Fuck!"
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K Company, 2nd Platoon. OCS Juniors 2006:
Cleaning Weapons and Taking a Break from our Stressful Lives |
The next six weeks were at that point the most challenging part of my life. I knew that I was going to be a different person when I got back home. There arent words to describe the intensity levels of a Sergeant Instructor. Everyone has heard of the legendary Marine DI, but the difference between a Drill Instructor and a Sergeant Instructor is that each SI is a seasoned DI who has attained at least the rank of sergeant and completed at least one tour of duty as a DI at a Recruit Depot. They know how to professionally fuck with you and make the simplest tasks seem impossible. The SI's made us do things that were insane. There was never a calm moment throughout the day. From 0600 until 2200, the pressure was on.
"We Train in the Armpit to
Fight in the Asshole"
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A Candidate goes through the culvert in the infamous "Quigley."
The Quigly was built at OCS to simulate a jungle environments
insect infested standing water and sludge. |
Each day started with about 40min of PT in the morning and then fuck fuck time, chow, classes, fuck fuck time, chow, go to the field to practice what we learned in class, chow, fuck fuck time and drill, then lights out. That was a pretty standard routine. The SIs were technically only allowed to be present until 2200 and then they had to let us have 8-hours of sleep. Yeah right. They would assign us 300-word essays that were due before the lights came on in the morning. The essays were always about things you fucked up during the day. Even if you didnt screw up, they would find something for you to write about. When you screwed up it was easy, if not you'd maybe writing about, "Why it is important to say the word Sir," or "Why I wasnt looking straight ahead while standing in line for chow." The most essays I ever had was four, but I know guys who had eight. The average was about 2-3 per night. After the essays were done, then we had to study since there was no time during the day. Couple together six weeks of three hrs of sleep per night with 90-100deg temps and you have hell on earth.
Since I was graduating college in 2009, my version of OCS was actually called PLC. Platoon Leaders Class is pretty much the same as OCS but instead it is broken into two, six-week sessions over two summers. The Commanding Officer of OCS in 2006 and the first half of 2007 was Col Smith. When he was in command, it was not uncommon for a platoon to have a 65-70% attrition rate. At the end of the day, we'd be losing a candidate either because of injury or drop on request. The reason most candidates never make it all the way to becoming Marine Officers is because they can't summon the will to come back for a second ass beating. Like I said before, PLC is a totally voluntary program. The only reason I came back and stayed is because being a pilot is the only thing Ive ever wanted to do and this was the only gate to get me there.
The summer of 2007, I returned to PLC and got assigned to Echo Company, 2nd Platoon. My second tour of PLC was supposed to be more difficult but actually turned out to be a fucking joke (relatively speaking). They decided that writing more than two essays per night was detremental to our capacity to learn so they dialed it down to two per day. Eventually, while the new CO was coming aboard, they further changed the policy to two essays per week. Being able to sleep at least 5hrs a night vs 2-3hrs is a world of difference.
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| A firteam from my squad scouting ahead for booby traps and enemy activity |
PLC seniors focused more on squad (13-man) based tactics rather than fireteam (4-man). We trained in Martial arts and how to employ Marines against enemy forces. There were a series of hikes we went on as well to finish with a 12-miler at the end. The culmination of the training was an event called, "SULE 2," or small unit leader evaluation. Given a map and compass, we were sent into the Quantico highlands with a mission to locate 13 different stations and complete each sub-mission at each station. This allowed us to be evaluated on our skills as a squad leader. When it came time for me to lead, I was given four 80-lb crates of supplies that I had to get to a village near a lake. Upon arrival at the village, I was greeted by several natives who spoke some sort of arabic language. The only english I could understand sounded like they kept asking for condoms, lube, food, and water. I sent a fire team to check the area and set a perimeter
while the other the all clear to bring the supply crates. Just as they emerged from the woods with the crates, an explosion went off and we got lit up by an automatic machine gun. I ordered the squad to take cover and launched an assault at the MG. We quickly silenced the gunfire and the exercise was terminated. By the end of the day, our squad covered a total of 23 miles and consumed 12,000 calories of MRE's each. The next few days went by fast and before we knew it, family day and graduation.
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| Mom and I while waiting to turn in my war-belt and get the hell out of Quantico |
I knew that completing OCS was more of an achievement that graduating from RIT with a degree in engineering. Hell, even if I went to MIT and got a degree in rocket surgery I wouldn't have given a shit about it. I felt like no matter what goals I set from then on I would always accomplish. Everything in life was obtainable.
