Field work is a chance to do the 'fun stuff'

By Christian Lowe / Times staff writer

Creeping through the steamy mountain laurel and short pines in the hills off Engineer Road, Dan Boyle looked a little confused. As his small four-man team moved to the objective – a downed helicopter pilot hunkered on a small ridge – Boyle struggled to get a good reading from his compass.

His team leader led candidates in a slow creep towards the location where she assumed they’d find the “pilot.”

Just as the fire team approached, Capt. Robert Hancock, the candidates’ chief military tactics instructor, yelled: “Fire direct front!”

The officer candidates didn’t exactly spring into action.

After some hesitation, fire team leader April Coan ordered Boyle and two other candidates in the team into an assault formation and stormed the hill, firing blanks from their M16 assault rifles.

The assault wasn’t quite as textbook as it should’ve been, Hancock said, but the candidates clearly grasped the basics and had been paying attention in class. They’d learn more during follow-on training – if they were lucky enough to make it through Officer Candidates Course, that is.

In this and other field exercises during OCC, instructors try to give the candidates a flavor of what the Corps means by the ethos “every Marine a rifleman.”

The candidates’ developing skills are evaluated during day and night combat operations training. For many, the field activities are a welcome relief from the drudgery of the classroom and parade deck.

For Boyle, this is what he came here to do. Same goes for Antonio Contreras.

An immigrant from Spain who recently became a U.S. citizen, the only way the 30 year-old father could be accepted into the Corps was if he signed on as a lawyer. But Contreras, a graduate of Texas Tech, had his heart set on being a ground-pounding infantry Marine. He’s comfortable around guns and likes the outdoors. So when it came to field exercises such as the fire-team and squad offense maneuvers, he was in heaven.

“What interests me most is being able to participate in some of the other specialties or perform other functions of the Marine Corps besides law,” Contreras later said . “There’s always a chance to expand or go into other branches or to do [more] field work.”

Maneuvering at night, finding the right spot for squads to cover approaching enemy forces, moving silently using hand signals to communicate, the candidates are getting a pretty good dose of what it’s like to be a grunt – and what it’s like to lead them.

It all comes together during the “squad in the offense” exercise, when candidates are forced, after a nine-mile hike with more than 30-pound packs, to navigate to positions in the darkand execute missions, all with only a few hours sleep. They must control and lead a squad of 12 fellow candidates, guiding them through complex terrain and orienting them for counter-ambush drills and assaults.

The drills usually are a far cry from the reflexive precision of a front-line Marine infantry unit, but they do serve to show instructors and candidates alike what is expected of them.

“It really felt like you were in as much of a combat scenario as we have been at OCS,” Boyle said of his field time. “I always enjoy going through the muddy, swampy, disgusting stuff because that’s when you feel like you’re really doing the fun stuff.”