Readers tell us about their experiences at OCS

'I believe in you'

I remember shipping to OCS (Officer Candidates Class 152, Jan 1993-April 1993) from El Paso, Texas, via my Officer Selection Officer's (OSO) office in Albuquerque, N.M. My OSO, a Marine captain, and his assistant took me and two other recent college graduates to breakfast the morning our flight was scheduled to depart for what was then National Airport (now Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport).

Prior to boarding the aircraft, I distinctly remember the OSO shaking my hand, looking me in the eye, and telling me that he believed in me. At the time, the words didn't really mean too much. I soon realized their importance when I stepped off the bus at OCS, Marine Corps Base, Quantico.

By the time we arrived at OCS, I was in complete culture shock. The furthest east I had ever ventured out of El Paso was Houston, Texas. I recall seeing live deer as the bus taking us from the airport to OCS passed an open field at Marine Corps Base Quantico. It was really exciting to see deer, we don't normally see deer in El Paso! The real excitement, as I soon found out, was just a few miles down the road.

A very funny thing happened (well, not very funny when it actually happened) to me during the pick-up phase at OCS. As the Sergeant Instructors were moving us from the holding barracks to the permanent barracks we would call home for the next 10 weeks, the strap on my personal duffel bag broke. When the bag hit the ground it exploded in a cloud of foot powder. You would have thought I had "popped smoke" to cover my getaway! Needless to say, I received a tremendous amount of personal attention from the Sergeant Instructors for the next few days. Fortunately, I adapted and squared myself away. I was commissioned in April 1993. My wife and mother pinned by 2nd Lt. bars on my collar.

I would do it all again in a heart beat. I have enjoyed every challenge the Marine Corps has presented me thus far and will continue to serve as long as the Marine Corps wants me.

Semper Fidelis,
Raphael Hernandez
Major, USMC
Assistant for Officer Procurement
4th Marine Corps Recruiting District

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Relief, just around the corner

It's sadistically ironic that this story must be three hundred words long. Anyone who went knows the dread that goes with the saying, "Three hundred words by 0500!"

Squeak, squeak, squeak. I was sweating buckets in the already black flag conditions; trench foot in both boots. I could feel the blisters forming on the undersides of my feet from the wet socks I was wearing. The break confirmed both ailments. Dry socks and a shake of boot powder was the best I could do.

Out on the day land navigation course, I was walking on the balls of each foot to avoid the heels, putting unnatural pressure on my toes. They began to swell.

The admin move back stretched out for eternity. Each step jolted my heels painfully. I could only tell myself, "Just around this corner." I am not going to pass out …

My sling-keeper loosened and fell to the ground. With the Platoon Sergeant yelling in my ear, my heels throbbing with pain, my toes swollen from abuse, and the heat drenching my body, I tied my dirty sling to my M-16 with a knot tightened using my teeth, and looked at the distance to the little end. Impossible. From the strength born of desperation, hope and pride all jumbled together, I let out a growl of frustration and pain all the way back to the pack.

Stumbling into the barracks, I quivered with exhaustion and pain and hobbled over to the corpsman. Stripping off my saturated boots and socks, I kneeled on the ground as my feet were drained, then injected with medicine nick-named "cement" (used to harden the new skin under the blister). To this day, I cannot say whether the pain of walking on blisters on the bottoms of my heels or the pain of the cement was greater.

Semper Fi,
Anne Armstrong
Midshipman 1/c USMCR
University of Wisconsin, Madison
OCS 2nd Inc. 2005
Echo Co, 1st Plt

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'How much do you weigh, candidate?'

Pickup is one of those things that no one who has been through OCS will forget, despite the fact that it's so insanely hectic that few remember specific details. Within a couple of minutes after the screaming began, all the candidates in my platoon became automatons, just doing what they were told as the Drill Instructors moved about the platoon, waiting to jump on anyone for the slightest mistake. After about an hour of this my platoon finally made it to the squad bay, where the DI's immediately set about wrecking the place. In particular, one SSGT Wright loved throwing footlockers; so while SSGT Dove was telling us all the procedures for reporting in and the standards for cleaning the squad bay, SSGT Wright made like Godzilla in Tokyo.

I'm all the way at the end of the squad bay just waiting for my turn to get screamed at and see my stuff go flying. But instead, when SSGT Wright gets to my bunk, he takes one look at my bunk mate and asks, "How much do you weigh, candidate?" Poor candidate Kim was rail thin, standing all of 5-foot, 5 inches. He replied meekly, "120 pounds, Staff Sergeant."

Big mistake; always sound off with everything you have at OCS.

SSGT Wright picks up candidate Kim and yells, "DO I HAVE TO SHAKE THE VOLUME OUT OF YOU CANDIDATE?" At first I thought my rack mate was going to be thrown just like all the footlockers before him. Two seconds later, with SSGT Wright still holding candidate Kim up to his eyes, everyone around had to stifle laughs seeing this huge Sergeant of Marines holding onto this skinny little Asian kid and the two of them shouting at each other.

From then on, whenever the candidates where alone and needed a laugh, we'd ask Kim, "How much do you weigh, candidate?" With the lack of sleep and constant tension of OCS it never failed to get a laugh and relieve some tension.

Charles Kiel
Semper Fi