Guest Post From Another OCC-208 Female
I was a female officer candidate in October 2011 (OCC 208). I took a very unique path to United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates School. I didn’t dream of or even think about becoming an officer in the U.S. Armed Services until the end of my 3rd year in graduate school. I didn’t grow up in a military family. I didn’t participate in ROTC during undergrad or pursue a degree in Poli Sci. I wasn’t prior enlisted. Instead, I have a Doctorate in Biomedical Sciences or, more specifically, translational genomics. Friends in my platoon were trying to decide what I would be called after graduation, Doctor Lieutenant or Lieutenant Doctor, while friends at home were trying to figure out why I was in Quantico.
Unfortunately, I didn’t complete OCS. My body started breaking down around week 6 (about 2 weeks before the 9-mile hike) and I was sent home on the last day of week 9 with stress fractures in both femurs and the right tibia. It was disheartening and even though I knew it was coming several days prior, I still teared up when I heard the Police Sergeant walk into the platoon duty hut and announce, “Winn is going home.” Four months later, it still stings a little and, although my stress fractures are healed, I’m still not sure my bones and joints will ever let me forget my time at OCS. Regardless, I learned a lot of important lessons, met a lot of great people, and made a lot of wonderful memories. I learned a lot about leadership; about my own limits or lack there of; about how to deal with different personalities; about how to persevere through pain and exhaustion.
Struggling through the pain of injury was extremely difficult and taxing. It dragged on my motivation and left me wanting to call it quits on more than one occasion. It left me wondering what I was doing at OCS and questioning my reasons for pursuing a commission. It affected my enthusiasm, my relationships with fellow candidates, and my performance in academics, leadership, and drill. This doesn’t mean I wasn’t performing well. I just wasn’t performing to the best of my abilities – with or without all the other stresses of OCS.
Obviously preparation (physical, mental, and academic) is key. Perhaps I didn’t prepare enough. Looking back, I would have done a lot more running and hiking in boots prior to arriving in Quantico. But injuries and physical fitness are funny things at OCS. One can be in peak physical condition, sprain an ankle, and fail while someone that has never put on a pair of hiking boots can pass with flying colors. The same goes for academics or leadership. You can be extremely intelligent and fail academically or you can be a considerably adept leader that falls apart during LRC and SULE.
This leads me to what I think are two very important aspects to successfully completing OCS: motivation and balance. I don’t think there was a single candidate in my platoon that didn’t struggle with one or both of these during our time at OCS. You can be the most physically fit, the smartest, and the most out-going candidate to ever step foot on Brown Field but without motivation and balance you can and will fail.
Motivation can be hard to come by at OCS. Drill instructors are yelling at you for anything and everything. All the comforts of home are gone. You are stressed to the limit and then asked to take an exam, display leadership, or push through a demanding physical event. Before heading to OCS, think of ways to keep you motivated. Letters from home help . . . a lot! Know exactly why you are at OCS and make a list of reasons to review when your motivation is waning. Put together a list of motivational quotes or bring photos of your friends and family. Realize you are most likely going to fail at least one graded event whether due to lack of sleep or a tree root in your path. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small, and quickly learn from your mistakes. Remember that all your fellow candidates will experience the same highs and lows. When you notice another candidate struggling, reach out to them and hope other candidates will do the same for you. Most importantly, don’t forget to breath and smile when you have the opportunity.
While motivation can be hard to come by, balance can be even harder. There are a lot of things you’ll need to accomplish in very little time (shower, study, stretch, marking gear, writing home). I found sleep was a key component to my balance equation. Sure, you’ll have firewatch or COG at odd hours interrupting your precious hours of sleep every other night or so, but after I started limiting my time spent doing things after lights, the better I performed. Learn quickly how to manage your time. If you have long hair, know how to do it in 10 minutes or less, perfectly. Or just cut it all off! I did and it saved lots of sleep. Talk to prior candidates. There are a lot of little things that will make it easier to achieve balance.
Every person experiences OCS differently. A few fly through while others struggle. I wasn’t expecting to be sent home with stress fractures in my femurs or to struggle with motivation as much as I did. Overall, OCS is an exciting and frustrating experience. You get to be a kid again, with all its perks and all of its annoying rules. You get to play in the mud, run through the woods with a rifle, clamber over obstacles, and splash through puddles. You go to bed early, get yelled at even when you didn’t do anything wrong, get told how to sit and how to put on your clothes, and line up for class – boys here and girls there. However, when you remove all the added stress and break it down, I liked every part of OCS: my fellow candidates (most of them anyway), the staff, chow, drill, physical training, leadership evaluations, field exercises, class, firewatch, land navigation.
I cherish the opportunity I had to attend USMC Officer Candidates School. Even after the aches and pains eventually subside, I will never forget the lessons, the stories, or the people. And most of all, I will and do NOT think of myself as a failure. Whether you eventually get to call yourself a Marine or you go back to civilian life, you volunteered to do something few people would ever consider. You were willing to risk your life to protect the freedoms many people take for granted. I performed physical feats with two broken legs few people would ever consider imaginable. I gave it my all, kept going when I thought I couldn’t, and left with no regrets.
This blog has been far more difficult to write than I ever thought it would be. I saw ManlyPat’s blog, thought it would be awesome to write a similar blog from a female perspective, and that was that. I never thought I’d be writing a “Life After OCS” post, just a “Now I’m a Badass at TBS” post. So, I will do my dead level best not to depress you. : ) But before I do…
I’ve gotten a surprising number of emails from various candidates asking about my experience, the logistics of OCS, and the like. I’ve gotten a few emails from people who came home NOT as a Marine. Most surprisingly, I got a few emails from Captains who are working their OSO’s and using my blog as a resource. All that to say – to whoever is reading this blog of mine – it’s been a privilege to “talk to you.” I wish each of you all the best. I’ve loved speaking with those of you who have written.
Moving on…
The first few days after OCS were surreal. To come out of that environment back into the normal world was a shock. Everything seemed really petty and stupid, and yet it was amazing to have the amenities of home and the support of a family. I saw that one of the girls from my platoon (who got dropped) decided to join the Army, and is now working her way through their version of boot camp and OCS. She seems pretty happy. But me – I graduated months ago and am still floundering around trying to figure out what the hell to do, and more importantly, HOW to accomplish it.
I really thought I was going to be a Marine. But I’m not, and that’s that. And now there’s a million decisions that have to be made, all while this restless voice inside me says, “Come ON – just do SOMETHING!” I spent a month or two after OCS trying to make a plan. I didn’t want to do design anymore; it wasn’t fulfilling after all I had experienced. I had become aware of the world that was bigger than me, and I wanted to do something significant in it. I thought about going back to school. I thought about going for a graduate degree. I thought about teaching English overseas somewhere. I thought about just staying in my field and trying to get a corporate gig somewhere in town. I thought about moving to a new city. I thought about trying to start a business with a friend of mine. I’ve thought of a million different ways to cure this restlessness, but I keep coming back to one question.
What do you really want?
That seems like an easy question right? It’s been anything but easy trying to put an answer to that question, yet it’s always the one that gets posed when I am talking about a new idea. People use it against me like an accusation, a condemnation for not having figured all this shit out already. I knew what I wanted to do – I wanted to be a fucking pilot. My vision didn’t let me.
So I had an idea to look back at what has surely been the most popular post of this blog – “Why Join the Military” and evaluate what it was that I thought I wanted when I was planning to join the Marines.
1. The Challenge. I can’t live without a challenge. I’m not happy without one. I want something hard enough that I have to give it everything I have in order to succeed.
2. Perspective. The world is such a big place. There’s so much out there that I don’t know, don’t understand. That’s not acceptable. I have to know. I have to try to find out.
3. Experiences. You all know what I mean. We like DOING things.
4. To fight. Yeah, is that crazy? I still want to fight for something. It’s in my blood.
5. Strength. Physical fitness still matters to me. I hate every weakness I see. I love strong women, strong men. That’s the way we were meant to be.
6. Leadership. This one has changed a bit. I don’t want to lead for its own sake. I only want to lead if I really have a reason and a purpose for being the one in charge, if I can make a legitimate difference by leading rather than working independently. I despise following (usually).
7. To make the family proud.
8. To accomplish something important. What that means, I don’t know. I just don’t think it means staring at a glowing rectangle all day. Yeah, I know there’s a lot of really smart people who do that for a living. I don’t want to be one of them though… well, probably. And more specifically, I am really growing to hate the field of advertising. I know it doesn’t have to be ugly, cheap and stupid, but lately that’s all I see of it. Seems like there ought to be more to life.
9. Community. I love community. I found it in the Marines, as a river guide, and in my CrossFit gym. Autonomy is great, but community is pretty stellar as well.
So, the conclusion… Well, I don’t know. That’s my answer to that stupid question. What do I want? I want all those things I listed above. How will I do that? Right now, I’m going to study, study, study. I am going to study all the things that I wish I would have gone to school for. Hopefully I’ll eventually be able to go to grad school. Some day I will find a way to use all of my skills to get a job or start a business or whatever. I don’t know if I’m going to teach abroad, get involved in the corporate world, or what. When and if I figure that out, I’ll post Part 2. But I figured I ought to at least write one post about this nasty in-between time, before I have everything (or anything) figured out.
So… here’s to life after OCS!
OCS Staff. Where to begin… Everything at OCS is a big mind game. The staff messes with your head constantly, highlights your failures at every opportunity and does not give you credit for anything good that you do. I don’t know if they all play a specific role, like an actor would, or if their natural personalities are just extremely dramatized. All I know is that they make your life extremely hellish, but they can also teach a lot. Particularly towards the end, when they start speaking to you like normal people instead of like a piece of garbage, you really get a feel for their motivations, beliefs, and reasons for being in the military. This is pretty inspiring stuff. There did seem to be some common themes among the staff though, and here’s what I observed.
Platoon Commander – Serious, caustic, and extremely dry. They don’t yell (much), and when they do – it’s bad. My Captain had a habit of answering questions with one-word answers, which was really unnerving. They take their jobs seriously, have no patience for inefficiency, and are very matter-of-fact. They tend to be pretty sarcastic, presumably because they aren’t supposed to yell very much.
Platoon Sergeant – Your mentor. She may yell sometimes, but she will probably relax at times and be sympathetic. She’s the one who will have group meetings about what is going on in the platoon, what the girls need, and how things can be improved. By far your best resource while at OCS, the Platoon Sergeant will get things done. Don’t tick her off – she’s too valuable.
Drill instructors – Need I go here? They hate you, they hate life, they hate everything and everyone. At least they act like they do. Eventually, they’ll mellow out a little bit. I suspect there’s a lot of variation in the drill instructors you’ll encounter at OCS. They are out for blood (it seems) and thrive on spotting weakness in candidates that they can exploit.
Leadership is stressed a lot in the Marines, but until you get to OCS, it’s kind of a hazy idea that bring images of popular movies to mind. This is NOT how you will experience leadership in the Marines. There are basically two parts to your leadership grade:
1. Graded events – specifically LRC 1 & 2, and SULE 1 & 2. I’ve written pretty extensively about the LRC already in previous posts, but to recap – you will be faced with a problem that you will probably not be able to come up with a solution for. When dealing with that problem, you MUST show that you are in charge. You must have a plan and take specific steps to execute it, even if it’s wrong. When it fails (and it will), you must be able to deal with it calmly and still appear to be in control of your team.
SULE is a much more technical exercise. You will go through several practice exercises where you will be shown a lot of the key components you will be graded on – pay attention to these! They will tell you most everything you need to know. Basically, you’ll be tramping through the forest with a compass and a rifle, on a “mission” to ambush a target 400 meters away. About 300 meters in, someone will start shooting at you, or you’ll take indirect fire, or one of your team members will suddenly become a “casualty” and you will have to decide what to do and how to handle it. In the case of a casualty, for example, some people would split their team up, so that two members of the team take the casualty back for medical care, while the others moved on towards the target. Everyone handles these situations differently – ultimately, it’s up to you. Confidence is key.
2. Peer evals, commander evals and billets – These are the tough ones!!! Peer evaluations can be rough, but if you’re not a jerk and you help out when things need to get done, you’ll probably be fine. Commander evaluations are extremely subjective, and can easily go either way. Billets are also graded very subjectively.
Billets – with any luck, you won’t have a billet during the first few weeks of OCS, because it will inevitably be a disaster, regardless of what I post here to try to prepare you. There’s just too many things that you won’t know right off the bat, and too much to learn when you’re under that much pressure. By week 7 and 8, you’ll start to get the hang of things (yes, it takes that long).
I didn’t have many billets at OCS – just platoon guide and squad leader, so I don’t have much to give in the way of advice. From what I remember, the billets are basically as follows:
Platoon Commander – You are in charge of all the numbers – making sure that you always know how many people are on deck, how many are at medical, etc.. Basically, you need to always know where everybody is, and why anybody is missing. You will report to the real Platoon Commander (your Captain) twice during each day of your billet. It’s on you to make sure you report in. You had better be well versed in the reporting procedures and policies. This position does not require yelling or interacting hardly at all with your platoon. You are the middleman between the Captain and your Candidate Company Platoon Sergeant. If your Capt. gives you an order, you relay it to your CC Plt Sgt. Delegate!
Platoon Sergeant – By far the shittiest billet at OCS, your job is to get everybody at the right place at the right time with the right gear. TIME is everything; don’t be late for anything, and try to be five minutes early getting things done. Your platoon will probably hate you because you will have to yell at them a lot, but it’s your job. It’s also important that you speak loudly, aggressively, and that you make your platoon sound off in response to your orders. It’s a shitty job. However, you will get LOTS of points if you utilize your squad leaders, which everyone had a hard time doing. Delegation is everything at OCS. Give an order, and make your squad leaders carry it out. Then hound your squad leaders to make sure it’s done.
Guide – This job is pretty easy, unless you’re the guide during a hike (in which case you have to carry the guidon/flag). You help out the Platoon Sergeant and are the line-leader of your platoon/company. Not too exciting.
Candidate Co Gunnery Sgt. – The second shittiest job at OCS, your job is to have a perfect count of the numbers. You have to know where everyone is at all times. If someone is at medical, you should know their name, their injury, and their status. You will have to make sure someone brings them food if they miss chow. You will have to know if candidates get dropped. It’s extremely stressful.
The billets are actually a bit more complicated than this, but this is the gist of how it works. Technically, the breakdown of leadership positions is as follows, of the candidate billets:
Fireteams (3-4 people) – with a Fireteam leader
Squads (12, maybe 13 people) – Squad leader
Platoons (35-60 people, ish) – Platoon Sgt, Platoon Guide, Platoon Commander, Platoon GySgt (I think)
Company (~4 Platoons, could be between 150-250+ candidates) – Company Plt. Sgt, Co Plt Guide, Co Plt Commander, Co Plt GySgt
The technicalities of all this is pretty endless, and I don’t remember it all. There’s rank insignia, reporting procedures, etc… for each position. Some of it you’ll just have to figure out once you get there…
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One thing I forgot to add. I don’t mean to sound demotivating in this, it’s just the honest, ugly truth.
Let me preface this by reiterating the fact that THIRTY girls did not graduate in my platoon, out of 58. I hated this, it bothered me deeply… Well, I’ll hit on that in another post. For now, all I’ll say is that OCS Staff sets candidates up for failure that they don’t like by giving them billets and watching them fail, especially early on in the cycle. Billets usually go to the worst candidates right off the bat. Again, I am in NO WAY being judgmental of anyone in my platoon. I know how much each of them went through to get to OCS, and I have the highest respect for that. However, almost none of the girls who had a billet in the first few weeks graduated. That said, there were SOME exceptions to that rule. One of the girls who was our first or second Platoon Sgt. ended up being a model candidate. She might have even won a special award, I don’t remember. Another girl was a prior and was also a great candidate, who had a billet early on. So that’s NOT always the case, but a lot of times it is, though it might vary depending on who the staff is. Towards the end, billets usually go to either the very best or the very worst candidates. The average people don’t get a whole lot of attention (which is a good thing, at least in my opinion).
Aside from already not getting enough sleep, you have to stand on guard for firewatch for an hour every night or so (sometimes every two or three). Additionally, during the first few weeks, you have to listen as unfortunate female candidates try to give the appropriate report whenever staff walks by, and it takes a good five weeks for anybody to ever get it right. The firewatch “report” may vary from season to season, or from year to year, but I suspect it’s usually about the same. This may not be perfect, but it’s pretty close from what I recall:
(salute) Good evening, Gunnery Sgt (Captain, whoever…). Candidate Whoever, firewatch for Charlie Company 1st Platoon, reports area all secure. The count on deck is 58 United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates. The count on hand is 56 United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates. There are two United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates on firewatch. There is nothing new or unusual to report at this time. Good evening Gunnery Sgt. (wait for Sgt to salute back, then cut salute).
That’s the basic gist of what you have to say, and EVERYBODY screws it up. Firewatch is an hour-long post where one person stands at the front of the squadbay waiting to give a report to any platoon staff who happen to walk by, and the other person (or two or three people) clean the squadbay, the head, and do laundry.
While I’m on the topic of what to say at OCS, there’s practically a sacred ritual that is performed whenever a candidate has to report to the Captain’s office. I’ll give you the low-down on it, so you’ll have an idea of what to expect. Just know that it could change, depending on your Platoon Commander. But here goes:
1. Bang on the hatch three times, loudly, speaking from the position of attention.
2. “Good evening ladies (assuming all the Platoon Staff is in the office). Candidate Whoever requests permission to speak to Platoon Commander Captain Whoever. Good evening ladies.” OR “Candidate Whoever reporting to Platoon Commander Captain Whoever as ordered.” NEVER say ‘Candidate Whoever would like to speak to…” Always say “requests permission to speak to.”
3. Captain yells “Get in here candidate” (or “Go Away ” – in which case you reply, “Aye Ma’am/GySgt/Whoever, good evening Whoever” – and then go away and come back later)
4. Reply “Aye Ma’am”.
5. Bang on hatch once upon entering the office. Do not look left nor right. Say “Candidate on deck.”
6. If others besides the Captain are in the office (she has an office within the office), address them without looking and say “Good evening Ladies.” Continue to the Captain’s office.
7. Upon arriving at the hatch of the Captain’s office, repeat steps 1-5. Yes, it’s extremely redundant.
8. Once you are in the office, walk to the center of the Captain’s desk and stand six inches away. Say “Good evening Ma’am. Candidate Whoever….yada yada… Good evening Ma’am.” Do not look at her, unless she tells you to. If you’ve made it that far, you’re golden. Remain at the position of attention.
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As the conversation ends, she’ll say, “Dismissed.”
1. Reply, “Dismissed, Aye Ma’am.”
2. Take one step backwards, left foot first. Return to the Position of Attention.
3. Say “Good evening Ma’am”.
4. Do an about-face and exit.
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Upon exiting an office:
1. Bang on the hatch once and say “Candidate off deck.”
2. Say “Good evening Ladies” if there are staff in the office outside of the Captain’s office.
3. Bang on the hatch of the second doorway once and say “Candidate off deck. Good evening Ladies.”
The end.
My failure to write about this topic sooner is completely unforgivable. It was one of the most… interesting parts of OCS…
As you enter the “head” of the female squadbay (which btw, looks exactly the same as the males), you come upon a row of 7 or 8 sinks. To their right is about seven stalls (doorless, but with dividing walls). Opposite the stalls are urinals. To the left of the sinks is essentially a changing area. Beyond that is the “rain room” – ie- the showers. It’s a 10′x20′ (give or take) room with two stainless steel poles running floor to ceiling. Attached to each pole are four showerheads, so there are 8 total. Imagine 58 sweaty females all vying for a few minutes of love under the showerheads at one time, and that’s pretty much the story of OCS. Throw in a Drill Instructor coming into the showers in the midst of all this and yelling at candidates – even turning off the water while sudsy girls scrambled to get out (this only happened once or twice), and you’ll really get a feel for OCS. It was… crazy. Weird. Hilarious, in retrospect.
Most females will have to take a shower AFTER lights out every night.The ones with short hair might find enough time to do this during the 10-20 minutes of allotted shower time (which always seemed shorter than that). Hygiene inspections are every night – the drill instructors (or candidate platoon staff) comes around and inspects for blisters and the like.
Making head calls between activities is always interesting. ~Seven candidates are in the stalls. As soon as they are done, they rush out (pants still hanging around their ankles) while new candidates rush in. Rush, rush, rush, is the name of the game. DON’T BE LAST! And carry hand sanitizer everywhere.
