My Weekend
So this weekend I went out to Paulding County GA to get in a little intensive training with the Officer Selection Teams for Atlanta, Norcross and Charlotte, NC. The OST's job is to make sure we are prepared mentally and physically for Officer Candidate School. To that end, they held a "Mini OCS" out in Paulding County. Here're the high lights; how does your weekend stack up?
FRI:
Report in at 1200, Get assigned to a Squad and a Fireteam for organizational purposes. As a platoon, all three Atlanta squads set up our tents. Then we take them down for putting them up sloppy/too slowly and put them back up. I think we ended up breaking them down like three times. Learned to stand in platoon formation and some basic drill: Attention, right face, left face, right turn, left turn, marching forwards/ backwards, etc etc. Get yelled at for forgetting all sorts of protocol (not me, everyone). Eventually everyone learns to respond to and address the Marines training us properly. The Lieutenants, who were in our shoes not so long ago, had alot of fun chewing us out. Take some classes and then get to the obstacle course, which is ramp that we negotiate on our hands and feet, a crawl through the dirt underneath a sort of horizontal fence, a balance beam, up and over a wall and then up a rope which I was initially apprehensive about but learned to manage successfully. Did Tug of War against the other OSTs from Charlotte and Norcross. Got into our tents and fell asleep at 2200.
SAT:
Wake up at oh my god 0445, get into shorts and a t-shirt (it is freezing by the way that morning and still dark as hell). Do pull-ups for our PFT (Physical Fitness Test). Do Crunches for the physical fitness test. Fall into formation and march double time (essentially jogging quickly) up and down some pretty mean hills to get to our PFT Run location. Run a hilly 3 mile course in 23:04! I'm pretty proud of my time, but it is what the Marine Corps calls "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU MOVING SO SLOW, CANDIDATE?". It was my best time ever so I'm pretty motivated, and I was not by a long shot the slowest one there. My final PFT score was 14 pull-ups, 95 crunches and a 23:04 run, which is a 235/300. You need a 225 to pass and about a 280 to be competitive. Got a motivating speech from Maj. Ash who stopped by on his way to go see the Silent Drill Platoon which I am kicking myself in the head for not knowing was in the area.
Spent the rest of the day in classes about Small Unit Tactics, writing formal orders, Land Navigation, and then some more practice negotiating the Obstacle Course. The whole day we are eating MREs. "Chow is Continuous" which means eat all day whenever you can; eat whatever you can carry on your person from your MREs. MREs are surprisingly delicious. The Lieutenants give us a demontsration of an exercise we are going to do tommorow, and it absolutely ruins a bunch of them and takes them, as a team, like an hour and a half to do. We are terrified, as a group. We go to a class taught by Capt. Kuns about how awesome it is to be Capt. Kuns. We go to bed, but not before I am assigned Fire Watch, which basically means I am in charge for the platoon between the hours of (in this case) 0130-0300 while I make sure nobody uses the night to commit dastardly acts, and that nothing catches on fire. The stars are beautiful, and are worth the lost sleep.
SUN:
Up at 0530 and we all break down our tents and pack them up and pull them out again and pack them up again etc. until every piece of every tent is accounted for. Fall in and march over to the field where we prepare to do that horrifying exercise, which I will now cover (others who were there, I feel like I am missing something so let me know if I get anything wrong or out of order).
Break into teams of 8. Every person in the team must:
*Do 50 Marine Corps crunches
*Fireman's Carry all 7 of his/her teammates across the field.
*Do 15 squats with the last of his/her teammates still across his/her shoulders
*Buddy Drag all 7 of his/her teammates back across the field
*Do 15 Vertical Situps which are situps where you end standing up.
*Bear Crawl across the field and back to his/her team.
*Do 15 Roman Sit Ups off on of his/her teammate's backs.
*Sprint across the field and back to his/her team.
*Do 25 Marine Corps pushups
*Cheer on his/her teammates at the top of his/her lungs while they do the above
It was absolutely exhausting and then some. It was also absolutely awesome and then some when the whole team got done. The whole experience was nothing less than life changing. I feel so much more confident about myself and my abilities. I feel more locked in and squared away, and I feel like with a little practice I can learn to take charge in the Marine Corps and get shit done. I was absolutely crushed to find out it was Sunday, meaning I couldn't go get celebration enhancers. Oh well.
FRI:
Report in at 1200, Get assigned to a Squad and a Fireteam for organizational purposes. As a platoon, all three Atlanta squads set up our tents. Then we take them down for putting them up sloppy/too slowly and put them back up. I think we ended up breaking them down like three times. Learned to stand in platoon formation and some basic drill: Attention, right face, left face, right turn, left turn, marching forwards/ backwards, etc etc. Get yelled at for forgetting all sorts of protocol (not me, everyone). Eventually everyone learns to respond to and address the Marines training us properly. The Lieutenants, who were in our shoes not so long ago, had alot of fun chewing us out. Take some classes and then get to the obstacle course, which is ramp that we negotiate on our hands and feet, a crawl through the dirt underneath a sort of horizontal fence, a balance beam, up and over a wall and then up a rope which I was initially apprehensive about but learned to manage successfully. Did Tug of War against the other OSTs from Charlotte and Norcross. Got into our tents and fell asleep at 2200.
SAT:
Wake up at oh my god 0445, get into shorts and a t-shirt (it is freezing by the way that morning and still dark as hell). Do pull-ups for our PFT (Physical Fitness Test). Do Crunches for the physical fitness test. Fall into formation and march double time (essentially jogging quickly) up and down some pretty mean hills to get to our PFT Run location. Run a hilly 3 mile course in 23:04! I'm pretty proud of my time, but it is what the Marine Corps calls "WHY THE HELL ARE YOU MOVING SO SLOW, CANDIDATE?". It was my best time ever so I'm pretty motivated, and I was not by a long shot the slowest one there. My final PFT score was 14 pull-ups, 95 crunches and a 23:04 run, which is a 235/300. You need a 225 to pass and about a 280 to be competitive. Got a motivating speech from Maj. Ash who stopped by on his way to go see the Silent Drill Platoon which I am kicking myself in the head for not knowing was in the area.
Spent the rest of the day in classes about Small Unit Tactics, writing formal orders, Land Navigation, and then some more practice negotiating the Obstacle Course. The whole day we are eating MREs. "Chow is Continuous" which means eat all day whenever you can; eat whatever you can carry on your person from your MREs. MREs are surprisingly delicious. The Lieutenants give us a demontsration of an exercise we are going to do tommorow, and it absolutely ruins a bunch of them and takes them, as a team, like an hour and a half to do. We are terrified, as a group. We go to a class taught by Capt. Kuns about how awesome it is to be Capt. Kuns. We go to bed, but not before I am assigned Fire Watch, which basically means I am in charge for the platoon between the hours of (in this case) 0130-0300 while I make sure nobody uses the night to commit dastardly acts, and that nothing catches on fire. The stars are beautiful, and are worth the lost sleep.
SUN:
Up at 0530 and we all break down our tents and pack them up and pull them out again and pack them up again etc. until every piece of every tent is accounted for. Fall in and march over to the field where we prepare to do that horrifying exercise, which I will now cover (others who were there, I feel like I am missing something so let me know if I get anything wrong or out of order).
Break into teams of 8. Every person in the team must:
*Do 50 Marine Corps crunches
*Fireman's Carry all 7 of his/her teammates across the field.
*Do 15 squats with the last of his/her teammates still across his/her shoulders
*Buddy Drag all 7 of his/her teammates back across the field
*Do 15 Vertical Situps which are situps where you end standing up.
*Bear Crawl across the field and back to his/her team.
*Do 15 Roman Sit Ups off on of his/her teammate's backs.
*Sprint across the field and back to his/her team.
*Do 25 Marine Corps pushups
*Cheer on his/her teammates at the top of his/her lungs while they do the above
It was absolutely exhausting and then some. It was also absolutely awesome and then some when the whole team got done. The whole experience was nothing less than life changing. I feel so much more confident about myself and my abilities. I feel more locked in and squared away, and I feel like with a little practice I can learn to take charge in the Marine Corps and get shit done. I was absolutely crushed to find out it was Sunday, meaning I couldn't go get celebration enhancers. Oh well.