3 weeks down

[DarkLink]

So I've just gotten to my first 24 hour liberty at Marine OCS. Three straight weeks, and other than firewatch I'm free for another ~18 hours. From now on, each weekend we get 24 hours of liberty. I've already stuffed myself with pizza and milkshakes, and I feel pretty sick. It's glorious.

So far, ive been well prepared. None of the pt has been unmanageable, and actually easier than I thought, but a lot of the physical difficulty is from the constant push. We march/jog everywhere with 20-30 lb daypacks, three or so miles a day, and that's just moving from class to class and back. We probably do another mile or two chasing "volume" (oh, you don't want to sound off? Go find volume over there) and stuff like that. And we're carrying our weapon everywhere, which is a killer on your upper back when combined with wearing a camelback and then a heavy daypack on top of that, which totally throws your back out.

Our tactics courses are a blast. We hike around in fireteams (soon to be squads), communicate via hand signals, and assault objectives while trading off leadership roles. Some of the courses require you to crawl/swim through ice cold water, in 40-50 degree weather. That's the most physically and mentally challenging thing so far. But even then, the first water obstacle was the coldest ive ever been in my life. My second wlmade me feel BA, and after the third I'll practically be making fun of those wimps who got hypothermia (ok, so maybe I'm more sympathetic than that, but still). We've had 9 hypothermia cases so far.

Classes are a mix of boring and fascinating. Reading about Dan Daily's two metals of honor, plus his conduct during WW1, and some of the the other incredible things Marines have done, is humbling.


We probably get about 4-5 hours of sleep a night. It makes classes tough. You don't want to ever fall asleep when a Captain or Gunnery Sergeant is teaching a class. It won't turn out well for you.

Leadership training is the big unknown factor, though. We do assault courses, which aren't too hard if you keep a cool head and remember the tactics classes, but there's also billets. You rotate through squad/platoon/company leadership positions, and old you're responsible for everything all of your 'subordinates' fail to do. Our liberty today was delayed a few hours because our candidate platoon sergeant and commander couldn't be decisive and organize our squad bay cleanup. The sergeant instructors just kept playing games until our billet holders got their act together. The higher billets are your chance to sink or swim.

Anyways, that's about all I can put up in limited time. If you want, you can find pictures by clicking USMC OCS photos, but I don't have a direct link.

Kill

[Drunkencorgimaster]

Nice work! A well-earned liberty.

[Deadlift]

Rather you than me matey,
Good luck with the rest of your initial training, sounds like your enjoying it despite the physical and mental hardship. Well done you.

[DarkLink]

So another week down. We ran the o-course, had a bunch of classes on STD's (important for Marines to know about), some uniform fittings, and lots of Uncomplicated Stuff Made Complicated (usmc).

[DarkLink]

Halfway through now. This week was actually pretty chill, at least by OCS standards. Candidate billet holders are now responsible for a lot of the stuff sergeant instructors used to do, so as long as they do a good job we don't have to play games.

We finally have warm showers, but I still haven't gotten more than 6 hours of sleep since coming to ocs. I've gotten about five hours in the last two days combined. Lack of sleep gets you after a while, you just end up doing really stupid stuff for no reason because you can't think straight. PT has gotten tougher, but it's still pretty manageable as long as you're not mentally weak.

We got to run the Tarzan course, with a zipline and cargo nets and rope bridges and such. It turned out to be a blast. The weather was pretty warm (comparatively), which is really nice. We did our land nav day course, which was fun for me. Proud to say I finished 2nd out of the whole company, only maybe a minute behind a candidate who's a full fledged hardcore Force Recon Marine who teaches land nav to special operations units. I was sitting tall in my camp stool record scores from other candidates (first three done grade the other candidates as they tricks back in).

We just had our week 5 boards, where they start dropping candidates who don't perform as opposed to only dropping cheaters/injured candidates. 5 candidates from my platoon were boarded, one was dropped, and the other four have two weeks to prove themselves before the week 7 boards.

I've yet to hold a real billet. Eventually, we'll all hold at least one company or platoon level billet, but I've only gotten squad leader once so far. The billets are not fun, because the instructors yell at billet holders instead of at the whole platoon.

[Denzark]

Keep Fighting DL, its worth it in the end.

[DarkLink]

Another week down. Had a bunch of physical tests and poor weather. I ran a 19 min 3 mile, which is like a full minute improvement, got a few seconds shy of perfect on the combat fitness test, and got a 7 second improvement on the o-course (which is huge when your overall time is 1:07) for another almost perfect. Our company overall is extremely physically fit, even by Marine OCS standards, simply because getting selected is so competitive. We have 100 candidates out of our original ~130 left. I'm doing a little above average in terms of gpa, solid but not exceptional. I haven't failed anything, but my leadership evals are a little low because 1) ocs promotes a loud, aggressive form of leadership whereas I'm more calm and organized, but I expected that, and 2) because I haven't held any real billets so I haven't gotten to be truly evaluated yet. I'm candidate platoon commander later this week, so I'll finally get my shot to prove myself.

Mon/tues we bivouaced after the PFT, then did night land nav in the freezing rain, then did basic squad offensive tactics practical application class. In the rain. Though it was a drizzle by then, and warmer.

After that, we did a move to contact (hike along a trail that didn't have a single flat section, it was all up and down small but very steep and muddy hills for maybe 3 miles). It was supposed to be a hike, bit some blue falcons up front kept falling back and for those who have done conditioning marches you know that creates ripples that makes the whole platoon run. Despite the fact that the first guy is walking, most of the platoon is running to keep up 90% of the movement, all with kevlars, 3-4 liters of water, rifles, and 30 lb day packs 40-50 lbs total, as a rough estimate. Those blue falcons turned it into the hardest physical event at ocs so far, running with 40-50 lbs on extremely steep, muddy trails for three miles. Then we did the Leadership.Reaction Course part 2 which wasn't too big of a deal.

The rest of the week we just did some random stuff, like running the endurance course for the first time, fitting uniforms, classes on hazing and stuff like that. Nothing too exciting.

Next week is going to be pretty chill. We've got two pt sessions that'll be reasonably tough, but other than that it's just classes and other relatively easy stuff. We do have the platoon commanders inspection, and ill be cand platoon commander so I'm already planning on how to ace it as a platoon. Overall the week should be pretty easy, though again Monday is supposed to be near freezing in the day with lots of rain, and that's our night out in the field when it drops below freezing.

[ElectricPaladin]

We are all rooting for you. Keep up the good work!

[DarkLink]

Another week down. This was our "easy" week to give us some rest before week 8 and 9. We ran our scored CFT (got a 300), ran the endurance course (it sucks), and most everything else was just classes and random nonsense. I was candidate platoon commander, and I couldn't ask for an easier period. All in all not a bad week.

Next week is the killer. Mon we run the e course again, then bivouac (probably in the rain), then do field exercises, another bivouac (I bet it snows or something), then SULE 2 (worth like 10% of our overall grade or something ridiculous), the 9-mile ruck, and then the final scored e course. Week 9, we get to do all the Moto pt, like the field meet, montford point challenge, metal of honor run, etc, so that's a killer. After that, though, you just have to avoid doing something stupid or getting complacent, so basically two weeks. This is the darkest before dawn part.

Edit: apparently, this is the coldest winter in Virginia in a long time. We get bragging rights .

[Nabterayl]

Keep it up, man!