Navy Officer Candidate School (OCS) Part 2

Navy Officer Candidate School

Officer Candidate Phase

After you get through Friday of week 1 you officially become an "Officer Candidate." Please note that you are not a "Candidate Officer", but an "Officer Candidate." A candidate officer is a candidate who has reached the last phase of training and is in charge of running the regiment. It is easy to get two terms confused, but we shorten candidate officer to candio often times and it helps alleviate some confusion.

Classes

As an officer candidate your days now consist of class and drill. I know I was looking forward to the classes and learning what I considered some very interesting topics. The first class you start is Seapower. Seapower is basically naval history, some find it very boring but honestly I found it fascinating and the I actually read the book on the battles for fun. (When I say for fun I mean I added it to my study routine to break up the basic memorization but it was very interesting). After Seapower you take 2 classes, NOW and Eng-Weps. "NOW" is basically a lot of random facts about the admin side of the navy, lots of random facts, many of the useful. The problem with this class is it extremely dry and will put anyone to sleep in a matter of minutes if they wern't drinking their weight in water every couple hours. Eng-Weps is a mix between the basics of engineering and studying some weapon systems employed by the navy. Since I studied mechanical engineering in college this class was pretty easy, but even if you don't have a technical background it is just memorization of different cycles and part and weapon names. After this cycle of classes you hit your last 2 and the hardest 2: Nav-Nos. Nav stands for Navigation, and is basically plotting on navigation charts. NOS is something like Naval operational seamanship or something, basically it is using MO-boards. A mo-board is what is used to plot other ships compared to you on the ocean. Its kind of like a paper version radar. These two classes are famous for failing people. The trick to these classes is practice! Unlike the other classes this class is not pure memorization, it does have some (which you shouldn't forget about) but a big part comes from being able to do the plotting techniques shown in class. In fact about 75% of the class is working on plotting on Mo boards and the chart. During this class if you are having problems find someone who has it down and ask for help, if you have it down look for people that are struggling and help them. When I took this class, I luckily picked it up quickly and was able to help quite a few in my class pass. Almost every night for the week leading to the test I led a study session in an empty hatch for those struggling (I had to go ask them if they wanted to study with me). In the end we didn't have a single failure in either class, this is practically unheard of for these classes and it secured us the academic streamer and made us an honor class.

If you fail a class you will have a chance to retake the following Monday. (Tests are on Thursday/Fridays). So if you do poorly on a quiz, which marks the half way point, study up. If you fail the test, get help and rock the retake. You don't want to roll 3 weeks because you were tired and didn't study. Honestly studying is more important than another coat of polish on those boots anyway.

Drill

Toe to toe allignment

Besides classes, the other main focus of your life as an officer candidate will be drill. Every drill instructor is different and will teach to a different degree. I have found that brand new drill instructors have to "prove" themselves as capable to the other DI's so they drill their company harder than the standard. When I was there as part of class 16-13, we were the biggest single company to date. Since we came in with just under 70 people we wern't split into two companies but stayed as 16-13. Normally if you have more than 70 in a class you will be split into say "12-14 Alpha and 12-14 Bravo company." When the companies are split they compete against each other in events such as RLP and Drill. Sometimes this can make them work harder but I also saw unnecessary fighting between companies when they both reached candio phase.

Anyways, drill is conducted multiple times a day and is basically learning to do certain "actions" with the rifle. If you want an example look up marine silent drill team on youtube. You won't be nearly that good but you learn alot of the basic moves they do. Luckily we didn't do any throwing of the rifle. Sometimes drill periods can last as long as 3 or 4 hours, which is extremely taxing. It may not sound like learning to do "port arms" is hard but when a DI is making everyone do pushups or high knees every time someone in a 63 person platoon messes up... it can hurt. At the end of OCS you will be able to show your loved ones some of the drill moves you learned in what is called "Pass in Review."

 RLP

LOUDER!

Now, the most daunting of events in OCS is RLP, or atleast it is built up to be. RLP stands for Room locker and Personnel inspection. (Even though some DI's joke it stands for Relocation program). RLP is supposed to teach you how to pay attention to detail, and maintain bearing under stressful situations. In the weeks leading up to the event you will learn to fold your clothes just right, learn to make a rack with hospital corners, and learn to yell as loud as you can when asked a question. The main thing the DI's look for is confidence and bearing, in addition to a tidy appearance. First impressions matter in this, so come out looking like trash and don't start the "interview" correctly then they will look for something wrong to mark off. If you come out loud and know your stuff they will want to be done with you as soon as possible.

I would highly suggest organizing your class into teams and break up the work between everyone so that one team folds socks, one team folds shirts, one team makes racks, etc. This way when someone gets good at doing something they can do it for the whole platoon, and everyone looks great. This makes everyone good at something, and everyone contributes to the team. Our class did this under  the guidance of our candios and we were prepared early week 2 for RLP, which is a week 3 event. Some of the other class teams didn't like the fact that we did this so they forbid their classes following us from doing it but made everyone do it themselves. I personally think that this doesn't promote working as a team, but being too caught up in personal achievement. Even with the help of the class preparing everything together, that will only take you so far. Once you are standing at attention in front of your room and the DI or chief squares off on you, then everything is up to you at that point. Even if you have the most clean and spot on room, if they dont think you deserve to pass because you couldn't maintain your bearing then they will find something wrong and not pass you. They want men and women they can follow in the heat of battle not someone who is going to sit in the corner and cry. So study your knowledge, maintain bearing, clean your room and you are good to go.

So you may be asking yourself, what can I study beforehand so I can be ready? Well good question! You need to know the 11 general orders of a sentry, the 6 articles of the code of conduct, the sailors creed, your chain of command, ranks and insignia, and the service songs of the navy and marine corp. 

My personal experience with RLP

Before coming to OCS I had learned the 11 general orders, and had started the code of conduct. I studied my butt off every spare moment I had in OCS to prepare for RLP. When the time came, I felt confident but still nervous. The night before my hatch mate and I took some PT matts from the laundry room to sleep on the floor with, that way we didn't have to disturb our perfectly made bed. I stayed up an hour after taps doing last minute checks, a little studying and cleaning but I knew sleep was important. My hatch mate had been there something like 8 months already in med hold so he had his knowledge but wanted to make sure the room was perfect and everyone of his items was perfectly prepared, so he stayed up a little later stressing about it. The next morning came and after breakfast we did last minute sweeping and cleaning and finished just in time. We stood outside of our room with everything inside prepared perfectly. Everyone in the hall was checking each others appearance and each others rooms for a last minute spot check. Then when the 5 minute warning was given we all got in position and got really quiet. There was mumbling from inside the hall as everyone practiced their intro speech under their breath. When the time came a stream of drill instructors and chiefs marched quickly down the hall and stopped in front of people. That's when the madness began. You could hear every question and answer which was being screamed at the top of their lungs. You could hear if people answered incorrectly and you could hear when they lost their bearing. When a Chief squared off in front of me, I came to attention, saluted and yelled "Good morning Sir! Officer Candidate (Name here), room Mike-2-7-3!" He checked my uniform then told me to go inside where he proceeded to ask me questions while he checked my locker. About a minute in he had me do pushups while answering, when he could tell I was getting tired he switched me to high knees and then 6-90's. It was all over very quickly I would guess under 6 minutes and he only asked me the 11 general orders, the rank structure of the navy from bottom to top and the marine corp service song. Before I got to the second verse he told me to grab my canteen and go outside. I was done! He did similar questions for my hatch mate and finished with him. It took him a little longer because my hatch mate fumbled on some answers and has a pretty thick Porto Rican accent. In the end we both passes and moved on.

Please note that all pictures are from the Officer Training Command Newport's Facebook page.