Officer Candidate School (OCS)

On November 11th, 1968, I reported to Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir VA. It was perhaps one of the most exciting days, and most challenging occasions, in my early military career. We were all noncommissioned officers either because we had previously been promoted or our orders automatically promoted us to E-5. All OCS candidates were paid at the minimum rate of E-5 pay. Since I was already an infantry ‘Buck’ Sergeant there was no promotion for me.

Since November 11^th was Veterans Day, and a national holiday all we did that day was fall into formation and have a ‘Platoon Goon’ arbitrarily selected by one of our Tactical Officers and put in charge of the platoon for that day. From our formation we marched to our barracks when we were dismissed for the day.

We were still in the old-World War II wooden barracks. Once in the barracks we found 22 bunk beds lined up in two rows with an aisle between them, 11 on each side. At the end of each bunk bed was a footlocker and along the wall was a wall locker for each candidate. Our ‘platoon goon’ selected ten of us to go down to the Supply Room to pick up sheets, pillowcases and blankets for everyone in our platoon.

As we exited the barracks one of our Tactical Officers was standing there waiting for us. The minute we walked onto the company street we were immediately ordered into the push up position. One of the Tactical Officers made us low crawl on our elbows and knees all the way down to the Supply Room, which was at the end of the company street, about 100 yards from our barracks building. When we got there our uniforms were covered in dirt.

When we arrived at the Supply Room the Supply Sergeant had all of our blankets and linen laid out on a long table. There was a massive amount of material there and he made one of our candidates sign for all of it. I had been involved in a linen supply duty on my previous assignment, and I commented to the candidate who was signing for the material that it needed to be inventoried first. I told him not to sign the receipt until we had counted all the material to make sure that it was actually there.

We spent the next 20 minutes counting through all of the bundles to make sure that there were 88 sheets, 44 blankets and 44 pillowcases. We found that there were shortages in our count of all items. We made the Supply Sergeant recount everything before we would sign for it. By this time the Tactical Officer was irritated because he wanted to get this job done and go home. But now we developed another issue of how we would take all of this material back to the barracks. There was too much to carry.

We thought about this problem and each made a recommendation. Our final thought was that everyone had brought their gear into the barracks in a duffel bag. We collectively decided that we would go back to the barracks, empty out enough duffel bags to carry all of the linen, and come back to the supply room.

Our Tac Officer asked if we had an approved request to send someone back to the area and a written order directing the candidates to turn over their duffel bags. Of course we didn’t.

Fortunately, I was able to do a little bit of typing, and I went over to the Supply Sergeant’s desk, and I typed up a request for two of our guys to return to the barracks to recover the duffle bags as well as an order for the Tac Officer’s signature.  I handed it to the Tac Officer who signed the request as an approval. He then ordered two members of the detail to run back to the barracks at a double time to retrieve the needed duffel bags so that we could return to the barracks with everyone’s blankets and linen.

Our Tac Officer made a comment that we were learning. All requests had to be in writing, and that meant requests for EVERYTHING except for the orders given by our Tac Officers!

Before we left the Supply Sergeant gave us a stack of Hand Receipts and told us that the designated OCS Candidate-leader was now signed for hundreds of dollars’ worth of supplies. He advised our team leader to ensure that every candidate signed a Hand Receipt for their linen and that all of the hand receipts had to be signed and returned by the time he closed his office that day. We had two hours to get everything back to the barracks, handed out to each candidate, get them to sign a hand receipt for their linen and then return with all of the hand receipts to the Supply Room.

We left the Supply Room; each of us was carrying two duffle bags. Some of these were the newer bags that had straps that you could use as a backpack. Other older bags just had a handle. The twenty bags were heavy and awkward.

We left the Supply Room, and our candidate-leader formed us up into formation; we did a right face and started heading uphill to our barracks area. Each of us had one of the newer bags strapped on our back and we were carrying the other bag in our hand. All of a sudden, our Tac Officer ordered us to double time and run back to our barracks. It was difficult to run with the bag in your hand. All of a sudden, our Tac Officer stopped us and ordered us to drop into the pushup position. It seems that we weren’t carrying the bag on the same side. Some were carrying it with their right hand some with their left. Our formation was no longer ‘uniform’.

Of course, we really didn’t understand exactly what he was yelling about when he said that our formation was no longer uniform. One of our candidates figured it out and told us that everyone would carry their bag in their right hand. At that point our candidate-leader ask permission to recover, which means get back up. He reformed the formation and had everyone place the bag that they were hand carrying in their right hand. Once this adjustment was made, we continued on our way for a short distance when our Tac Officer ordered us to drop for 25 pushups; he yelled that we were moving too slow.

When we got up we continued on our way to the barracks. But before we got there we were dropped for pushups two more times. When we arrived at the barracks the rest of our platoon was out front in their Class A uniforms doing physical fitness training. We got chewed out because we were out of uniform and our fatigue uniforms were filthy. We were ordered into the barracks to change into our ’Class A’ uniform and to get out there immediately with the rest of our platoon.

Our candidate-leader asked what we were to do with the bedding that we had. Our Tack Officer looked at us and laughed and said follow your orders.

So, each of us emptied our duffel bag as we were getting into our dress uniform, we laid out two sheets one blanket and one pillowcase on every bed. Of course, our Tac Officer was yelling at us to get moving and that our fellow candidates would be doing pushups until we got into formation. By the time that we got out there our fellow candidates were irritated because we had delayed. When we fell back into the formation the Tac Officer had us do a right face and we ran around the entire company area wearing low quarter shoes.

When we got back and fell out and went back to the barracks, we found that all of the beds had been turned over and all of the sheets and blankets were laying on the floor. We had each of our candidates pick up their mattress and put it back on the bed, find two sheets, one blanket and one pillowcase. We then had them stand in front of their bunks and we walked down the row making them sign a hand receipt. Fortunately, we were able to account for everything that we had signed for from the Supply Sergeant.

I quickly went to the candidate office area that was in the back of the barracks and typed up a request to our Tac Officer to allow the candidate who had signed for all of the supplies to go back to the Supply Room and turn in his hand receipt. This way he could clear the books of his responsibilities. By the time all of this was done the candidate who had signed for all these materials had less than 5 minutes to get to the Supply Room and account for the supplies that he was signed for.

That evening we marched to the mess hall wearing our Class A uniforms that we had been wearing when we did physical fitness training. Most of us had blisters from running in low quarter dress shoes.

We waited in line at the consolidated mess for about 15 minutes in the rain before we were allowed into the dining facility. We had 15 minutes to go through the line get our food and eat. As we ate a Tac Officer would come by, tap you on the shoulder, and ask you a military question. It might be to describe a rank insignia or a term or some type of military jargon that was being used.

You would have to put your silverware down on the plate come to the position of attention and answer his question. When he was satisfied with your answer you were allowed to sit back down and try to finish your meal. Needless to say, we generally got to eat about half of what was on our plate if we were lucky.

Our Tac Officer came to us and ordered us back into formation and then chewed every one of us out because of the fact that our Class A uniforms looked so bad. He then told us that anyone who wanted to quit could do it right now! And unsurprisingly there were a couple of hands that went up and said I’m not putting up with this ‘bullshit’ anymore.

We double-timed back to the barracks area and the guys who had decided to quit did just that. The next morning, they were gone.

This was the beginning of our Officer Candidate School introduction. For the next eight weeks we went through unlimited harassment by our Tac Officers. We were constantly doing pushups for minor infractions; in order to do anything, we had to give a Tac Officer a written request and a request for an order to do so. We even had to request permission to wear our hair greater than 1/4 of an inch long. During the first eight weeks about a third of our classmates left the program.

One of our Tac Officers told us that the entire philosophy of the first eight weeks of the program was to see if you could survive the intense harassment. We survived on little sleep, little food and intense physical training. Those who couldn’t put up with the program’s intensity left and either returned to their original unit or were sent where the Army wanted them.

Our normal nightly routine was simple; get to sleep immediately and expect to be awaken suddenly at any time during the night. One-night lights out was at 10:00 pm. At midnight the Tac Officers came into the barracks pounding on trash cans and telling us we were under attack. They asked the currently assigned candidate-leader what he was going to do.

I was serving as the Armorer for the platoon, and I ran up to the Arms Room and started issuing out our weapons, with no ammunition mind you, and everyone fixed bayonets to ‘repel the attackers’.

When the ‘attack’ was ‘over’ we were ordered back to the barracks only to find that the Tac Officer would only allow a candidate up the stairs to return their weapon if they could call out the serial number on the rifle that they had drawn from the Arms Room. Since no one had grabbed their normal weapon most failed – attention to detail. If they didn’t repeat the number, they were dropped for pushups with that weapon in their arms and did pushups until they could yell out the correct serial number.

By 4:00 am I had recovered everyone’s weapon, and everyone was finally dismissed to their bunks until 5:30 am reveille.

This type of physical harassment went on for eight weeks. The dropout rate was high as a result.

The first eight weeks was really just a repeat of our basic training with lots of physical fitness training very little sleep and an emphasis on learning how to do a lot with very little.

During that first eight weeks just about every one of us was hungry at all times. The harassment during our meals was such that it was difficult to get anything substantial to eat. At that time my folks lived in Springfield, VA, which wasn’t that far from Fort Belvoir. We devised a plan to get more to eat. We took up a collection and when I was in the orderly room on detail one day I contacted my dad and asked him if he would pick up McDonald’s hamburgers and orders of French fries for all the guys in the barracks. Since our barracks were along one of the off-post civilian roads I asked him to drive down the road and park near this little grove of trees. We had gone over there and secretly placed a trash can in the bushes. There was an envelope in the trash can with money for my dad. He would put the hamburgers and fries in the trash can. When he was done, he would flash his lights and honk two times, and we would go out and pick up our food.

One of our guys was a carpenter before he enlisted. He cut a hole in the floor of the barracks in such a way that we could lift the flooring, crawl out of the hole and secretly (so we thought) drop down underneath the barracks. Two of our guys would slip out of the hole unobserved, sneak out to the trees where my dad had dropped off the food, and then bring the trash can back to the barracks area. They would come in the front door like they had taken the trash out to empty it in the dumpster.

The minute that the trash can was in the barracks everybody grabbed their hamburgers and French fries and chowed down. The two guys would then take the trash can with the forbidden wrappers back out to the dumpster and dump it. Twice a week we made arrangements to get extra food that way. Food that was eaten outside of the mess hall was called pogey bait. We became experts at figuring out how to get pogey bait to take care of our hunger.

I found out about the time I graduated that one of our Tac Officers knew all about our secret ‘escape hole’ and said nothing. He said that we were exercising our initiative and that was a part of our training.

And this is how we existed for those first eight weeks.

At the end of the eight-week phase we began doing more engineer training. We learned how to use a transit, and how to look at building plans. They taught us about ordering supplies and equipment for an operation that we were going to do, and we learned how to build bridges. One of our best candidates was seriously hurt when we were building a Bailey bridge. As they were connecting one of the panels his hand was crushed, and he ended up losing two fingers. He was medically discharged from the Army at that point.

During this phase the harassment continued but at a lesser degree. We found ourselves getting more sleep; usually we got 4-5 hours a night.

The food situation changed significantly. The Chief of Staff of the US Army, General William Westmorland, visited Fort Belvoir and ate in the Dining Facility that served the OCS Battalion. When he saw the amount of food that was being tossed as a result of the treatment of candidates he ordered a complete change throughout the OCS Programs. Candidates would not be interrupted during their meals for any reason. It appeared that we had been the last class that went through that type of harassment.

I think that my dad appreciated the General’s move. He no longer had to explain to the local McDonald’s manager why he needed so many orders of burgers and fries twice a week. However, we did continue to rely on him to help us smuggle pogey bait in for special occasions. One night we smuggled in a birthday cake for one of our platoon members.

During our final eight weeks we studied advanced combat engineering and demolitions, and we went to AP Hill Virginia for tactical training. Here we learned all about patrolling and battle planning and making assaults on enemy positions, setting up bivouac sites and conducting a lot of weapons training as well. We learned about helicopter assaults and operating out of M113 troop carriers. One of our final phases was the survival escape and evasion course.

The survival escape and evasion course was perhaps the most difficult of all of the events that we did at Camp AP Hill.

We were all taken out in a deuce-and-a-half truck heading to the prisoner of war camp. Our mission was to escape and not end up in the camp. I and two other guys got our heads together and decided that we’d go together and bail out of the truck when it slowed down. One guy had smuggled a map of the Fort with him, another guy had the compass, and I was the pacer. I was the guy that was to measure our distances before we made turns.

The truck slowed down a little bit to go around a curve and the three of us jumped out. The guys that were playing the aggressors saw us, slammed on the truck brakes, and started chasing us. They captured the three of us and made us tie ourselves together with our belts; I was the last guy in line. I carefully undid the belts and pushed the other guys together at one time and I ran for the tree line. I escaped.

The aggressors were furious with me because I had made a successful escape, and I heard later that they put a case of beer on my head. Any aggressor that caught me was going to get that case of beer from the other guys.

It was a miserable cold and rainy night. The area was loaded with small streams that had actually been converted to beaver ponds. The aggressors were waiting at the beaver dams and catching candidates as they tried to cross. I sat in a tree near one of the beaver dams for about an hour and listened to them talking and listening to how they captured a couple of our candidates who were trying to escape.

I went as far upstream as I could and found a place where the beavers had cut down a number of trees across the pond and I crossed on the fallen logs in the water to get on to the other bank. I can remember crossing about three streams that way. Finally, at one point, I could actually hear road noise. I knew that Virginia highway 301 crossed under the I-95 Interstate and every time that the trucks went underneath the underpass their sound changed. I spent the rest of the night wandering through the woods towards the sound of those trucks.

About 2:00 in the morning I found myself out of the woods and onto highway 301. I got back into the wood line and followed the fence into the cantonment area and reported into my Tac Officer who took me to a room. There I had to debrief a number of senior officers on how I had made my escape; the route I had taken and the status of the rest of my team. Of all of the guys that were in our group only five or six of us actually made good on our escape and returned to the cantonment area under our own power.

Of course, unknown to us, at midnight all of the candidates who ended up in the prisoner of war camp were returned to the cantonment area; they had showered, and they were sound asleep. But the next morning we were singled out as having been the only successful escapees in our unit.

At the end of our tactical training, we went back to Fort Belvoir and continued with our advanced engineer training. We studied road and airfield construction; we actually built a building from scratch. We learned a little bit about plumbing and laying bricks and all sorts of combat engineer operations. Some of us got to drive bulldozers and heavy equipment and learn the importance of maintenance of vehicles.

During this phase we had much less harassment from our Tac Officers. Those of us who made the red phase, or the third phase of our training we’re on track to graduate.

On May 23rd, 1969, at the age of 20, a family friend, Major General Graham, came to Fort Belvoir and before the main graduation ceremony swore me in as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. I had been assigned to the Military Intelligence Branch.

One of the gold bars that he pinned on my uniform that day had been pinned on him when he received a battlefield Commission in Europe during World War II by none other than General George Patton. My mother pinned the other gold bar on my other shoulder.

[NOTE] I made sure that I saved that Gold Bar, Second Lieutenant rank insignia. In 1999 I had the honor of attending a commissioning ceremony at the University of West Virginia and swearing in one of my former JROTC cadets. I pinned that gold bar on his shoulder and reminded him that it was now his responsibility to pass that bar on to a new lieutenant that he commissioned – the tradition continues!

They quickly removed my new officer Insignia, and we went over to the main auditorium on post for the formal graduation ceremony. Our class started with 180 candidates, on graduation day 100 of us graduated. Not all those who failed to graduate with us had dropped out; some were medically transferred to other units after recuperating from injuries; some were sent to other units because they needed to improve their test scores before they could leave and graduate but at the very end there were 100 of us.

Officer Candidate School was perhaps the worst and the best training I ever received in the United States Army. OCS was extremely demanding. We learned to think on our feet; we learned to anticipate issues and problems; we learned the importance of cooperation (Cooperate and Graduate) we learned all of those things that a junior officer should know. Perhaps the thing I learned the most was how important my noncommissioned officers were. I learned how much they really knew about what happened in the Army and how to get things done in the Army. I knew that as a Second Lieutenant I would be in command, but I learned that I needed to listen to them and make sure that I made the right decisions.

I hope you are enjoying these reminiscences in my blog. I encourage you to read my books about Vietnam and I hope that you continue to enjoy my blog. Regards “Hardcharger”

Next Week – some Civil War History of my hometown

For more information visit my website: ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com