BTW, I only now realized the irony of Airwarriors.com
If you start a new post for a question that has already been asked everyone yells at you and says "USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION!!!"
But if you use the search function and find a post in your general line of questioning, then tack on your question to it, everyone yells "HOLY CRAP THREAD RESURRECTION!!!!!!"
(I only realized that because I was thinking in my head as I read this "HOLY CRAP THREAD RESURRECTION!!!!!!")
My son didn't think there were that many "games" at PLC, jr or sr. He is a really good athlete, and he found himself in the middle on the pack. Constant stress. Never failed an evolution, but never the top, either. He felt PLC was very intense, very challenging, esp srs. He felt that everyone who made it through the first few days was very well prepared physically, and from then on they just wanted to give you every opportunity to quit.
The real "mind game" at OCS wasn't necessarily them messing with you. The thing that farked my head up was when you would get a chit or an unfavorable evaluation [like when I got an unfavorable as Plt Sgt because the Corpsman made me get medevac'd, along with 30% of the rest of our Company], then you are in your rack at night wondering if you are going to get sent home or what.
I am a prior, so there were quite a few times where I was up at night thinking of strategies like: "Ok, if I get kicked out, I can lat-move to a critically short MOS, try and pick up SSgt, put in for DI duty or something, and maybe get my career back on track after this adverse fitrep." Not fun.
Edit: There was a guy at OCS when I went through who tore his quad, and the muscle retracted into a giant ball right underneath his hip and he gutted it out IOT to not have to come back the next summer. Pretty hard.