Marine OCS Question

[HueyCobra8151]

hah, I was just about to post that. I think the easing up at OCS is a direct result of what happened from when Col. Chase was the CO. The attrition rate was quite high, and it has gotten quite a bit lower, especially because of the ramp up in overall end strength.

Hey Birddog, who where you with there? I was in Golf 3.

 

[Birdog8585]

G-1. At least we weren't with Echo - I know you've heard those stories. Hell their damn T-shirts had the slogan "Commission By Attrition"

 

[MattWSU]

Preface: I don't have much room to talk as I've only gone to Jr's.

Our platoon never got 8 hours of sleep. The lights go out at 2100 and come on at 0500 but you have so much shit to do during that time; marking gear, writing essays, fulfilling billets, etc. I found that the most successful candidate staff members were ones that met after lights in the head to discuss their game plan for the next day. The SI's usually come out of the duty hut around 0400 and start screaming at the firewatch so that everyone can hear. This goes on sporadically until lights. On average, I would say I slept from about 2230 to 0430.

What's been said about the dumbing down of PT is definitely true. We had morning PT about three times a week and it wasn't anything that tough. Usually a 3 or 4 mile (not sure) fartlek run and some push/pull abs.

Essays still happen at OCS. Our platoon staff was far more brutal than the other platoons in issuing the essays. I wrote two or three and every third word had to be in red ink.

I believe this is Col. Mancini's last year and I won't be going back until summer 2010, so it will be 'interesting' to see how much different Seniors is under a new CO.

 

[sanders]

I went to juniors when Col. Chase was still there and I went to seniors this past summer under Col. Mancini. For the most part, things seemed very similar to me under both CO's. One of the changes I noticed is how they strive more to keep us healthy by doing less running and making sure we get plenty to eat. They did not cut down on PT though, I think they just replaced the runs with UBD's and making us run the courses more frequently. At seniors they gave us a little more square away time but this might have been our staff that gave us that time, not the Col. I only had 1 essay at juniors and 1 at seniors... but there were plenty of people that wrote 3 or 4 a week it seemed like. As far as sleep goes there were nights during both summers that I got probably 7 hours, but it was more common to get like 5 or 6. Several nights both summers I got little or no sleep.

 

[Zbone8762]

I enjoyed Col. Chase - especially when he came and chewed the whole companys ass for acting like a bunch of p****ies on a hump (had a significant amount of fall outs). In our defense - Sergeant Instructors were falling out - So we may have been humping rather fast. I went to OCS Juniors under Col Rachal - and I definitely noticed a difference between two different CO's. (side note: Golfs company commander was a mad man as well).

 

[HueyCobra8151]

Heh, that was the 9 mile hump where there were 26 drop outs at the 3 mile mark and we stopped for over an hour because they ran out of ambulances/bed space. By the time the hike and SULE2 was over, over a quarter of the company had been medevac'd at some point.

The coolest part was when we all got called pussies for getting medevac'd(?) and then the 12-mile hike got cut short because the route was too difficult and the pace was too fast...

 

[Birdog8585]

Now those were the days....

 

[FENIAN]

Anybody else remember Col Chase's Summer of Death '06 2nd Incr? 28 Days of black flag. Honestly, I dont know how I survived. I came home looking like Ethiopian heroin addict.

I remeber getting ready for libo and seing a whole company still in cammies. They got secured for having "too many fallouts" during the 9 Mile hump. The hump was at night and they still had guys heating up. I remember drinking 18 canteens during SULE I and my hands cramping into "Jesus Claws" from dehydration during a post shower MRE. That Summer was hotter than my Summer at Parris Island. My mouth is dry thinking about it. :icon_rage

 

[HueyCobra8151]

If you drank 18 canteens you probably weren't suffering from dehydration, but rather hyponutrimia. You cramped because all the salt (electrolytes) got washed out of your system through sweating and urination.

I also had hyponutrimia and got medevac'd during SULE2 for it...guess that makes me a pussy...

 

[Zbone8762]

[cough] sarcasm [cough]. He did have a point tho - we had people falling out with 99.something temperatures. On the flip side - the weather was rather harsh for such a fast pace. Either way - I recall after the first 3 miles - one of my buddies was listening to the company commander get briefed about the conduct of the first three miles. The CC was reported saying: "We're not going to stop until I see their soles/souls bleed."

 

[Slammer2]

I did all ten weeks back in summer of 2006. Not fun at all. Black flags every damn day...

 

[FENIAN]

If you drank 18 canteens you probably weren't suffering from dehydration, but rather hyponutrimia. You cramped because all the salt (electrolytes) got washed out of your system through sweating and urination.

Definitely NOT hyponutremia. I usually drank 14 a day and balanced over a period of time with chow AND all the packets in the MRE accessory kit. I drank 3 more canteens of water afterword and I was fine. If it was Hyponutremia, I would have gone comatose after the extra H2O.

It was because of that summer that I brought two extra sets of cammies the next summer. A clean dry set on your body is a breath of fresh air. Of course there were only 4 black flags the following summer.

I did hear that the 5 mile individual timed run got nixed. I also heard the Juniors last summer ACTUALLY got to ride in a helo before the 9mi. It wasn't cancelled at the last minute like my two summers.

 

[usmarinemike]

It is intriguing to see how different the OCS POI is from year to year. It doesn't seem right. There's a standard to perform to and that standard should not be changing THAT much. At enlisted basic training every company has performed the same training events to the same standard on the same day of the training cycle for a very long time with limited changes. You can't call it SOP if it's not SOP for more than a few months. Granted the mission of OCS and boot camp are quite different, but the principles remain the same for most formal schools.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

To add to that: A major source of frustration when I went is that the 4 MECEPs from my school all were in different platoons in Golf Company, and all had a VERY different experience. There wasn't even any standardization across a single company.

There was a Marine we had gone to mecep prep with who was kicked out pretty quickly - who hadn't really done anything wrong. Later on we found out that he went to the same school as our Company Commander, so obviously it wasn't something he did at OCS, but something he did prior to it, that's some impartial "screening" right there...

 

[Slammer2]

...You can't call it SOP if it's not SOP for more than a few months. Granted the mission of OCS and boot camp are quite different, but the principles remain the same for most formal schools.

I agree. The missions of the two are different, but OCS should be very similar to OCS over the course of the year