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OCS Washouts (Specific Stories)

gotta_fly

gotta_fly

Well-Known Member
pilot
I actually know a guy who got dropped because of repeated platoon accountability errors (incorrect head counts). I think he was a little clueless in general and getting the numbers wrong was a symptom rather than the core problem. In any case, he worked really hard his senior year, went back right after graduation (of course under a spotlight) and passed with no trouble.
 
G

gatoraviator

New Member
I remember one candidate in my platoon said fu** while going through the fartlek. The instructor asked who said it, but nobody answered. When we were done with PT that morning, the platoon commander came out and gave us 5 minutes to give him the name of whoever said it, or else he would talk to the colonel and disband the ENTIRE platoon. One guy got sent home for walking up a hill in the e-course and when asked why, lied and said he was running. The marine corps does not give any slack when it comes to integrity.
 
jdnew

jdnew

Registered User
OCS is not rocket surgery. It is mainly how you can stand up to the PT and how well you can lead your peers. But, in order to lead your peers, they have to like you. You really can't be careless joe one day and when it comes time to take your billet, put on your staff sgt face and be a staff sgt. The rest of the platoon still sees you as careless joe. If they don't have a reason to follow you, they won't. People just can't be Lcpl nobody one day and when their billet kicks in they are the plt. commander. People are who they are and they just trade around the insignias.
I can see I am not making myself clear. Let me see if I can break it down further. You have certain personality types at OCS, or characters if you will. Not all of the characters will be present but some most definatly will be. They are as follows, with or without combinations of each one.

First, and most importantly, you have to Sh*t-bird. Every unit must have one. Look around you, you should be able to spot him. If you can't, then congratulations! its you! We don't really know how he will be picked. It might be that he can't do some of the PT, or falls asleep alot, or maybe he is just "weird." But he will be there. And he will provide you with lots of entertainment and maybe some "remedial" training by the SgtInstrs. He will also shoulder a lot of the blame for what happens. When in doubt, blame it on the Sh*t-bird. He probably won't make it through.
One cannot escape the position of Sh*t-bird until he is replaced by someone else. Example Joe is the Sh*t-bird, but Bob has a royal screw-up, which ends in the entire platoon getting remedial training. This gets people looking. If Bob screws a couple of more times, then he is the new Sh*t-bird. Until Bob gets cut, then Joe is the Sh*t-bird again.

PT Stud. He will be the guy that that can run the 3-mile in 15mins. Most of the ones I have met are pretty nice guys. They might have some trouble at first with leadership, but, lets face it, Marines respect physical prowess. This will get people to follow him. Guy most of the time won't be a Sh*t-bird.

Funny Guy. Most units have a guy that is witty or can come up with things that can make you laugh when you are in a pretty sucky situation. Most people will follow this guy just cuz they want him around. He can make them laugh when life is pretty sucky and making life suck less is and essential tool for OCS. This guy can definatly be the Sh*t-bird though. If he is, he can make it through, though maybe by the skin of his teeth.

Smart Man. He will be the lawyer or the Ivy-league dude. He'll help you with the academics and provide you with good conversation. He comes in two types. The kind that find that they don't like what they see in the Marine Corps, and the kind that sees the culture and is ready to be "assimilated." They will then look at the things we do, rationalize it, and expect others to do it verbatim. Hey, smart man, do yourself a favor and don't try to rationalize anything we do.
He can be a combination of the people you see here. Including Sh*t-bird, if this happens he won't last long. He can also be (as was my plts case) the PT stud.

Priors. Lots of them. Do what they say (for the most part) especially the SNCOs.

Big Honkin Dude. Yea, you will probably have one. He will be the size of a dump truck, and can wade through the ford with only gettin his ankles wet. Stay away from him when it comes to buddy PT. Stay close to him when it comes to Log PT ;-) ( really, don't be that guy, do your share with the log.)

Mr. Grey. He will hide in the back and watch everyone. Very creepy. It really depends on how he reacts when someone finally does talk to him. If is acts really weird, then he could be on the Sh*t-bird stand-by list. If acts pretty cool, then he will be liked and become an average-joe. (you can only hide in the back so long, not like boot camp)

Average joe. The general Milieu. We will form our little buddy groups or liberty groups. Most of our buds will be in our squad. This will get people to follow us. People will make it through pretty well after the 5th week.

Sure I am forgetting some. But, for the most part, make friends, PT hard, do your share, don't be the Sh*t-bird and you will be ok. OCS is kinda like running from a bear. You don't have to outrun the bear, just the Sh*t-bird list. Won't work at TBS though. They have 6 months and they will find you if you are not a good leader.
 
Lawman

Lawman

Well-Known Member
None
AZ_SNAFU said:
I found it helpful. By the way, what type of stuff normally results in 'remedial' training?
Click to expand...

They dont "smoke" you at OCS the way they do basic recruits in boot. Instead of spending an hour and a half doing front back drills or mountain climbers and alpine skiers you just get about 5 minutes of suck (rest position rifle drills, the clapping game, duck walk, etc) and then a couple guys may end up with an essay or two. At the end of the day its an "officer building" course so the main idea isnt neccesarily to just brutally punish you for something. One of the biggest differences I noticed between OCS and BCT was the fact that at OCS at least I knew why I was doing excercise X, at BCT I can recall two hours of suck and I dont know how or why it happened I just know it sucked.

Look Im here to tell you from personal experiance getting dropped sucks ass. Some guys take it as a lesson in life and go somewhere else. Some guys just arent ready to be a Marine Officer be it due to maturity or some other reason. Some guys (myself included) just have stuff break and no amount of will power is going to get them through the rest of the course and they get to go home. Fact of the matter is you grit your teeth and get through or you dont, but nobody and I mean nobody will get through OCS half assing it.
 
FENIAN

FENIAN

Can I go home yet?
pilot
I see we are starting to wander off point so I am going to make a lame attempt to bring us back...

The number one reason Officer Candidates do not graduate OCS upon arriving is health reasons. Everyone has heard the story about the kid that fell out of the inventory pft with a internal temp of 212 degrees and had a horse thermometer sticking out his rear like a tail. I knew some good prior Marines that didn't pick up because of stress fractures or injuries they suffered from being a Marine.

A possible 'comorbid' (that's the college education talking) reason for leaving is a PT failure. Most guys are PT failures because they hurt, but are either too HARD to see a doc, or fear the Lima Delta label. Some guys just can't comprehend the neccessity to hydrate.

Poor leadership is the next popular reason for dismissal. These candidates provide the best stories. The peer evaluations can help in identifying which candidates lack traits if they haven't already been identified by the staff. These are normally brought to light during the "character building" events at OCS, especially right after pick-up. The staff will usually award said candidate with a "Meritorious Billet" and expect the character flaws in the individual to weed him or herself out. At Seniors, the company had two days before the scheduled Company Board where they had the bottom ranked candidates in each platoons peer evals run the company and platoons. The worst guy in each platoon got a Co billet, the next worse got Plt. Sgt., third worst got Plt. CO. Of the 12 that were part of this debacle, only a female and a male made it to graduation.

Integrity violations are a lot less prevalent than candidates hear about. The big issue with integrity violations is that it is one of the most reported reasons of going home by the staff across the entire battalion, and a lot of times the stories are heard and not really witnessed. When it does happen, it is a big deal. In my total of twelve weeks at Brown Field, I only witnessed one integrity violation and it was a candidate starting the Day Land Nav course before the horn. He was caught and claimed he didn't know what was wrong. He is now a Plt. CO for 1/9.

The last reason for dismissal I have heard about was for test failures. I'm going to separate this from leadership, even though leadership is a big part of the graded events. Some candidates just can't learn in a Marine Corps style Period of Instruction. I've heard of a few guys in the past getting sent home or getting dropped from the week 6(PLC) or 10(OCC) boards, but the 3 guys I knew personally graduated, one of them is at P'cola, one of them is at TBS, and the other I don't know about.

I don't rate DOR's as Wash Outs since they are really quitters and usually don't "wash out" as a result of effort. I never had a DOR in either of my Platoons and the we prior enlisted guys talked everyone into graduating with more than just a paycheck, a camp stool, a sea bag, and a summer's worth of stories.

Lastly, the issue of fraternization. The interpretation of the rules of Fraternization is always at the commader's discretion. If two individuals have a prior existing relationship, then it is NOT fraternization. This line gets especially blurry between Lt's at TBS and Candidates at OCS due to the unfair advantage of gouge. But in the years past, there used to be issues with college boy candidates mixing it up with enlisted Marines in the Quantico area during libo. The fraternization rules aided in reducing this occurrence.

For those that HATE guys that write long bulletin posts...my bad.
 
jdnew

jdnew

Registered User
Uh.. is it considered drunk posting if you are hopped up on pain meds. Wasn't exactly Kubla Kahn was it? Well, see you guys back in Xanadu, I'm going back to bed.
 
Reconjoe

Reconjoe

Active Member
Story time

Well since the thread is titled (specific Stories) heres a big one that will always stick with me....you be the judge

It was Juniors for the 6 and 6 summer splits for PLC, summer of 2005. We had gone to D.C as a company to see the sights which I was sure was just another test to see how we would act in public when given the shock of total freedom. Alot of guys bought disposable cameras and took pictures which was well within the rights they gave us that day. One guy however took this privilege one step further, and on week 5 (yes, only a few days before graduation) this guy took a picture in the chow hall, and everyone was drawn to the flash, including the instructors. That candidate got his right on the spot, but then 2 days later the CO called him on deck and just like that he was dropped with what we think was a recommendation to come back and redo Juniors....only 3 days or so before GRAD! We all thought what a dumb @ss to pull something like that, but we all know the jittery feeling you get right before grad and some of us felt bad for the guy to.
 
W

whitesoxnation

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Reconjoe said:
Well since the thread is titled (specific Stories) heres a big one that will always stick with me....you be the judge

It was Juniors for the 6 and 6 summer splits for PLC, summer of 2005. We had gone to D.C as a company to see the sights which I was sure was just another test to see how we would act in public when given the shock of total freedom. Alot of guys bought disposable cameras and took pictures which was well within the rights they gave us that day. One guy however took this privilege one step further, and on week 5 (yes, only a few days before graduation) this guy took a picture in the chow hall, and everyone was drawn to the flash, including the instructors. That candidate got his right on the spot, but then 2 days later the CO called him on deck and just like that he was dropped with what we think was a recommendation to come back and redo Juniors....only 3 days or so before GRAD! We all thought what a dumb @ss to pull something like that, but we all know the jittery feeling you get right before grad and some of us felt bad for the guy to.
Click to expand...

Some dude was caught doing the same thing last summer. We were writing our op order skeletons in the field at sundown for the next day, and he was snapping pics with the flash on. Next thing I know, all hell broke loose. They said they were going to develope the pictures and drop anyone that was caught posing in them. He ended up graduating.
 
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