What is OCS?

If you want to become an officer in the United States Military you must complete an officer accession program in one of the armed service branches before attending your designated MOS (military operation specialty) school.  In the Navy, the officer program is called Officer Candidate School or "OCS".

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OCS is a competitive military leadership and discipline program designed to be a minimum of 12 weeks long, however if your performance is not up to officer standards then your time at OCS could be several weeks longer.  This program is designed to be intense physically and mentally to test your abilities.  

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You are woken up, or reveille, at 0500 by shouting from your Marine Corps Drill Instructor or Navy Recruit Division Commander. Immediately the days training commences. You are deprived of a lot of life's creature comforts such as coffee, sleep, desserts, sugar, internet, TV, music, contact from the outside world, and sometimes even warmth while you train each day. Training consists of physical readiness tests, military inspections, academics, drill competition, leadership and team development, and extra disciplinary calisthenics. OCS teaches you leadership and ownership from every part of the chain of command. This is so you and the rest of your class company can effectively work and communicate as a team to surpass the standards of each weekly training evolution. In the beginning phases of training the main emphasis is on teaching discipline through pain and military bearing.  This is done with copious amounts of yelling from your Drill Instructor and Recruit Division Commander as well as extensive disciplinary calisthenics. While you still walk a tight rope with the instructors, as you progress through the phases the training becomes more and more focused on leadership and team development. By the end of training you have most of life's creature comforts back and must operate cross-functionally in teams within your class company to train, lead, and develop the entire regiment of candidates at OCS (when I went through this phase of training at OCS I was placed in charge of over 250 candidates, 77 of which I was in direct management of).

 

 

 

The Standards 

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Officer Candidate School has extremely high standards. These standards weed out those who are unfit to be an officer. It is because of these high standards that only 30% of the candidates graduate with the initial class they came to training with (I was one of the 30%).

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Throughout OCS you are faced with failure and hardship almost the entire time. You must face this and learn by seeking out the guidance from your company and of the candidates in classes more senior to yours. This teaches you problem solving and humility amongst other qualities. OCS is a great equalizer in that it does not matter what ethnicity you are or what your background is. Those who are willing to adapt and develop themselves as well as others will be successful.  Those who are unwilling to adapt and develop do not meet the standards to become a Naval Officer.

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The Navy places a high standard on truthfulness and integrity. At OCS they have what are called integrity checks. During these checks the instructors inspect candidates' rooms to see if they are up to standards.  With out taking note of who's room it is, they proceed to flip the bed or trash the room in some other capacity. They then wait till the class comes back to their rooms to call an "Integrity check". Those who found something messed up about their room are to own up to their mistakes and face the consequences of their failure. It is very easy to quickly fix your room without the instructor knowing and skate by without facing the consequences. The drill here is to see who has integrity and who does not. Those candidates found lacking in integrity were expelled from the program and did not become Naval Officers. This drill teaches you to own your mistakes and presents you the opportunity to rectify your mistakes.

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My Experience 

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I graduated Officer Candidate School with my initial class, Class 12-18 Bravo Company, in June of 2018. My class team consisted of Marine Corps Drill Instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Macvarish, Navy Recruit Division Commanders, Chief Squires and Chief Haskell, and Class Officers, Lieutenant Bitar and Lieutenant Sullivan. I arrived at Naval Station Newport on 18 MAR 2018 were I was placed in class 12-18 Bravo Company consisting of 44 candidates. From the very beginning my class, without knowing anything about each other, was expected to work as a team to complete the training evolutions set forth in front of us. My company and I grew very close as we made our way through the training, developing ourselves and helping each succeed at the same time. The training evolutions Room, Locker, and Personnel Inspection, Battle Stations, and 8th week Officer Personnel Inspection taught us teamwork, problem solving, communication, and flexibility. Our training and leadership development  came to a culmination during the applied leadership phase where we were placed in charge of the entire regiment of over 250 candidates. I operated cross-functionally between 3 teams to accomplish the goal of my company.  That goal was to successfully handle the onboarding and development of the incoming OCS class, Class 15-18, consisting of 55 candidates and train the class immediately junior to ours, Class 13-18 consisting of 77 candidates, how to take command of the regiment once my class had graduated. The ability to communicate, work under pressure, and under time constraints was a major key in our success.

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At OCS I experienced many failures but also experienced many successes. In the beginning I struggled with the military inspections and like others at OCS did not like that no matter how much time and effort we put in to being squared away and perfect it went unappreciated. Each inspection the instructors would find something wrong. The candidates who struggled with that did not succeed at OCS. I did not want to be part of those who could not move past constant failure to succeed. I went to the candidates more senior to myself and sought their advice on how to prepare for the inspections and the mentality that they carried. The idea being that seeking outside help and getting multiple different perspectives on the same problem can help me become better. One candidate sat me down after I explained my frustrations and said that it was by design that I was going to fail. The instructors, no matter how squared away I was, were going to find something wrong. It was by design that I was never going to succeed at this and that I needed to get over my fear of failure. With this mentorship and all the different perspectives I gained on the situation I began to excel at the inspections and ended up receiving "Best In Class for Military Inspection" by being in the top 10% of my class. I went from being terrible at something to being very good at it. Another area I excelled in was the Watch Officer Examination that taught sea navigation and rules of the road. At OCS we learn in 3 weeks  what the candidates going through ROTC and the Naval Academy get an entire semester to learn. I received a 98% on the capstone examination, the highest in OCS history. This success earned me a spot on Battalion 1 were I was put in direct management of Class 13-18 consisting of 77 candidates. I taught and tutored this class on the Watch Officer curriculum, helped them develop action plans for success. When class 13-18 sat for the exam 75 of the 77 passed the examination.

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While OCS is rough, challenging, and overall an uncomfortable situation my company and I were still able to find the good times in the bad.  For example, it became a running joke throughout the rest of OCS after our Chief, Chief Haskell, gave us all a hype speech, to get us ready for the upcoming physical training evolution, using Tecmo Bowl as the basis for the speech... none of us knew what Tecmo Bowl was or what Chief was talking about.  Our other Chief, Chief Squires, had a funny way of coining phrases that stuck with you, such as "Jamaican me crazy" or how he would call our legs "get away sticks".  In the beginning everyone feared our Drill Instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Macvarish. As training went on we could always count on him to deliver epic motivational speeches and by the end of training everyone in our company wanted to spend time with Gunny before we left after graduation. Lastly, we could always count on our Class Officers to tell us some amazing sea stories. The Instructors were tough but fair. Teaching my class and I discipline, communication, confidence, humility, integrity, and teamwork just to name a few. I would not trade the experience and the mentorship that I had at OCS for anything as I think it was one of the biggest character building experiences I have ever gone through.