October 11
Went to sick call again today, got antibiotics. While we were sitting in the waiting room a DI by the name of Cross walked in when another candidate from my class turned around to ask me if I was done yet so we could go rejoin the class. Cross exploded on us for talking even though such talk is permitted. He told our DI about it and got us beat. No justice. The doctors said I don’t have pinkeye but they don’t know why I’m getting so much mucus in my eyes.
Missed a good chunk of class for that visit which sucks. Final is on Friday on the history of the navy from 1775 to today. Names and dates and battles, bland memorization. It’s hard to do when this tired…
We had drill practice which went poorly, so we had to sprint around two buildings then got thrown in the SUYA again. I was doing bad in the SUYA because of my sickness which got me screamed at extra. That aside, before dinner a group in our class consisting of our class president, VP, our 3 SpecWar guys, and our prior marine decided to do a 15 minute crossfit. I joined them. Do not work out with SEALs. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
More drill after that. Still got beat but not in the SUYA which was nice. Then more RLP prep followed by a HUGE stack of mail! No time to respond, it’ll probably be awhile before I can so apologies. I love getting mail so much!
The only other noteworthy thing that happened is immunizations. They lost my medical record so I have to get EVERY shot on the list (like 11 or so). I don’t have a problem with needles but my arms hurt like hell and I only got 5 shots today, the others will come later.
Bedtime, love you all.
October 12
Painful day. PT was interval running, which is the absolute worst and most painful kind of running out there. Lots of punishment pushups afterwards, ended up with a bloody knee from the astroturf. More RLP prep afterwards but again I’m behind. I’ll start asking for help from the ones who are further along.
After that it was drill, class, lunch, drill. The first drill went decently, class was impossible to stay awake in as always and then drill afterwards was another trip to the SUYA with two DIs and me getting screamed at more. My hips were sagging in the pushup position due to weakness and one of the DI’s kicked me in the waist to get me to raise it up. Not a very hard kick but it threw a ton of sand into my face. The nail clippers I was using to IP my uniforms fell out of my pocket and I had to be sneaky to grab it and put it back in my pocket without being noticed.
When I took my shoes off I noticed that the vast majority of skin under my toes has died in one thick layer and is now falling off. The layer of skin falling off is thick enough that the skin beneath is dark red and bleeding in places while the dead skin is yellow. I change socks often so kind of surprised to see that… Used a damp cloth to rub loose skin off but now it hurts to walk. Not what I need right now…
Had to stay up till 1AM to finish RLP prep stuff. Sleep deprivation while sleep deprived. Lord I’m one miserable *****. Just want RLP to be over already…
October 13
RLP day at last.
I passed RLP, though I shouldn't have and only did because I have very good bearing. The inspector tried SO hard to get me to break, but didn't. Basically we were setting up frantically, I noticed that I needed to trim my belt (only 2 inches of slack is allowed) so I ran out of our wing into the killzone (main hallway) to get scissors from the supply closet. On the other side of the killzone, hiding behind a POW flag that hangs from the middle, is the DI Gunnery Sgt Cross. I don’t see him so I don’t snap to attention or give him the greeting of the day, so he proceeds to rip into me and forces me to stand there until RLP was 5 minutes away. Thoroughly stressed, when he released me I flew back into my room to find that my roommate and a couple of others had finished the couple of things I hadn’t put into place yet. I thanked them then got ready. RLP started, screaming, spit and blood flying, sweat flowing. About 15 minutes in our inspector squares off in front of Deighan so he’ll go first and me after. He does decent with knowledge and bearing, but when they go into the room the inspector screams WHAT’S THE SERIAL NUMBER OF YOUR RIFLE? Deighan and I made a point to memorize this, so he says his, and the inspector screams ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE IN THE ENTIRE CLASS WHO HAS GOTTEN THAT WRONG, YOUR NUMBER IS …” and proceeds to read my serial number. I’m outside the room at attention, my mind saying Deighan, you IDIOT! You put MY RIFLE on YOUR BED and YOURS ON MINE!!! The inspector was furious. He tried HARD to fail us. You can get RPT’d if the inspector so chooses, but most don’t. My inspection starts and the inspector instantly RPT’s me and keeps going the entire inspection. Pushups while reciting the articles of the code of conduct, in-and-outs reciting enlisted rank structure, rifle above head squats while singing Anchors Aweigh, more pushups while reciting officer rank structure, mountain climbers reciting orders of a sentry, and I didn’t miss a single damned question in spite of it all.
I passed.
Deighan passed too, but only because his inspection was half over by the time the rifle problem was discovered. We had 8 failures. Now that I’ve passed RLP I’ll get phone privelages during a two hour window fri, sat, and Sunday. I’ll get to move upstairs to a room with a computer, though the computer will only be good for typing as I’ll probably only get email access on Sunday, and I’ll get to wear a gold anchor on one of the collars of my NWU uniform. This is a major evolution and I’m glad it’s over. Relieved too, very few people roll out of a class once they’ve survived past RLP. According to the rest of the regiment, this was the top of the hill.
After RLP we went to drill, and instead of our DI, FOUR DI's show up and start watching. Then out of nowhere (premeditated methinks) they just start destroying us. I got individually RPD'd three f***ing times because I can't do a six inch leg lift (lying on back, legs locked out, six inches above deck, rifle held straight above body with hands) with my combat boots on. My legs are too long and my boots too heavy, I simply cannot do it. So every time our DI would scream "SIX INCHES" which is our cue to assume said position, I'd fail and that other DI would run over, start screaming about how weak I am, then pull me out of the group RPT and just absolutely destroy me. I'm an odd mix of extremely pissed off and depressed. Not long after, our DI gives us another long and disturbingly convicing speech about how we don't belong here and how he's gonna get us kicked out and sent to boot camp unless we push harder, then one of my few friends in the class, Aziz, had what looked like a heat-related fatigue injury and then a panic attack. Ambulance was called and we were all rushed out hence my being in the computer lab right now. I'll go crazy if we lose Aziz.
Actually, immediately after the drill beating we got "hurricaned." That means our DI had us run from our beating in the gym to our building, post outside our hatches (rooms) and then he'd scream something like "GET YOUR BEDSHEETS RIGHT NOW, which we'd do, then it was THROW THEM ON THE DECK. Next was GET YOUR MATRESS followed by STAND IT UP ON THE WALL, then GROUND THEM ON THE DECK. Next was chairs, then our NWU's then coats then other random uniform items. The hallway is very narrow and at this point you can't even come close to navigating it. Our DI, being satisfied with the destruction, would march out (over all of our stuff) and scream I'LL BE BACK IN ONE-FIVE MINUTES, FIX MY HOUSE OR WE'LL DO IT AGAIN. Then the furious re-assembly begins.
Towards the latter part of re-assembly is when Aziz had his attack. If you remember an earlier letter where I wrote that I had a really bad breakdown and it took a couple of other candidates from my class to snap me out of it, the couple of candidates I was referring to were Aziz and Satish. To answer Amanda’s question: Aziz is not my roomate, my roomate is Deighan, a history major, and I really hate him. Painfully nerdy (seriously, if I am embarrassed for YOU being nerdy, there’s something REALLY wrong), not interested in casual conversation in any form, and stinky and clumsy as hell. Aziz is an H-class roll in, and a great guy. He's been here 3 weeks longer than any of us so he knows his stuff better. He rolled into H from 03-12 because of a PFA failure. (PFA is PRT is PFT, all different acronyms for the same dang physical pushup situp run test).
Lunch was sausages with onions and green peppers. So rare to have a tasty meal in that chow hall, even though I was eating by the numbers it was bliss. Unfortunately it didn't end well though, when we were standing up to leave the DI Bomba saw me lick my lips to get some peanut butter out of the corner. That's a reeeeeally bad thing. He told my DI, they were on the other side of the chow hall but I have them tuned in so hard that they may as well have been sitting in front of me. Bomba said "there...that tall one by the scrawny one on the left. He licked his lips. I saw it." Translated from DI to english that statements reads "there...that tall one by the scrawny one on the left. Hurt him." Nothing has happened to me yet and maybe they've forgotten since the Aziz incedent, Lord I hope so...
There's a scale in the back of the classroom they stowed us in a second ago. I took the opportunity to weigh myself. 203 with sweaty NWU's and combat boots on. I really wonder how heavy all that is. Man, I'd just really like to know if I've gained or lost weight out here. Been working out like a football player, but eating like one as well...
Well I guess that’s all for today. Major day here at OCS. The three biggest days so far have been Wake-up Wednesday, Outpost, and RLP. The major days to come are 6th Week PI, ORLP, 8th week PI and the Victory Run. PI is personal inspection, and the Victory Run is a 3 mile run to a nearby decommissioned aircraft carrier and back, after which we become Candidate Officers. I wish the time would go by faster.
Gonna try to catch up on some sleep now, didn’t get much last night. Love you all.
October 14
Waking up still feeling VERY sleep deprived. Not a good sign. PT this morning was running. I run with the “medium” pace group out of slow, medium, or fast. Our freaking class officer made us run faster than the fast group. Was in so much pain I almost vomited.
Normal day after that. We took our Sea Power final exam, got an 86%. Considering I spent zero minutes studying on my own, I’m pretty proud. We had 6(?) failures on the exam. They’ll get a retake but if they fail again, they roll.
After that it was RLP Retake prep. Those who failed RLP get to reinspect tomorrow, so the whole class is prepping their stuff for them. Like an idiot I volunteered to help sweep some SUYA sand out of the Indoc wing (it’s so nice that it’s happening to 05-12 and not just us now). By the time that was done, everyone had their assignments for RLP help so I wound up sitting in my room polishing boots which gives me time to think. Time to think is the enemy. I need to NEVER have time to think.
So I got all depressed again and tried to snap out of it with pushups but the second round of immunization shots was today and my arms hurt like hell. Aziz came back to the class so I got to go say hi to him for awhile, was quite a relief. Also I saw H-class today and they have 4 members. That means 05-12 has lost at least 4 so far because now that 05-12 has started, all of the old H-class entered 05-12 earlier this week and there was no H-class for a couple of days. The terrible thing about it is that one of the 4 I saw in H was a girl from OUR CLASS, which means she failed Outpost again (the one who took my heavy bag). I’m about to hit week 5 and she’s still stuck on DAY 5. She looked like she’d been crying her eyes out. Don’t even want to think about how miserable that must feel, oh God, it must be so far beyond crushing.
Word from class team is that we won’t get our phone calls till Sunday now. Bunch of crap.
We’re starting BOOD duty this week (battalion officer of the deck). That means we stand at parade rest in the BOOD station for 4 hour shifts, making sure that “everything is in order”. Basically, watch the hallways. To that I’d ask, what the hell can even go wrong? Everyone on the 2nd floor is monitored from wake up to lights out, so only the night BOOD has anything to watch for. Anyway… there is ALWAYS a BOOD on duty. 24/7. They have to scream the greeting of the day (good morning/afternoon/evening sir or ma’am) every time a staff member walks by and every time they fail to do so or screw it up, it’s RPT. So basically it’s 4 hours of torture. Pay attention for 4 hours or die. Once per hour the BOOD walks the hallways to make sure all lockers are locked and that the emergency ice buckets by the sand pits are full. My first shift is the worst shift of them all, 0000 to 0400, on Wednesday. We call that shift “balls to four”. It’s the worst because, unlike any other shift, you get screwed out of sleep. The 2000 to 0000 shift gets extra sleep during PT so they actually sleep for 5 and a half hours. I get to go to bed at 1930 and wake up at 2320, three hours and fifty minutes of sleep. I’ll get relieved and then be allowed to go back to bed, but wake up is at 0430 so there’s hardly even time to get back to your room and change. We all have to stand one of every shift, so I’m just getting that one out of the way.
Class 05-12 finishes their indoctrination period today. It was their Outpost today, it’ll be interesting to see if H class has more than 4 people in it come tomorrow. Now that they’re not indocs, we get to welcome them into the regiment. Lovely for them, crap for us because we need to be formed up outside by 0430, so I don’t get a chance to catch up on more sleep. Stinks that this email isn’t supposed to go out till Sunday, I may sneak this one out on Saturday though. Goodnight all.
October 15
Woke up really early to welcome 05-12 into the regiment. Basically, they wake up at like 0330 and get their asses kicked in their poopy suits for the last time (though they don’t know its their last time), then they get run outside at about 0500 where the other three classes 04-12, 03-12, and 02-12 are in formation and we cheer for them and give them a welcome speech. Now they can wear their NWUs and we don’t have to hide from them or ignore them anymore. It was so cold outside this morning. The PT uniform of the day was sweattops but no sweatbottoms. The admins actually changed the uniform of the day to sweats on top and bottom and forced us all to run inside to change. They usually just make us tough it out and change the uniform for the next day.
Now I’m in the middle of a panic attack. I’m seriously out of my mind right now. My heart rate is soaring, I’m breathing hard, and not thinking clearly. Our DI constantly threatens to roll us, and the threats are always serious and terrifying, they are not just there to stress us out. It’s generally easy to tell the difference between a fake threat to stress us out and a real threat. His were always real, but I managed to survive by telling myself that they were fake threats and he was just very, very good at head games. No, they are real. He just rolled 4 of us. 2 were just terrible at drill so nobody was surprised, but the other 2 were fantastic candidates. One was ok at drill and PT, the other was seriously top of our class in both drill and PT. Still got rolled. He rolled them through RLP reinspect. I just can’t believe it. Harris, the good one, had all of his stuff squared away, knows his stuff, and has fantastic bearing. I just can’t even begin to accept the fact that our DI rolled HIM. Apparently during RLP our DI found a pair of scissors on top of his locker, no items except the ones for inspection should be out so he failed him. We had the WRONG RIFLES on our beds and passed, but Harris failed because he didn’t notice a pair of scissors that he probably didn’t even put up there. Now he has to suffer 3 weeks of H-class then roll into 05-12 which is run by the second-worst DI here, Gunnery Sgt. Cross. When every day here is as long, painful, and miserable as they are, the thought of 3 weeks is just like the end of the world. I’m losing my mind. Trying to imagine how painful that must be is like trying to imagine losing an immediate family member, you know it’s terrible but dare not consider exactly how terrible. We’ve lost family members. Fantastic ones. Harris was doing better than I was. So what safety do I have? I need to find a way to calm down…
Now it’s later on in the day and things are normalizing again. I’m still a bit shaken up, it’s so hard to cope with the fact that any of us, at any time, could be rolled if the DI decides he doesn’t want us. How well we perform is irrelevant. Being here is like playing russian roulette, but the bullet is 3 more weeks in hell.
Life has improved to the point where “normal” is actually tolerable. This life is the life I knew had to come at some point or nobody would be able to survive OCS. We keep busy with studies or sweepers and enjoy the opportunity to unlock and chat with ourselves and 03-12. Of course we still have to live in constant paranoia, DIs will kill us for talking and they love to sneak up on people and RPT the hell out of them when they don’t give the DI the proper greeting. We are the middle class now, 05 is the junior class, 03 is the senior class and 02 is the Candi-O class that runs everything. We got another roll in earlier from med hold, something about really bad rashes got him sent to medical until he recovered.
Now it’s evening, just got back from Drill practice without class team. The marine prior in our class, Sanderson, is our “drill body” and I’m the assistant drill body, so he runs the practices and I pull out the people who really suck and work with them individually. I taught drill a lot in high school and became good enough at it that the class made me the assistant, don’t think I ever mentioned that. Happened a couple weeks ago. Anyway, our new roll-in sucks so I pulled him and a couple others out to work with them. He started talking to me about what it’s like to be in class 04-12 with our notorious DI. (We really are a feared class, NOBODY else here wants to be with us because of how terrible our DI is.) He was clearly scared, so I tried to calm him down and then he started talking exactly like I was talking a couple of weeks ago when I was going through my breakdowns. It was so weird. I recognized that tone and those eyes instantly as my own, and it just proves to me more that there are plenty of others suffering as bad as I was out here. This place just breaks people.
Very little sleep over the past couple of nights, so its bedtime now. I get phone calls tomorrow!
Goodnight.
October 16
Phone calls this morning. It was awkward, I called Amanda at 0520 her time (because I couldn’t stand to wait any longer) and couldn’t even think of anything to say except “Uhh… … … Hey!”. Not the heartwarming words I had hoped to pull off. Cried at various points in the couple of hours we talked, it was a bit embarrassing since all the payphones are in the main hallway. It brought me back to life to have a conversation with Amanda. Same with the call home afterwards. Hearing her voice did more good for me than I could possibly explain.
Managed to pass the time by looking around this computer. These computers are barebones. They’re basically typewriters with email capabilities. We can access the network storage drive upon which is stored the powerpoints for our classes, along with data for every OCS class since 11-09. I took it upon myself to do a bit of snooping. I found pictures of 04-12 during indoc Sunday, wake-up Wednesday, and Outpost. Not many of me, but I have a seriously hard time picking myself out of the crowd, we all look too similar. I only found myself a couple of times by looking for my shoes. I also found a folder that has a bunch of music that class 01-12 was using to make a slide show to send home. What a great discovery that is! I need to keep it secret but I’ll definitely be listening to it after hours or when nobody is around. I’m so excited to hear music!
And MORE good news today! Class team gave us “hygiene at will”, which means no more timed showers! Now it’ll be more like “30 minutes to taps, hygiene at will” meaning I could take the standard 1 minute shower or a 25 minute shower (so long as nobody is waiting behind me). Just another thing that I’ll actually get to CHOOSE! I’m gonna take such a looooong shower tonight, and I’ll enjoy every moment of it. It’ll probably be good for my dying toes too.
Spent the evening shining my boots. Took a 30 minute shower, felt fantastic! Actually almost stayed in for too long. We don’t have watches so we never really know what time it is, but someone from 03-12 walked in so I got to ask what time it was to find out I had 5 minutes to be upstairs. Time flies when you can relax! Drill competition is tomorrow. We’ll either celebrate or die, man I just hate to think about what would happen if we didn’t win. Winning means getting a score of 85 or above and earning a little streamer for our guide flag (it’s not a real competition, it used to be a battle between two halves of a class but now it’s just one platoon competing against the scoreboard). We have one streamer so far, the RLP streamer, for having a high class average on the RLP. We need to get 5 of the 6 streamers to be an Honor Class, which is what our DI is demanding. No class since 15-11 has won drill competition so we’re understandably nervous, but no class since 13-11 has had our DI. 13-11 got the streamer. My wrists are starting to hurt like hell when I get down to the pushup position, I’m starting to worry about it, not sure if there are such things as wrist splints but if there are I think I have them.
Well, guess I’m off to bed. Can’t believe that the email server is still down, I’d really like to send off all of these letters. I’m starting to feel like all my writing is never going to get read! Goodnight all.
Went to sick call again today, got antibiotics. While we were sitting in the waiting room a DI by the name of Cross walked in when another candidate from my class turned around to ask me if I was done yet so we could go rejoin the class. Cross exploded on us for talking even though such talk is permitted. He told our DI about it and got us beat. No justice. The doctors said I don’t have pinkeye but they don’t know why I’m getting so much mucus in my eyes.
Missed a good chunk of class for that visit which sucks. Final is on Friday on the history of the navy from 1775 to today. Names and dates and battles, bland memorization. It’s hard to do when this tired…
We had drill practice which went poorly, so we had to sprint around two buildings then got thrown in the SUYA again. I was doing bad in the SUYA because of my sickness which got me screamed at extra. That aside, before dinner a group in our class consisting of our class president, VP, our 3 SpecWar guys, and our prior marine decided to do a 15 minute crossfit. I joined them. Do not work out with SEALs. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.
More drill after that. Still got beat but not in the SUYA which was nice. Then more RLP prep followed by a HUGE stack of mail! No time to respond, it’ll probably be awhile before I can so apologies. I love getting mail so much!
The only other noteworthy thing that happened is immunizations. They lost my medical record so I have to get EVERY shot on the list (like 11 or so). I don’t have a problem with needles but my arms hurt like hell and I only got 5 shots today, the others will come later.
Bedtime, love you all.
October 12
Painful day. PT was interval running, which is the absolute worst and most painful kind of running out there. Lots of punishment pushups afterwards, ended up with a bloody knee from the astroturf. More RLP prep afterwards but again I’m behind. I’ll start asking for help from the ones who are further along.
After that it was drill, class, lunch, drill. The first drill went decently, class was impossible to stay awake in as always and then drill afterwards was another trip to the SUYA with two DIs and me getting screamed at more. My hips were sagging in the pushup position due to weakness and one of the DI’s kicked me in the waist to get me to raise it up. Not a very hard kick but it threw a ton of sand into my face. The nail clippers I was using to IP my uniforms fell out of my pocket and I had to be sneaky to grab it and put it back in my pocket without being noticed.
When I took my shoes off I noticed that the vast majority of skin under my toes has died in one thick layer and is now falling off. The layer of skin falling off is thick enough that the skin beneath is dark red and bleeding in places while the dead skin is yellow. I change socks often so kind of surprised to see that… Used a damp cloth to rub loose skin off but now it hurts to walk. Not what I need right now…
Had to stay up till 1AM to finish RLP prep stuff. Sleep deprivation while sleep deprived. Lord I’m one miserable *****. Just want RLP to be over already…
October 13
RLP day at last.
I passed RLP, though I shouldn't have and only did because I have very good bearing. The inspector tried SO hard to get me to break, but didn't. Basically we were setting up frantically, I noticed that I needed to trim my belt (only 2 inches of slack is allowed) so I ran out of our wing into the killzone (main hallway) to get scissors from the supply closet. On the other side of the killzone, hiding behind a POW flag that hangs from the middle, is the DI Gunnery Sgt Cross. I don’t see him so I don’t snap to attention or give him the greeting of the day, so he proceeds to rip into me and forces me to stand there until RLP was 5 minutes away. Thoroughly stressed, when he released me I flew back into my room to find that my roommate and a couple of others had finished the couple of things I hadn’t put into place yet. I thanked them then got ready. RLP started, screaming, spit and blood flying, sweat flowing. About 15 minutes in our inspector squares off in front of Deighan so he’ll go first and me after. He does decent with knowledge and bearing, but when they go into the room the inspector screams WHAT’S THE SERIAL NUMBER OF YOUR RIFLE? Deighan and I made a point to memorize this, so he says his, and the inspector screams ARE YOU KIDDING ME? YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE IN THE ENTIRE CLASS WHO HAS GOTTEN THAT WRONG, YOUR NUMBER IS …” and proceeds to read my serial number. I’m outside the room at attention, my mind saying Deighan, you IDIOT! You put MY RIFLE on YOUR BED and YOURS ON MINE!!! The inspector was furious. He tried HARD to fail us. You can get RPT’d if the inspector so chooses, but most don’t. My inspection starts and the inspector instantly RPT’s me and keeps going the entire inspection. Pushups while reciting the articles of the code of conduct, in-and-outs reciting enlisted rank structure, rifle above head squats while singing Anchors Aweigh, more pushups while reciting officer rank structure, mountain climbers reciting orders of a sentry, and I didn’t miss a single damned question in spite of it all.
I passed.
Deighan passed too, but only because his inspection was half over by the time the rifle problem was discovered. We had 8 failures. Now that I’ve passed RLP I’ll get phone privelages during a two hour window fri, sat, and Sunday. I’ll get to move upstairs to a room with a computer, though the computer will only be good for typing as I’ll probably only get email access on Sunday, and I’ll get to wear a gold anchor on one of the collars of my NWU uniform. This is a major evolution and I’m glad it’s over. Relieved too, very few people roll out of a class once they’ve survived past RLP. According to the rest of the regiment, this was the top of the hill.
After RLP we went to drill, and instead of our DI, FOUR DI's show up and start watching. Then out of nowhere (premeditated methinks) they just start destroying us. I got individually RPD'd three f***ing times because I can't do a six inch leg lift (lying on back, legs locked out, six inches above deck, rifle held straight above body with hands) with my combat boots on. My legs are too long and my boots too heavy, I simply cannot do it. So every time our DI would scream "SIX INCHES" which is our cue to assume said position, I'd fail and that other DI would run over, start screaming about how weak I am, then pull me out of the group RPT and just absolutely destroy me. I'm an odd mix of extremely pissed off and depressed. Not long after, our DI gives us another long and disturbingly convicing speech about how we don't belong here and how he's gonna get us kicked out and sent to boot camp unless we push harder, then one of my few friends in the class, Aziz, had what looked like a heat-related fatigue injury and then a panic attack. Ambulance was called and we were all rushed out hence my being in the computer lab right now. I'll go crazy if we lose Aziz.
Actually, immediately after the drill beating we got "hurricaned." That means our DI had us run from our beating in the gym to our building, post outside our hatches (rooms) and then he'd scream something like "GET YOUR BEDSHEETS RIGHT NOW, which we'd do, then it was THROW THEM ON THE DECK. Next was GET YOUR MATRESS followed by STAND IT UP ON THE WALL, then GROUND THEM ON THE DECK. Next was chairs, then our NWU's then coats then other random uniform items. The hallway is very narrow and at this point you can't even come close to navigating it. Our DI, being satisfied with the destruction, would march out (over all of our stuff) and scream I'LL BE BACK IN ONE-FIVE MINUTES, FIX MY HOUSE OR WE'LL DO IT AGAIN. Then the furious re-assembly begins.
Towards the latter part of re-assembly is when Aziz had his attack. If you remember an earlier letter where I wrote that I had a really bad breakdown and it took a couple of other candidates from my class to snap me out of it, the couple of candidates I was referring to were Aziz and Satish. To answer Amanda’s question: Aziz is not my roomate, my roomate is Deighan, a history major, and I really hate him. Painfully nerdy (seriously, if I am embarrassed for YOU being nerdy, there’s something REALLY wrong), not interested in casual conversation in any form, and stinky and clumsy as hell. Aziz is an H-class roll in, and a great guy. He's been here 3 weeks longer than any of us so he knows his stuff better. He rolled into H from 03-12 because of a PFA failure. (PFA is PRT is PFT, all different acronyms for the same dang physical pushup situp run test).
Lunch was sausages with onions and green peppers. So rare to have a tasty meal in that chow hall, even though I was eating by the numbers it was bliss. Unfortunately it didn't end well though, when we were standing up to leave the DI Bomba saw me lick my lips to get some peanut butter out of the corner. That's a reeeeeally bad thing. He told my DI, they were on the other side of the chow hall but I have them tuned in so hard that they may as well have been sitting in front of me. Bomba said "there...that tall one by the scrawny one on the left. He licked his lips. I saw it." Translated from DI to english that statements reads "there...that tall one by the scrawny one on the left. Hurt him." Nothing has happened to me yet and maybe they've forgotten since the Aziz incedent, Lord I hope so...
There's a scale in the back of the classroom they stowed us in a second ago. I took the opportunity to weigh myself. 203 with sweaty NWU's and combat boots on. I really wonder how heavy all that is. Man, I'd just really like to know if I've gained or lost weight out here. Been working out like a football player, but eating like one as well...
Well I guess that’s all for today. Major day here at OCS. The three biggest days so far have been Wake-up Wednesday, Outpost, and RLP. The major days to come are 6th Week PI, ORLP, 8th week PI and the Victory Run. PI is personal inspection, and the Victory Run is a 3 mile run to a nearby decommissioned aircraft carrier and back, after which we become Candidate Officers. I wish the time would go by faster.
Gonna try to catch up on some sleep now, didn’t get much last night. Love you all.
October 14
Waking up still feeling VERY sleep deprived. Not a good sign. PT this morning was running. I run with the “medium” pace group out of slow, medium, or fast. Our freaking class officer made us run faster than the fast group. Was in so much pain I almost vomited.
Normal day after that. We took our Sea Power final exam, got an 86%. Considering I spent zero minutes studying on my own, I’m pretty proud. We had 6(?) failures on the exam. They’ll get a retake but if they fail again, they roll.
After that it was RLP Retake prep. Those who failed RLP get to reinspect tomorrow, so the whole class is prepping their stuff for them. Like an idiot I volunteered to help sweep some SUYA sand out of the Indoc wing (it’s so nice that it’s happening to 05-12 and not just us now). By the time that was done, everyone had their assignments for RLP help so I wound up sitting in my room polishing boots which gives me time to think. Time to think is the enemy. I need to NEVER have time to think.
So I got all depressed again and tried to snap out of it with pushups but the second round of immunization shots was today and my arms hurt like hell. Aziz came back to the class so I got to go say hi to him for awhile, was quite a relief. Also I saw H-class today and they have 4 members. That means 05-12 has lost at least 4 so far because now that 05-12 has started, all of the old H-class entered 05-12 earlier this week and there was no H-class for a couple of days. The terrible thing about it is that one of the 4 I saw in H was a girl from OUR CLASS, which means she failed Outpost again (the one who took my heavy bag). I’m about to hit week 5 and she’s still stuck on DAY 5. She looked like she’d been crying her eyes out. Don’t even want to think about how miserable that must feel, oh God, it must be so far beyond crushing.
Word from class team is that we won’t get our phone calls till Sunday now. Bunch of crap.
We’re starting BOOD duty this week (battalion officer of the deck). That means we stand at parade rest in the BOOD station for 4 hour shifts, making sure that “everything is in order”. Basically, watch the hallways. To that I’d ask, what the hell can even go wrong? Everyone on the 2nd floor is monitored from wake up to lights out, so only the night BOOD has anything to watch for. Anyway… there is ALWAYS a BOOD on duty. 24/7. They have to scream the greeting of the day (good morning/afternoon/evening sir or ma’am) every time a staff member walks by and every time they fail to do so or screw it up, it’s RPT. So basically it’s 4 hours of torture. Pay attention for 4 hours or die. Once per hour the BOOD walks the hallways to make sure all lockers are locked and that the emergency ice buckets by the sand pits are full. My first shift is the worst shift of them all, 0000 to 0400, on Wednesday. We call that shift “balls to four”. It’s the worst because, unlike any other shift, you get screwed out of sleep. The 2000 to 0000 shift gets extra sleep during PT so they actually sleep for 5 and a half hours. I get to go to bed at 1930 and wake up at 2320, three hours and fifty minutes of sleep. I’ll get relieved and then be allowed to go back to bed, but wake up is at 0430 so there’s hardly even time to get back to your room and change. We all have to stand one of every shift, so I’m just getting that one out of the way.
Class 05-12 finishes their indoctrination period today. It was their Outpost today, it’ll be interesting to see if H class has more than 4 people in it come tomorrow. Now that they’re not indocs, we get to welcome them into the regiment. Lovely for them, crap for us because we need to be formed up outside by 0430, so I don’t get a chance to catch up on more sleep. Stinks that this email isn’t supposed to go out till Sunday, I may sneak this one out on Saturday though. Goodnight all.
October 15
Woke up really early to welcome 05-12 into the regiment. Basically, they wake up at like 0330 and get their asses kicked in their poopy suits for the last time (though they don’t know its their last time), then they get run outside at about 0500 where the other three classes 04-12, 03-12, and 02-12 are in formation and we cheer for them and give them a welcome speech. Now they can wear their NWUs and we don’t have to hide from them or ignore them anymore. It was so cold outside this morning. The PT uniform of the day was sweattops but no sweatbottoms. The admins actually changed the uniform of the day to sweats on top and bottom and forced us all to run inside to change. They usually just make us tough it out and change the uniform for the next day.
Now I’m in the middle of a panic attack. I’m seriously out of my mind right now. My heart rate is soaring, I’m breathing hard, and not thinking clearly. Our DI constantly threatens to roll us, and the threats are always serious and terrifying, they are not just there to stress us out. It’s generally easy to tell the difference between a fake threat to stress us out and a real threat. His were always real, but I managed to survive by telling myself that they were fake threats and he was just very, very good at head games. No, they are real. He just rolled 4 of us. 2 were just terrible at drill so nobody was surprised, but the other 2 were fantastic candidates. One was ok at drill and PT, the other was seriously top of our class in both drill and PT. Still got rolled. He rolled them through RLP reinspect. I just can’t believe it. Harris, the good one, had all of his stuff squared away, knows his stuff, and has fantastic bearing. I just can’t even begin to accept the fact that our DI rolled HIM. Apparently during RLP our DI found a pair of scissors on top of his locker, no items except the ones for inspection should be out so he failed him. We had the WRONG RIFLES on our beds and passed, but Harris failed because he didn’t notice a pair of scissors that he probably didn’t even put up there. Now he has to suffer 3 weeks of H-class then roll into 05-12 which is run by the second-worst DI here, Gunnery Sgt. Cross. When every day here is as long, painful, and miserable as they are, the thought of 3 weeks is just like the end of the world. I’m losing my mind. Trying to imagine how painful that must be is like trying to imagine losing an immediate family member, you know it’s terrible but dare not consider exactly how terrible. We’ve lost family members. Fantastic ones. Harris was doing better than I was. So what safety do I have? I need to find a way to calm down…
Now it’s later on in the day and things are normalizing again. I’m still a bit shaken up, it’s so hard to cope with the fact that any of us, at any time, could be rolled if the DI decides he doesn’t want us. How well we perform is irrelevant. Being here is like playing russian roulette, but the bullet is 3 more weeks in hell.
Life has improved to the point where “normal” is actually tolerable. This life is the life I knew had to come at some point or nobody would be able to survive OCS. We keep busy with studies or sweepers and enjoy the opportunity to unlock and chat with ourselves and 03-12. Of course we still have to live in constant paranoia, DIs will kill us for talking and they love to sneak up on people and RPT the hell out of them when they don’t give the DI the proper greeting. We are the middle class now, 05 is the junior class, 03 is the senior class and 02 is the Candi-O class that runs everything. We got another roll in earlier from med hold, something about really bad rashes got him sent to medical until he recovered.
Now it’s evening, just got back from Drill practice without class team. The marine prior in our class, Sanderson, is our “drill body” and I’m the assistant drill body, so he runs the practices and I pull out the people who really suck and work with them individually. I taught drill a lot in high school and became good enough at it that the class made me the assistant, don’t think I ever mentioned that. Happened a couple weeks ago. Anyway, our new roll-in sucks so I pulled him and a couple others out to work with them. He started talking to me about what it’s like to be in class 04-12 with our notorious DI. (We really are a feared class, NOBODY else here wants to be with us because of how terrible our DI is.) He was clearly scared, so I tried to calm him down and then he started talking exactly like I was talking a couple of weeks ago when I was going through my breakdowns. It was so weird. I recognized that tone and those eyes instantly as my own, and it just proves to me more that there are plenty of others suffering as bad as I was out here. This place just breaks people.
Very little sleep over the past couple of nights, so its bedtime now. I get phone calls tomorrow!
Goodnight.
October 16
Phone calls this morning. It was awkward, I called Amanda at 0520 her time (because I couldn’t stand to wait any longer) and couldn’t even think of anything to say except “Uhh… … … Hey!”. Not the heartwarming words I had hoped to pull off. Cried at various points in the couple of hours we talked, it was a bit embarrassing since all the payphones are in the main hallway. It brought me back to life to have a conversation with Amanda. Same with the call home afterwards. Hearing her voice did more good for me than I could possibly explain.
Managed to pass the time by looking around this computer. These computers are barebones. They’re basically typewriters with email capabilities. We can access the network storage drive upon which is stored the powerpoints for our classes, along with data for every OCS class since 11-09. I took it upon myself to do a bit of snooping. I found pictures of 04-12 during indoc Sunday, wake-up Wednesday, and Outpost. Not many of me, but I have a seriously hard time picking myself out of the crowd, we all look too similar. I only found myself a couple of times by looking for my shoes. I also found a folder that has a bunch of music that class 01-12 was using to make a slide show to send home. What a great discovery that is! I need to keep it secret but I’ll definitely be listening to it after hours or when nobody is around. I’m so excited to hear music!
And MORE good news today! Class team gave us “hygiene at will”, which means no more timed showers! Now it’ll be more like “30 minutes to taps, hygiene at will” meaning I could take the standard 1 minute shower or a 25 minute shower (so long as nobody is waiting behind me). Just another thing that I’ll actually get to CHOOSE! I’m gonna take such a looooong shower tonight, and I’ll enjoy every moment of it. It’ll probably be good for my dying toes too.
Spent the evening shining my boots. Took a 30 minute shower, felt fantastic! Actually almost stayed in for too long. We don’t have watches so we never really know what time it is, but someone from 03-12 walked in so I got to ask what time it was to find out I had 5 minutes to be upstairs. Time flies when you can relax! Drill competition is tomorrow. We’ll either celebrate or die, man I just hate to think about what would happen if we didn’t win. Winning means getting a score of 85 or above and earning a little streamer for our guide flag (it’s not a real competition, it used to be a battle between two halves of a class but now it’s just one platoon competing against the scoreboard). We have one streamer so far, the RLP streamer, for having a high class average on the RLP. We need to get 5 of the 6 streamers to be an Honor Class, which is what our DI is demanding. No class since 15-11 has won drill competition so we’re understandably nervous, but no class since 13-11 has had our DI. 13-11 got the streamer. My wrists are starting to hurt like hell when I get down to the pushup position, I’m starting to worry about it, not sure if there are such things as wrist splints but if there are I think I have them.
Well, guess I’m off to bed. Can’t believe that the email server is still down, I’d really like to send off all of these letters. I’m starting to feel like all my writing is never going to get read! Goodnight all.
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