Nov. 7 - Nov. 13

November 7 & 8

Way too busy yesterday to find the time to write, and only have a few minutes today.

Monday was different. Went to medical in the morning and some very unusual things happened that I’d rather not discuss. Then classes most of the day, typical troubles staying awake. All evening was spent preparing for ORLP (out - room, locker and personnel inspection). Uniforms to prep, knowledge to memorize, routines to learn, etc… My service dress blues don’t quite fit correctly, but there’s just no opportunity to get it fixed. I end up helping out the others with measurements for collar device placement, ribbon placement, etc because I tend to be really anal about them. I was moving from 0500 to 2300 without a break. I’d like to say it helped the day go by faster, but that’s really not the case. Classes dragged like hell and I was feeling very down most of the day which just makes things go slower. Also got my toes stepped on by someone, normally not a big deal but it put a divot in the leather. No way to polish that out, so much for the perfectly smooth finish on that boot. Major disappointment.

Today we woke up and immediately went to breakfast, then came back for the last hour and 30 minutes of prep before ORLP. Lots of lint-rolling, dusting, and other last minute fixes. We had SO much stuff that we were supposed to have memorized, and of course nobody actually did. It was a major stressor. We had to have memorized: chain of command, general orders of a sentry, articles of the code of conduct, rank structure and emblems of the Navy and Marine Corps, phonetic alphabet, types of warfare, mission of the Navy, breast insignias and sleeve/shoulder devices for most designators, leadership traits and definitions, different types of Naval missiles and specs, Naval ship’s gun types and specs, Naval aircraft and specs, Naval ships and their missions and specs including submarines, and all of the stuff from any of our classes. All of this is fair game on ORLP. Any missed question (missed meaning you didn’t know or you didn’t recite something verbatim) is minus one point. Lose eleven points and fail.

Again, I passed. AGAIN, it was only by INCREDIBLE luck.

Also any discrepancies with the uniform (wrinkles, loose strings, pieces of lint or visible dust anywhere on the uniform, etc, etc, etc) are minus one point and anything wrong with our display (we had to set up several items on the desk in exactly such a manner at exactly the right positions) are minus one point.

During RLP we could lose 46 points and pass, granted there were many more items to inspect but FAR less knowledge. I took 27 hits on RLP.

Perhaps that puts the stress of ORLP into perspective. I was terrified. Of the list of things to memorize, I knew everything up to the leadership traits memorized verbatim except I was sometimes shaky on the types of warfare and breast insignias. Everything after that I only ‘sort of’ knew, I never had the time to memorize it all. Nobody really did, though there are of course the one or two who can memorize quickly and did have everything down. Anyhow, ORLP started at 0800 with everyone standing at attention outside of our doors just like before. We wait until an inspecting officer squares off in front of us at which point we salute, say “Sir, Officer Candidate Souba, room 4318, standing by for inspection.” Then it begins.

The whole point of an inspection is to make the inspector like you. If the inspector likes you, you’re golden. Otherwise… standby.

I guess that there were only 5 or 6 inspecting officers from the different voices. The inspections were lasting 10 to 15 minutes a person, and I was one of the last to go. I stood at attention for what seemed like an eternity, just listening to some people get destroyed and some people squeezing by. There were few inspections going well from what I could hear. One inspector was destroying EVERYONE he came to, and the rest were just being ‘normally’ brutal except for one I could hear going relatively easy on everyone. About a half hour in, an officer finally squared off in front of my roommate Faulkner, and they proceeded inside the room for the inspection. Now ORLP is an inspection of the desk and the person with huge emphasis on bearing and knowledge. Obviously we cleared out everything visible from the room so it was just our desk display, desk, bed, locker and nothing else. Unfortunately, Faulkner’s inspector looked BEHIND his locker and saw his large chart from our navigation class behind it. Even though he wasn’t supposed to be looking back there, the inspector went ballistic. He pulled the locker away from the wall, and apparently there was a paperclip and a sock beneath it (from a class long-gone I’m sure). More anger, more scolding, it was NOT pretty. He took one point away for each item. 8 hits to failure and the inspection hadn’t even began. The inspector CLEARLY did not like Faulkner. Even in the face of it, Faulkner’s inspection went surprisingly well. He had studied all of the Navy’s aircraft, ships and subs before coming to OCS just because it interested him, so he had a very large advantage with his study time. He passed at what we guess was 9 or 10 hits (hard to keep track under pressure).

This is where things got bad. The inspector comes out, faces me (but doesn’t square off so he’s not about to inspect me), and says “Listen, you, you tell your inspector that you’ve taken 3 hits for contraband when he gets here.” Oh man, I was getting punished for it too. It IS my room as well, so it’s fair game to call me on it, but what a bummer. I only had 8 points to work with.

About a half hour of panic later an inspector finally squares off in front of me. To my incredible luck, it was the voice of the easy inspector! I was SO relieved, I felt like I was on even ground again. Sure I only had 8 points to lose but with the easy inspector I figured it was like having all 11 with a normal inspector. Still, with as many gaps in knowledge as I had, I was pretty nervous. The inspection starts, I nail the greeting, he tells me to post inside my hatch facing the door. I do so, my back is now to the inspector as he is going over my desk. Normally this is where the barrage of questions start, and as you answer the inspector will make you do obscure things to make you mess up the knowledge you’re trying to recite. But in this case, nothing happened. I stood there, facing the door, and there was silence. I thought he was just trying to see if I’d break bearing and try to sneak a peek at him, but it soon looked like the guy was just sick of inspections after more than an hour and was just trying to finish up. I WAS one of the very last ones, probably his last one. A good five minutes passed before he finally started asking me questions. Nailed the questions from chain of command, general orders of a sentry, articles of the code of conduct, rank structure and emblems of the Navy and Marine Corps, and phonetic alphabet. First lucky break comes here: I’m shaky on the warfare stuff and he asks me the ONE warfare definition and one of the four warfare pins that I know by heart. Such luck! Nailed both of them. Leadership traits went very well, instead of having me define one of them he just asked me to list them all. I listed them very clearly and quickly, it seemed to surprise him that I knew them so well and he had me stop about three quarters of the way through. FANTASTIC! Another really lucky break! Now this guy thinks I’m really on top of my game! Now we get to ships, missiles, guns, and aircraft. My worst by far, and AGAIN I get lucky. This guy thinks I’m golden, so instead of asking me specifics he looks at me and says “Name a ship, an airplane, a gun and a missile used by the Navy.” So I did exactly that, it was so easy it was unfair. I said “CVN Nimitz-class Aircraft Carrier, EA-6B Prowler, MK 15 CIWS Defense system, and Harpoon Missile.” Obviously I picked these based on the fact that I knew more about them than any other from their category. He says “How many different types of aircraft can the carrier hold?” I assumed this was a trick question, so I said “Sir, this Officer Candidate does not know how many different types of aircraft the carrier can hold, but DOES know that it can hold up to 85 aircraft at once.” The inspector looks at me and says “Oh, yes, that’s what I was after. Very well. Recover.” Recover is the sign of inspection over. Another lucky break, he messes up and I get to correct him, so he ends the inspection without asking me about all the other things. I only took three hits! The luck of it all… the easy inspector, the lateness of my inspection causing his apathy, the questions that fell so well in line with my strengths, it’s just unbelievable. I was so blessed today.

Of course, not everyone was as lucky. We had six failures, all of them are in panic. They’ll get to re-inspect on Thursday with our class officer (who is known as a rough inspector). Fail again and they roll.

The class average was high enough that we got the Inspection streamer. Three down, we need two more to be an honor class.

Well I really got into that story and wrote for waaaay too long, navigation final and out-PFA tomorrow and NOS final Friday. Gotta go study until bedtime. Goodnight.


November 9

Out PFA was a mixed bag. It was good for me personally, all of the other DIs were busy with their classes so only our DI was monitoring the PFA. Our DI wants us to score high for the PT streamer so he’s not going to rip on our form. I did these pathetic little three-quarter pushups like everyone else, and sure enough didn’t get called out on them even though the DI stood right by me a couple of times. How bad was my form you ask? Well, I went from 47 pushups last time to 71 this time. That bad. 109 sit ups (impossible to cheat on those) and my 1.5 mile run was 9:46. Somehow, miraculously, it was AGAIN a new personal record in every area.

The bad news is that even those numbers only got me an overall score of 85 (though if I had run in 9:45, 1 SECOND faster, it would have been an 87). The class average needs to be 90 or higher for the PT streamer. Well, our class average came back as 89.5, and there’s no rounding. No streamer. The disappointment and fear was so thick you could almost see it emanating from each of us.

Afterwards, we went to class for the navigation final. Scored a 92 on it, so it went very well for me, but navigation is notorious for being easy. The class average was 91 which brought our overall academic average up.

Of the five streamers, you need four to be an honor class. We have the first 3: RLP, Drill, and Inspection. Missed PT. The only one left is Academics. For the academic streamer we need a class average of 88, our average is 87 and some change. We’ve done the math, we need an 89 class average on the NOS final. The truth is nobody thinks we’ll pull that off. NOS is too difficult and too many of us just don’t get it (it’s all charts and relative motion and “what course and speed would you have to turn to if you were ordered to intercept this target moving this direction and speed at this exact time?”). Here’s hoping we pull it off, if we don’t get honor class I’d hate to be me…

We spent the evening studying and preparing for PT tomorrow, where we were supposed to be doing our first UI (under instruction) meaning we’d follow the candiOs around and learn how to run it. As it turns out, the candiO class is busy tomorrow morning so we’ll just be running it without having been taught how. Trial by fire. Probably gonna get beat… Anyhow, this all means a 0400 wakeup so I’m off to bed. Goodnight.


November 10

After considering my options carefully, I decided to elbow my way into being a medical liaison as my PT job. Every morning, those who fall out for medical line up and get marched to chow, then get marched to the King Hall quarterdeck to wait for the clinic to open. When it does, they go in and take care of their business. Usually there are two candiO liaisons to escort them through this, so I took that job. I really just didn’t want to be out on the field running something while my class inevitably screws up and gets us all killed. This was the safe job. It was so strange escorting lower class members around. Instead of being locked up all the time, I was the one making sure everyone else was locked up. Every time I’d give a correction they’d respond “AYE SIR” to which I had to say “I’m NOT a sir yet, you have to refer to me as Officer Candidate.” It was a glimpse of life on the other side of the fence. It will feel so good to finally have that status out here, but I still just feel disgusted by the prospect of it. I hate it here so much that I don’t want anything to do with it at all…

Bad news about the test, they made it damn hard. I was sitting smug in my chair after turning it in thinking I had high 90’s for sure, got an 84. Class average was lower than that. 6 failures, they’ll retake on Monday and roll if they fail again. All this means we missed the academic streamer. We are not an honor class.

Maybe it’s the fear, maybe it’s the disappointment, maybe it’s something else entirely, but everyone is dragging their feet and hanging their heads. Apathy is setting in, I’m hearing a lot of “well, at least I passed” and “at least we survived the last rollable event”. That sort of talk was never around before.

Today is bittersweet in that aspect. We have made it. At long last, it’s over. No more sitting in class all day, no more anxiety about memorizing gouge or processes, no more inspections to fear, no more morning beatdowns. We have made it to the end of officer candidate phase, but we didn’t reach the goal. Granted, it wasn’t OUR goal to begin with, it was our DI’s, but it was forced onto us and we adopted it. I should be very happy now, knowing that OCS life is about to change drastically, but I’m not. It’s not about failing to get honor class, it’s just that I’m so beat down that I’m apathetic about it all too. The ones who failed the test are in a hell of a panic, I’m going to go help out. Goodnight.


November 11, 12, 13

Prison. That’s what they set us up for these past 3 days. Here I’ve had to combine all 3 days into one entry, let me explain why:

The holiday weekend means days off for us and for class team. While a “day off” is something people would normally look forward to, it’s HELL out here. We still have to be at OCS, and all of the normal life restrictions apply. That means we wake up, eat, then come back to the p-way until lunch, then back to our p-way till dinner, then back to our p-way till taps. We cannot go anywhere but our rooms or the bathroom, we cannot stay busy because we have no classes to study for, we are not allowed to use the computers in our rooms, we are NOT allowed to sleep (they’d seawall you), etc… Basically we get to sit and stare, and do NOTHING ELSE! We get to chit-chat, but for a guy like me that’s only good for a couple of hours of entertainment at best.

Three damn days, about 15 hours a day of whitespace. This was just cruel.

There is certainly good news though, it’s now week 9 which means my cell phone was returned to me! I’m LOVING it. Obviously we are NOT allowed to use them, but since class team is gone and we’re all so bored, EVERYONE did. My signal out here is between zero and one bars, barely good enough for internet. Failblog wouldn’t load L. I think I would have gone crazy if it hadn’t been for my phone. Probably dropped 50 calls between home and Amanda, but it was still so nice!

Here’s the breakdown:

Friday: Bored and miserable. Nothing happened.
Saturday: CELL PHONE! Otherwise, nothing happened.
Sunday: Hour-long practice for the grad run. Otherwise, nothing happened.

I’m finally at the end of Sunday. Lord I hope I never have to repeat that crap. All the time in the world to sit and dwell on the misery… SO glad it’s over. Tomorrow will be another PT UI day where we learn how to run it (with instruction this time), then all day learning how to run the regiment. Tuesday will be similar, and Wednesday will be our victory run. Tomorrow we’ll find out what our billets are (job within the regiment). Honestly, I’m hoping for mediocrity. I DON’T want a job with a ton of stress and responsibility. No point being that miserable and continuing to get beat by class team for a month, I get the same commission being a peon. (class team stops beating you up once you’re a candiO, for the most part) I’m hoping to work with H-class. The H-class staff is usually the tactful people who can help the poor guys in H deal with being there and help them along to get back to OCS. Anyhow, we have no say in our billets, they’re all chosen by class team.

Bedtime after a LONG weekend of misery. It was so weird having downtime, being able to think about how life is going to change, being glad that we’re so close to that victory run, but then realizing that we still have days to sit around before getting there. Goodnight all.