As it should be! It shouldn’t be up to Enlisted personnel, Junior or Senior, who would make a good officer. There are some programs where that holds a lot of weight, but for what we are applying for it isn’t the enlisted perspective that the board cares to see, they’ll read that in your evals. Again, no offense to any of my COC, they have all been wonderful and I have the most respect for them. But they shouldn’t be the people to say I should or should not be recommended for OCS. That’s between myself and the CO, whether he wants to endorse me. I’ve seen a lot of people who rely heavily on they COC for this program, even route it through them and shit. It doesn’t necessarily hurt to do it that way, but is not required. I think it’s mainly to do with the vagueness of the instructions as it pertains to active duty. I personally found the checklist reasonably easy but I did have to bug Paul for the last year on at least a weekly basis to get clarification. Civilians have ORs who are supposed to do all that legwork for them to tell them what they need (although I’m gathering that they all aren’t so great) but we have no one but ourselves and if we are lucky some great mentors along the way. It’s tough but makes it so much more worth it when you click send to Paul with that completed application, and he tells you all looks good and that you’re on the November board ? even if i don’t get picked up, that shit right there was definitely a triumphant moment.
