I was trying to get at this, but you put it much more eloquently. Well said.
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OCS Changes
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Obviously, somebody's sarcasm detector was broken when they read my post.
OCS can be changed for the better. I don't think feedback from newly commissioned candidates is probably the best source however. However, some of the more rigorous portions of training installed a certain esprit-de-corp and pride. Prevailing over adversity and earning something makes it more valuable.
OCS should be hard. They have four months to weed out people whereas Annapolis and ROTC has four years. I, for one, do not want OCS to degrade to the level of OIS (Officer Indoctrination School for the direct commissioned support officers, lawyers, docs, nurses, etc).
NavyLonghorn
Registered User
Good thought.. I never saw anyone weeded out though.. except people that got hurt. Maybe things changed.
Then things did change a bunch from my class 09-87 of AOCS. We did have folks slide to the next class due to injury but we also had on the order of a half dozen DOR's and three of the folks that slid to another class for Academics were attrited after another unsat. Started with close to 50 and finished with 30.
Meats got it right. OCS has a fixed amount of time to produce a Mark 1 mod 0 Ensign. Frankly the stress of having to military indoc, Academics and all the physiology quals in that time, as a class, produced a pretty consistent product thanks to intense and ongoing pressure from USMC drill instructors. So no rifle drill anymore? Does that mean no more rifle inspection? Do they even do any real shooting anymore? All we did was qual with .38's but I'll bet more than 3/4 of my class had never held a firearm.
Pugs
(Retired ECMO)
Boy have they ever!!
AOCS Class 12-79, SSgt Blyth, United States Marince Corp, DI.
GSGT O'Donnel, United States Marine Corps, Chief DI.
NavyLonghorn
Registered User
**** Wink, you might have been in my Dads AOCS class.
OCS does not weed out nearly enought people. My class pulled so many people through, one of which attempted to DOR but was talked out of it. There were a number of people in my class that should NEVER be incharge of saliors, but hey, as one of the Master Chiefs told me,
"There are a full range of officers in the Navy, these guys will just make you look better."
"There are a full range of officers in the Navy, these guys will just make you look better."
NavyLonghorn
Registered User
At the same token, I dont think the way someone reacts to a Gunny, or folds a shirt, necessarily reflects on how good of an officer he will be.
I'm sure the class DIs will come up with new ways to make candidates' lives miserable. I too am sad that a whole generation of candidates will never know the pleasure of doing 8 counts with an 18lb garand held at arms length but I don't doubt the resourcefulness of the gunnys. OCS will never be easy.
You can blame any of these changes on me and my shipmates. We were the first "pilot class" where they tested a new system. What the rumor mill is producing now is a very different version than even what we went through but it seems to be focusing a lot more on academics than any of us ever did.
Speaking purely as the devil's advocate...is it not possible that the academics learned at OCS MIGHT just be valuable if treated differently? In the old OCS the information was never designed to be retained, but what if it was? I'll probably never touch another mo-board in my life, but if academics was taken seriously instead of being treated simply as another stress level they might be able to actually teach something to the candidates that they could use later on.
Let's be honest...how many people are pissed about changes to OCS not because they're worried about the caliber of officers produced, but because it looks like new candidates won't have to suffer as much as older ones did?
I never ran the o-course (except for the one at Corry a few times) but I did plenty of other fun painful stuff that AOCS grads probably laugh at. I still feel like I accomplished a lot and am very proud of myself for finishing (we only had 2 DOR and some 9 or 10 roll).
DNW
Class 18-05
You can blame any of these changes on me and my shipmates. We were the first "pilot class" where they tested a new system. What the rumor mill is producing now is a very different version than even what we went through but it seems to be focusing a lot more on academics than any of us ever did.
Speaking purely as the devil's advocate...is it not possible that the academics learned at OCS MIGHT just be valuable if treated differently? In the old OCS the information was never designed to be retained, but what if it was? I'll probably never touch another mo-board in my life, but if academics was taken seriously instead of being treated simply as another stress level they might be able to actually teach something to the candidates that they could use later on.
Let's be honest...how many people are pissed about changes to OCS not because they're worried about the caliber of officers produced, but because it looks like new candidates won't have to suffer as much as older ones did?
I never ran the o-course (except for the one at Corry a few times) but I did plenty of other fun painful stuff that AOCS grads probably laugh at. I still feel like I accomplished a lot and am very proud of myself for finishing (we only had 2 DOR and some 9 or 10 roll).DNW
Class 18-05
until of course, you do your dissasociated sea tour as A-Nav on a carrier.
I'm worried about it. As a prospective DH expecting 5-6 officers working for me, I worry about it greatly. I didn't go to OCS; went the ROTC route.dnweinreb said:
zornundo
New Member
.
Let's be honest...how many people are pissed about changes to OCS not because they're worried about the caliber of officers produced, but because it looks like new candidates won't have to suffer as much as older ones did?
I think this was the point I was trying to make.
Somebody mentioned picking up the warrior ethos. Hopefully, anybody thinking of joining the military would have a wee bit of warrior ethos. Even as a suppo wannabe, I do understand that in wanting to join the *military* that one day I might be in the position to kill or order others to kill.
I do like reading the discussions of the direction that OCS is heading, but a knee-jerk reaction with no argument falls short of anything meaningful.
It ain't about different levels of suffering. I am worried about the caliber of officers produced because I can't think of a single person who was attrited (forced out of the Navy) out of OCS. I'm sure it has happened occassionally, but that would be an exception and not the rule. This applies for any reason: OLQ, fat, sloppy, lazy, leadership, CRYING AT OCS IN FRONT OF DRILL INSTRUCTOR, failing academics, not passing the PRT, physical injuries, etc...
The name of the game is Zero Attrition, and it definitely isn't about producing the highest caliber of officers. It's about parking people in H or GTX or whatever they're calling it these days and rolling them not once, but 2/3/4 times.
Perhaps you'd like to point out these "knee-jerk" reactions. I submit that whoever you are talking about has more experience with OCS than you. See above.
We are having an argument (discussion) here on AW for all to see. You don't think hearing from an old AOCS guys like me that has been there, to wannabies, and everyone in between like a soon to be DH who will have to deal with the new OCS product adds something meaningful, like perspective, experience, and wisdom?
Boy have they ever!!
AOCS Class 12-79, SSgt Blyth, United States Marince Corp, DI.
GSGT O'Donnel, United States Marine Corps, Chief DI.
AOCS Class 18-90, Gunnery Sergeant Woodring, United States Marine Corp, Non-commissioned Officer in Charge of Battalion II.
And for you new guys, in the old days, AOCS in Pensacola was strictly for aviators and we had no Chiefs only DI's. Everyone else (shoes and other lower forms of life (just kidding, Steve et al
)) went to OCS in Newport with Chiefs. In the old days, AOCS was regarded as tougher than OCS and when they combined the two, the result was somewhere in the middle (i.e. tougher than the old OCS, easier than AOCS). FYI, my class had about a 30% drop out rate, almost all DOR's. It is not that I want new candidates to suffer as much as I did. I do believe that the academics could be improved. But, I think that they will be missing something (call it a sense of pride in one's self and one's compatriots) that we got by working together for the drill competition, RLP's, O-course, etc.
My $0.02 worth. Take it or leave it.
Aw crud, now what did I do with that old weems plotter?
It's true that you call roll into H company multiple times with no consequences other than spending extra time at OCS which is punishment enough. As far as attrition goes, if you look at the raw numbers it seems our class didn't really lose anybody. But of the original 44 people who reported with me on day zero only 30 were still there on graduation day. The rest quit, NPQed or rolled out. Seven people rolled IN to our class from the ones before to make the final 37.
I don't know what it took to attrite somebody back in the day but I'm sure that some of the people who got attrited might have ended up being good officers in the long run.
I also believe strongly that if we were put to the same test as in days of old that we would make it through. The primary driving force...pure desire to become naval officers...remains the same. Barring injury, any one of us would have gutted it out because that's what it would take to succeed.
We had a specwar candidate who could blast out 50 diamonds without breaking a sweat and run the 1.5 in 7:44. We also had a guy who rolled for body fat and lost 30 pounds in three weeks to make it under tape and class up. Then you had me who was joe blow clueless civilian last may trying desperately to make it into naval aviation. Our DI rode us all in our own special ways and tried to make all of us quit but all three of us graduated. I think we will all be good officers, and so does our DI. He said so, and the DIs aren't the kind of people who would say something like that idly or lie to make someone feel good about themselves.
The point of this rant is that I believe that OCS will produce the same amount of good officers and bad officers that it always has. I hope someday we relatively recent graduates will have the opportunity to prove to any skeptics that we can be good officers.
Anyone who denies wisdom and experience is an idiot. I don't think there's a person on this earth who would argue with that. One day we'll all be salty dogs grumbling about the sorry state of the youth of the armed forces.
With respect to the previous post: I absolutely agree that working together to accomplish things like RLPs and drill comps develop an esprit de corps that's especially valuable in brand new officers. I will reference my first post by saying even if for some reason they get rid of drill and RLP (which I don't think they are) as long as there are Gunnery Sergeants running the candidate classes they will come up with something to accomplish the same goal.