Packet is in... waiting game... turn my attention to OCS preperation

[DoubleOswo7]

I worked my tail off on my packet and cannot count my chickens before they hatch but I'm confident things will work out. Now with all this time to wait on the selection process what are some things I can do to prepare for OCS. I have been studying rank and chain of command, boat/air/nav knowledge, I'm an IRONMAN distance triathlete with a regular cross fit routine.

What are some other things I can do?

PS: Spoke with a Commander from SOCOM the other day he said don't go in too fit (weight wise) that we will drop about 10 lbs easy while there. Staying healthy and not injured is important he said.

 

[BackOrdered]

I worked my tail off on my packet and cannot count my chickens before they hatch but I'm confident things will work out. Now with all this time to wait on the selection process what are some things I can do to prepare for OCS. I have been studying rank and chain of command, boat/air/nav knowledge, I'm an IRONMAN distance triathlete with a regular cross fit routine.

What are some other things I can do?

PS: Spoke with a Commander from SOCOM the other day he said don't go in too fit (weight wise) that we will drop about 10 lbs easy while there. Staying healthy and not injured is important he said.

Unless you are going pilot or something where your weight may matter, do you and get in shape as you see fit. By all means, don't over do it and hurt yourself.

Just don't forget the rest of the Big 4 items if you can help it (General Orders, Service Songs etc).

 

[webmaster]

Best of luck. Make sure you take enough time to recharge your batteries and are mentally prepared, relaxed, and ready to begin training. Whatever hobbies you have, or just hanging out with friends, decompressing and going in with a good attitude will work wonders during training. Just don't fuck up and do something stupid (DUI etc....)

Hope you get selected!

 

[DoubleOswo7]

Best of luck. Make sure you take enough time to recharge your batteries and are mentally prepared, relaxed, and ready to begin training. Whatever hobbies you have, or just hanging out with friends, decompressing and going in with a good attitude will work wonders during training. Just don't fuck up and do something stupid (DUI etc....)

Hope you get selected!

Thank you! This is great advice. Although we would think that we would avoid a bonehead move like that we do need to keep our guard up. It will be important to enjoy everything before I go in. Thank you and hope to see you out there!

 

[Tiffany Murphy]

I am also trying to find ways to stay busy while waiting for the board. Between crossfit, running, and studying I am trying to keep my mind occupied. However, I find myself horribly obsessing over this board and find myself lurking on this page all day! I need to find a hobby for this month! I would also enjoy hearing some things we can do to better mentally prepare ourselves for OCS if selected.

 

[elliottm2]

Haha, well that makes at least 4 of us lurking these board until we hear back... probably more.

There's a site I came across the other day which is a day by day at OCS. Not sure about its detail accuracy but it has a lot of good stuff, and definitely is worth a read. It deals way more with the mental side, which I feel failure to prepare for is the root cause of a lot of DORs.

http://www.navydads.com/group/navyocsdads/forum/topics/day-one-of-navy-officer-candidate-school

The whole site has a lot of good gouge, even a forum. But don't worry, I like AW better .

 

[Renegade One]

I am also trying to find ways to stay busy while waiting for the board. Between crossfit, running, and studying I am trying to keep my mind occupied. However, I find myself horribly obsessing over this board and find myself lurking on this page all day! I need to find a hobby for this month! I would also enjoy hearing some things we can do to better mentally prepare ourselves for OCS if selected.

Tiff: First of all, "kudos" on the info in your profile page…enough info to allow some of us to at least attempt to respond intelligently. Not as usual you might think.

Now I'm going to make a couple of HUGE "assumptions" based on the above, and your presence on this forum…but I could easily be wrong on all counts:
1. You may be from an Army family…Ft. Bragg and all...
2. You may be applying for SNA/SNFO…but even if not, no sweat. It's all good whatever career path you're applying for. "One Team…One Fight". You get the idea.

A couple of ideas for the next month or so:

1. If the first is true, lean on mom or dad to learn how to spit-shine leather shoes/boots, and how to shine brass. These are timeless skill-sets that will always serve you well…whatever your path. Maybe how to wax a linoleum deck as well…
2. If he second is true, try to really UNDERSTAND at least one or two occasions when Naval Aviation truly made a difference in the world we live in. Yeah, "The Battle of Midway" comes to mind. An historical vignette so full of leadership decisions (and failures of same) at strategic, operational and tactical levels of war…intelligence harkened to or ignored…tactical and operational "goods and others"…the list goes on and on. If there's ONE BOOK I could recommend to you for the next month, it would be "The Battle of Midway (Pivotal Moments in American History)" by Craig L. Symonds. Available on Kindle. It's pretty new…2011…but is simply the best I've ever read…with much info I'd never known before.
3. Less aviation, but I think a still important part of the whole Naval history thing…would be to do some "study up" on at least one other significant Naval engagement…and here the Battle of Leyte Gulf comes to mind. Very complex…on both sides….and hard for many to understand the many moving pieces and the leadership decisions relating to same. I don't have a hard book recommendation for you here….but I recall from my own experience at AOCS that we had to learn this, and not until the evening when a classmate "played it all out" with a bunch of shower shoes on the passageway floor that I really understood.
4. Obviously, keep up the fitness regime, and nourish your sense of humor. Much about OCS is "mind games"…and it can be hugely humorous if you can understand the context. Helpful Hint: Don't smile or laugh at the time. Save it for later… Everyone there WANTS you to succeed…they just want to make it a "hard enough" success that you can feel good about it for many years thereafter.

I was going to add more BS about learning how to field-strip and clean a "hand-held, gas-operaed, clip-fed, semi-automatic shoulder weapon" (e.g, the M-1 Garand rifle), but that would be hopelessly outdating myself.

Good luck!

 

[Tiffany Murphy]

Thank you Renegade One. I am going to start looking into some of those things. For the July Board I am only going for SWO because that was what my OR recommended since we only had about 3 weeks to put together my packet after the first time I spoke with him. If I don't get selected this board I am going to retake my OAR and take the ASTB portion and go for Pilot and SWO the following board.
I was raised in the military My father was in for 30 years and my husband is currently in the Army as well but he will be getting out next year to follow me around in the Navy. I am going to go try to find some used jump boots and start practicing on polishing them. It looks like a tedious task so hopefully I can practice and try to save me some time when I go to OCS.

 

[Renegade One]

Thank you Renegade One. I am going to start looking into some of those things. For the July Board I am only going for SWO because that was what my OR recommended since we only had about 3 weeks to put together my packet after the first time I spoke with him. If I don't get selected this board I am going to retake my OAR and take the ASTB portion and go for Pilot and SWO the following board.
I was raised in the military My father was in for 30 years and my husband is currently in the Army as well but he will be getting out next year to follow me around in the Navy. I am going to go try to find some used jump boots and start practicing on polishing them. It looks like a tedious task so hopefully I can practice and try to save me some time when I go to OCS.

Oddly, at least when I went through AOCS, our boots were the only leather to which we were never allowed to apply polish…fire hazard thingie in the aircraft. But…if you can gloss-up some old jump boots, you can probably gloss-up anything else. Heck, I dunno…maybe it's all shiny plastic uniform shoes these days.

 

[LFCFan]

You'll be polishing boots a lot. Every night. But just the steel toed area of the toe for the most part, and maybe the heel. No more brass polishing though.

As for academic stuff...if you are super motivated and super bored, learn maneuvering boards (moboards). That was easily the hardest part of academics for most.

Also, for any immigrants reading this who didn't attend high school in the states, make sure you brush up on US history. Sea Power (naval history) presents naval history without much context about what was going on politically or on land, making it really difficult for those folks.

 

[Maturin90]

After reading here and trying to think what to do myself, if there is anyone in the Fredericksburg VA area who wants to work on getting into better physical shape let me know!

 

[Tycho_Brohe]

You'll be polishing boots a lot. Every night. But just the steel toed area of the toe for the most part, and maybe the heel. No more brass polishing though.

Class team dependent. When we polished only the toe, our DI told us that it looked like sh*t and that we needed to put a few coats on the entire boot, although the toe still needed the most attention.

As for academic stuff...if you are super motivated and super bored, learn maneuvering boards (moboards). That was easily the hardest part of academics for most.

+1, we had a bunch of people fail that test the first time around because of the mo-boards, so get familiar with the basic steps. Remember, "we are ER." (Except when we're not. Change of station, I think?)

If you'd like to get a jump on the way they PT you in the regiment, you could start following the basic outline: long sustained run on Mondays (30 minutes or 3 miles), strength and conditioning on Tuesdays and Thursdays (push-ups, curl-ups, side-straddle hops, burpees, etc., in circuits for about a half-hour or so), and sprint-jogs on Wednesdays and Fridays (thirty seconds of sprinting followed by ninety seconds of jogging, alternate for about twenty minutes). The regiment doesn't PT on the weekends, but I'd recommend low-impact on Saturdays (swimming, elliptical, or biking) and rest on Sundays. Make sure you can get at least a "Good" on the PRT by the time you get there to leave a big enough safety margin; with little sleep and no food since dinner the day before, you will not be in peak condition when you take the IST.

 

[DoubleOswo7]

Cross fit... best thing you can do strength wise. Then hit the pool for 750 meters to cool down wrapping up with an hour run at night.

 

[Renegade One]

My gentlemanly demeanor, and my abiding appreciation for all Navy officer Communities, prohibits me from barfing all over what I perceive as the "community norming" of this kale and arugula salad we apparently now call OCS…where "only one size will meet all of our needs".

If OCS candidates are spending any more time on MOBOARDS than they are spending on "Aircraft Weight and Balance Calculations"…we're in trouble. Isn't ALL of that stuff really better for follow-on, community-specific training????

Learn how to wear the uniform…how to form and march a group…how to shine leather and brass…something about our history and legacy and why the nation funds us…how to rig the freaking knot on your sword…how to play shirtless, dog-tag volleyball and listen to your first CPOs…how to take personal responsibility the first…and EVERY…time you screw up… (e.g., "No excuse, Sir!)

MOBOARDS…flashing lights…signal flag hoists…precision anchorages…submarine buoyancy trim...fine and dandy for some of you…but NO PLACE in OCS.

Off my soapbox...

Seems I just violated my earlier assertion of "gentlemanly demeanor"…mea culpa.

 

[Tycho_Brohe]

Learn how to wear the uniform…how to form and march a group…how to shine leather and brass…something about our history and legacy and why the nation funds us…how to rig the freaking knot on your sword…how to play shirtless, dog-tag volleyball and listen to your first CPOs…how to take personal responsibility the first…and EVERY…time you screw up… (e.g., "No excuse, Sir!)

For the record for all the incoming candidates, it was my experience that they no longer want us saying "No excuses, sir!" One RDC in particular said to me in reply, "NO EXCUSES IS AN EXCUSE!" which, of course, practically imploded my 2nd-week-officer-candidate brain. And then our DI got pissed, because instead of explaining why we weren't doing something correctly, we would just say "No excuses" because that's what we thought we were supposed to say.