One of the daily rituals of Officer Candidate School (OCS) was going to the mess hall. We would march to the mess hall and line up in front of the horizontal ladders at parade rest. In order to enter the mess hall, we had to successfully negotiate the horizontal ladders a.k.a. the monkey bars. They were lateral bars that were elevated off the ground about 7 feet. And there were a series of 14 bars separated by a space in between the bars of about 12 to 14 inches. The bars themselves were over an inch in diameter and consisted of a solid steel inner bar surrounded by a rotating metal sleeve. To successfully maneuver a horizontal ladder, you had to traverse the ladder down the 14 bars to the other end of the ladder. Then, you would dismount and stand in another line to enter the mess hall. Sounds easy, huh? Just your average everyday walk to the mess hall. Yeah. Right. I think they made us do that as a form of harassment. Inside the door of the mess hall, there would be one candidate posted. This candidate was the door guard. It was the job of the door guard to regulate the flow of candidates into the mess hall. The door guard would observe the flow of candidates through the chow line as they were getting served food. When the line of candidates was about halfway through the serving line, the door guard would snap to attention and command, “the next five officer candidates into the dining facility.” Then, the door guard would move back to the position of parade rest. Sometimes, someone on the dining facility staff would direct the door guard when to allow the next group of candidates into the mess hall. And that person on the dining facility staff would also tell the door guard how many candidates to allow into the mess hall at one time. There were some interesting rituals that occurred before candidates ever got into the mess hall. I briefly mentioned the horizontal ladders. When the company first formed at the dining facility, the officer candidate first Sergeant would put the company at ease. Then, the officer candidate executive officer would read the menu. The company would have to yell in unison, “Yum, yum.” They yelled for all menu items except prohibited items. For prohibited items, the company would yell, “Yuck, yuck.” Then, the officer candidate first Sergeant would call the company to attention and command, “Ground your equipment.” At that time, the officer candidates would ground their helmets, their map cases, any load bearing equipment, their rucksacks, and any training materials that they had with them in an expeditious manner. At that time, the officer candidate first Sergeant would brief the officer candidate platoon sergeants on the exercise of the day and the order in which the platoons would eat. The exercise of the day wasn’t very hard to figure out. It was usually the horizontal ladders. That was pretty tough to figure out wasn’t in it? Yeah. That’s what I thought. At all times, upon entering the mess hall, the officer candidates had to assume and maintain a modified position of attention. Once they moved through the serving line, they couldn’t just casually stroll to any old table that they wanted to. Oh hell no. They had to move to the next available open spot. All tables had to be filled in order. And nobody at a table could sit until every position at a table was full. Then, the last person to arrive at the table would command everyone else to sit. Nice huh? Once sitting, candidates had five minutes to eat and get the hell out. Officer candidates were not allowed to look around or talk to anybody else. They had to sit at attention, eyes focused on their tray only. And what do you suppose they ate with? If you guessed fork, knife, and spoon, you would have guessed wrong. That’s right. That’s the wrong answer. Every candidate was issued one scoop shovel the size of a spoon that came in the old metal mess kit that came in your Pioneer gear (TA-50). That was one helluva big spoon. Like I said, it was a scoop shovel. The whole idea was that they wanted you to shovel the food in as fast as you could so that you could get the hell out of the mess hall as quick as you could to get back to that Army training. Remember what I said about the five minutes. For the first seven weeks that you were in OCS that was the way it was. You couldn’t speak to anyone. You couldn’t look at anyone. You didn’t even have time to blink your eyes or sneeze. The TAC officers used to stand at the door and grill officer candidates waiting in line to come into the mess hall. They would grill them on required knowledge. I hear that may not be such a big thing anymore. But back when I went through we got grilled on required knowledge every day, every way, just about every time we turned around. Periodically, they would grab a few candidates as volunteers to sing the alma mater song to entertain the troops while they were eating. That was always such a joy to listen to. There was a reason why none of these guys ever tried out for America’s Got Talent or one of those other singing shows on TV and it wasn’t because they didn’t have time. I remember those halcyon days far across the Chattahoochee to Benning school for boys and to the mess hall where I spent a lot of time. Whenever my platoon was tasked to provide the door guard (and even most times when it wasn’t), I was appointed as the semi-permanent door guard throughout my tenure at OCS. The first few times that I was appointed as the door guard, I had done such a good job that they wanted me to do it all the time. By the time we reached senior phase, the TAC officers got tired of seeing me as a door guard. Even the 50th Company commander got tired of seeing me as the door guard. One day, I was told to leave my post and get somebody else up there to do the job. My platoon TAC had to intervene and get somebody assigned to replace me. The whole point was that I liked doing the door guard thing, and hell, the whole company also liked it when I did the door guard job. Why mess with a good thing? But the cadre didn’t see it that way. All good things must come to an end. In the end, I guess being the door guard, and much of OCS itself, was just an exercise in futility, after all.
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