I applied for and was accepted to Officer Candidate School (OCS) while I was stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona in 1982. I received orders to attend 50th Company, OCS from January through April 1983. I arrived early at Fort Benning so that I could G2 the school and collect advance information before the actual course kicked off. One of the things I did was register my vehicle with the Provost Marshal on Fort Benning so that I could obtain a registered vehicle sticker. This allowed me to do two things. First, it allowed me access to a vehicle when I needed it to get around whenever I had free time. Second, it allowed me to park the vehicle in a parking lot close to OCS without notifying the OCS cadre that I had a vehicle. Thus, the OCS cadre didn’t know I had a vehicle therefore I didn’t have to register my vehicle with the 50th Company. Since I didn’t have to register my vehicle with 50th Company, I didn’t have to turn in the key for the vehicle to the 50th Company cadre. Sneaky huh? Yeah. All of the National Guard candidates and the college option candidates with no prior service cried and whined and said I would get in trouble if I got caught. True. If I got caught. The thing is, I didn’t plan to get caught. And as a matter of fact, I never did get caught. However, what I did do was to stock my vehicle up with all sorts of pogey bait. I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably thinking what in the hell is pogey bait? And if you are, that’s all right. I’m about to tell you. Pogey bait is tri-ethyl-good-stuff. Loosely translated to English, tri-ethyl-good-stuff is the stuff like candy bars, Twinkies, cookies, and small pastries. When other candidates learned of the pogey bait stash, I started taking special orders to stock in the vehicle. You’re probably wondering how we gained access to the vehicle to get at the pogey bait. That is another valid question. Pogey bait doesn’t do you much good if you can’t get access to it in order to boost morale. My method was simple. I would volunteer for the exterior guard duty. Pulling the interior fire guard was kind of mundane, and you always had to watch out for the TAC (Training, Advising, and Counseling) officer on duty. However, I would have the interior fire guard stand watch to notify me when the coast was clear so that I could transport the pogey bait into the barracks. Then, it was up to the interior fire guards to distribute the pogey bait. I still remember as clear as day, my first night in the barracks at OCS. Most candidates were pulling their hair out trying to get their room displays set up. I didn’t have that problem because I had scored an advance copy of the officer candidate manual, which had included instructions on how to stencil your clothing and how to fold your clothing. That first evening, I put all of my belongings away because they had been pre-stenciled and pre-folded prior to arrival. Then I prepared my bunk. My roommate was a National Guard guy, and he wasn’t quite as squared away. He barely got started on putting his junk away when they called for lights out. It seemed like we had just gone to bed when, suddenly, a god-awful racket erupted in the hallway. It scared the shit out of me. My roommate literally fell out of the top bunk onto the floor. He wasn’t the only one on our floor that fell. The TAC officers had thrown 55-gallon metal trash cans down the hall to make as much noise as they could. That was our wake-up call. It came at 4:45 AM. The TAC officers told us we had 15 minutes to get dressed and get downstairs and in formation. Fifteen minutes. Man, I couldn’t even put my boots on, in 15 minutes. Judging by how sluggishly everybody was moving, I figured nobody else could either. That was one helluva rude awakening. In case you’re wondering, we didn’t make it downstairs in the allotted 15 minutes. Yeah. That wasn’t happening. So, we were introduced to our first of what were to be many uniform drills. If you’ve never done a uniform drill you’ve truly missed an experience of a lifetime. Here is the concept of a uniform drill. Assume that you are standing in formation in uniform one. Let’s say that uniform one is the utility uniform or for you youngsters, the battle dress uniform. You were given 15 minutes to get dressed and be downstairs and in formation in the utility or battle dress uniform, but you failed to do so. So, you are sent back upstairs to change to uniform two. Let’s say that uniform two is the class A uniform. However, this time you are given 10 minutes to go upstairs, change uniforms, and return to formation. Hint, if you didn’t make it in 15 minutes the first time with just one uniform, you sure as hell aren’t going to make it upstairs and back downstairs with the change of uniforms. Ain’t no way, José. So of course, you blow that 10 minutes out of the water. Then, the TAC tells you that he is really pissed off. Yeah. Okay. So, what else is new? Next, he says, “Let’s try this again. Now you have five minutes. You can go upstairs, change into your PT uniform (uniform three), come back downstairs, and get in formation, all within five minutes.” Bullshit. It ain’t happening. If it didn’t happen in 15 minutes, and it didn’t happen in 10 minutes, it sure as hell ain’t happening in five minutes. I guaran-goddamn-tee it. And guess what, it didn’t happen in five minutes. No shit. When that didn’t happen, then the uniform drill, pretty much became a PT wind sprint drill up and down the stairs until it was time for breakfast. There were a few of us old-timers (old-timers equal prior service) who were thinking that we were getting paid anyway, so it really didn’t matter what we did for the pay. But all those National Guard boys and all those college option guys were kicking themselves in the ass really hard. They were wondering just exactly what in the hell they had signed themselves up for. After breakfast, we went off for our first day of orientation. When we came back to the barracks, the barracks looked like a tornado had gone through the inside of the barracks. Shit was scattered everywhere. Bunk Beds were turned over and torn apart. The contents of the dressers and wall lockers were dumped onto the floor in practically every room. The entire place was trashed. There were a few exceptions. For example, my display wasn’t touched. My bunk was torn apart, but my dresser and my wall locker had not been touched. When the TAC officer came onto the floor, all of the candidates had to hit the wall. That whole experience of hitting the wall was a trip in itself. Hitting the wall simply meant that you had to stand at attention with the back of your head, your back, your shoulders, your arms, your butt, and the heels of your feet touching the wall. Later, we would come up with spoofs for that routine of hitting the wall to mock the TAC officers. While we were standing at attention at the wall with the whole barracks in shambles, the TAC officer asked a simple question, “How many of you think this program is too tough? Show of hands, please. How many of you are ready to quit right now? Show of hands, please. If you want to quit right now, form a single file line right here.” When the TAC said form a single file line and pointed, at least 15 and maybe as many as 20 people took him up on his offer right then and there. And just like that, maybe 20 people were gone. The first day of OCS was in the history books. I was surprised that a little bit a’hazing would cause people to drop like snow in an avalanche. All in all, my first day at OCS was just another exercise in futility.
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