Archive for July 2009
Back from OCS.
I dropped out of the 6 Week increment at Officer Candidates School (OCS) two days before Graduation.
I had to go before the Company Board during Week 5 for a lack of leadership performance and a failing average in physical fitness. I was then recommended for the Battalion Board. The Battalion Commander gave me a second chance, allowing me to retake the two graded events I had failed during Week 4 and have my peers reevaluate me. This past Monday I retook both events; I failed the physical fitness event again and barely passed the leadership event. My peers also wrote another evaluation on me. Later that night, my Platoon Commander informed me that he had recommended me again for disenrollment, but this time with the ability to come back.
As I was thinking over what to write this time on the form given to me, I could not think of anything to say to plead my case again before the Battalion Commander. I couldn’t blame my failing the physical fitness event again on my knee injury, even though it did play a role. And I thought I had done all right on the leadership event, but I found out later that my evaluator graded extremely tough. And my peers had stated once again in their evaluations that I was smart and had good character but that I lacked command presence. I agreed with basically everything that my Platoon Commander wrote about me on the form.
It was at that point that I decided that it was time to drop out. Graduation was a couple days away, but I could see myself continuing to struggle with the leadership and physical fitness required of U.S. Marine Corps officers. I had lost the will to continue to fight. None of the training at OCS came naturally to me. During almost every physical event, I would pray to God to help me to survive.
On Tuesday, my head drill instructor, my Platoon Sergeant, informed me that he had read what I wrote and admired the decision I had made. He praised my character and and complimented me on the fact that I had the courage to drop out when I was so close to graduating. He also praised me on sticking it out to the end. He said that he would love to serve with others who also practiced the leadership principle–Know yourself and seek self-improvement. He said that he had recommended that I be kept and that I had a good chance of graduating, but that I would have struggled at the Basic School. He said that he would be at OCS until 2011 and that he had better see me again.
The Battalion Commander told me I was young and confused after asking me why I was dropping out. He recommended a couple books to read, and he recommended I attend Toastmasters-a group for those seeking to improve their public speaking, leadership, and interpersonal communication. He stated that he would erase my records and recommended that I come back in the summer of 2010 for the 10 week program. Usually, people who drop out aren’t allowed back, but I believe he liked me.
As I was packing up to leave OCS, my Platoon Sergeant gathered up my whole platoon and restated to them what he had told me earlier. I had gotten a little teary earlier, but this time I couldn’t hold back the tears. In all my adult years, I have never teared up like that. Later, as I waiting to leave OCS, my Company First Sergeant said he had also written what I wrote, and he basically told me the same things my Platoon Sergeant had told me. He also said that many candidates were graduating from OCS who shouldn’t because they were too proud to admit that their faults and weaknesses. I got slightly teary eyed while he spoke to me as well.
I never imagined that I would tear up if I were to ever decide on not becoming a U.S. Marine Corps officer. Of course, the practical aspects of the decision entered my mind. How would I pay off my loans and pay for graduate school? What would I do now? I teared up though because I had spilled my guts out for two years. I had pushed myself emotionally and physically beyond normal limits in order to become a Marine Corps officer. I had gone through a combined 12 long and brutal weeks of OCS during which I had wanted to quit too many times to count, but I had finally made it to the end. After those many, many weeks of training, I had become a Marine.
I also teared up because I never expected to receive so much praise from the staff upon dropping out. I was dropping out because I didn’t have the leadership and physical abilities needed in a U.S. Marine Corps officer, yet instead of being ridiculed like most of the others who drop out, I was actually being told that I was not a failure and that I was the type of person with whom they would love to serve.
Being a Marine isn’t just a career, it’s who you are. I am a different person than I was six weeks earlier, but now I am not a Marine nor was I ever officially a Marine. Before I left OCS, they took away all my cammies and all my boots. I paid for all of them myself, and many of those items I had bought over the internet myself. I felt like the Marine Corps had just disowned me.
Now, I am not only dealing with the issues surrounding what to do with my life now, but I am also dealing with getting a grip on my identity and my connection with the Marine Corps.
