Day 1
On Sunday, I started my very first day of OCS. Something I picked up through talking to other folks that I really needed to have a decent night’s sleep in order to be able to get up in the morning. Also, I learnt to kick my addiction to coffee because I realized that drinking it wouldn’t help me succeed in the OCS as we all get up at different times of the day and night.
For those who are addicted to coffee, chewing gums or taking tylenol even when you have minor headache, you will suffer. My advice? You should get rid of those before OCS. There will never be any coffee until the last training phrase, and you can never hide any pills beside your prescription.
When I arrived, I had my head shaved and pretty much my OCS started.
After I had arrived, my very first interaction was with the Candidate Officers. Remember that the candidates you are speaking with are in their final two or three weeks of training, so keep in mind that they have also been in your position. During the first week, you are expected to refer to yourself as an Indoctrination Candidate rather than an Officer Candidate. The way to respond on any call was that “Sir/Madam, this is candidate <last name>, from University of <name>, …”. You will be instructed on knowledge that is critical to your survival, and you will be expected to carry yourself in a manner befitting a soldier, which includes shouting from the top of your lung, I have to repeat that, yelling all the time. They were with us for the whole day, though some of them are very nice, they had to act tough because it’s a part of the program.
Candidate Officers are just that — candidates, so keep that in mind. They are off-limits for RPT you. (Remedial Physical Therapy is an abbreviation for this.) Remember on the movies you see the Drill Instructor makes the candidates do pushups, sit-ups, flutter kicks, etc. That’s called RPT. The Candidate Officer’s job is to assist you. It’s in your best interest to take in everything they have to say and gain insight from their experiences since they will help you navigate the next 12 weeks with ease. My advice: make friend with one or two if you can, it will help you through your following weeks smoother especially during RLP (which I will explain in the upcoming week post).
They helped us with packing up our belongings and moved us to a unique location. After this time, there was a constant level of yelling and shouting. Because of the incessant yelling, I should have either lost it or gotten a terrible headache if I hadn’t mentally prepared myself adequately. A set of “poopie green” will be issued as well on the first day. I still remember my last night and the following morning, I could not even speak.
There are a lot of new things to pick up in just the first day, and I will go through all of them in subsequent posts. The most important thing on the first day, we were given the book that we referred to as the “survival guide,” which was Appendix (First week only need to remember Bravo, later Charlies and Delta). As I prepared, I learned all of the information contained in there, such as the mission of the navy, codes of conduct, and core values, among other things, so that when I was asked, I could answer all of the questions without any hesitation. Some of the information depend on the time of your OCS and your class, like the one below.
DISCIPLINE, it’s always DISCIPLINE.
Later in the day we had our haircut, went for shower and headed back to our racks (beds). Haircut was not free actually, we needed to use your seawall credit for it. I drank a lot of water that day, and that night. If you are not a water-drink or do not have a habit of drinking water, you should. Water was essential.
What happened at the end of day 1? Well, I (we) all lost our voice and had a bad sore throat. When the day is through, I felt tired, full of questions and concerns, and ready for bed. My recommendation is that you make the most of your sleep time; nobody will interrupt you (not now) between the hours of 2200 and 0500.
Remember, we could not bring any pain-relief like aspirin, tylenol so I was on my own.
(Click on the left and right arrow on the image below to see more images)
1. If you're new here, I suggest jumping right into Part 1 of my Navy OCS series.
2. I went to OCS back in the 2010s, so it's possible that a lot has changed since then. This information is being shared with you solely for your own education.
Photo credits: Navy OCS Page (Remember that we are not allowed to use phone/electronic devices during OCS so there was no way any candidate can take any picture during OCS)
