OCS and the Big Crisis
OCS. That joyful time between enlisted indentured servitude and the blissful freedom of an officer’s commission. Aaaah, the memories. Of the PT. The classes. The senseless abuse of our suffering selves at the hands of the senior class and the TAC officers.
OCS is a lot like the other military entrance level schools; i.e. Basic Training (boot camp) and Warrant Officer Candidate School. No matter which one you’re in, someone is usually messing with you. Boot camp tends more toward the physical, while the others tend more to messing with your mind.
My brother and I started OCS in 1980, in the Oregon Army Guard’s program. This program started with several months of weekend drills, then a two week long annual training period, then another eleven months of drills and a final annual training before being commissioned.
By middle weekend of the first annual training period we were fully acclimated to the program. No outside contact, no news, completely at the mercy of the staff. And the senior class, of course.
The hostages from the Embassy in Tehran were still being held at this time and it was a subject constantly in the news as President Carter’s term ran down. Nothing to do with us, of course.
We were in class that Saturday morning when one of the staff came in and spoke to the instructor, then left. The instructor called the acting company commander forward and dropped the bombshell. “Iran has just sunk a U.S. destroyer in the Persian Gulf. We’re at war. Senior class will be graduating tomorrow and joining their units for shipment overseas. Junior class will complete training on an accelerated schedule and join their units in the desert. Return the company to the barracks, square yourselves away and be in formation for inspection in fifteen minutes. Commander Sixth Army is arriving shortly.”
OK, well, that’s weird. News of war tightened us up considerably. But, Camp Withycombe is a National Guard camp that’s so small that you can run from one end to the other in about ten minutes, less if you’re in decent shape. I doubt Sixth Army Commander even knows it exists.
So we fall into formation outside. The classroom is right next to the main gate. A gate which is now closed and has armed guards on it. Some of the younger folks are starting to worry. Our company commander, a normally quiet girl, marches us off while calling out a surprisingly loud cadence. Us older people are still trying to figure out what the scam is.
On the way to barracks, we pass the Post Commander just entering his office …. with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Now, that just looks wrong somehow. But it introduces another element of confusion. And worry. But it’s still bound to be a scam. (Some of us are just naturally untrusting that way.) I’m wondering what they’re going to drop on us. No way a General is coming here……
Falling out for formation; we’re standing where we can see the hundred yards back to that main gate. Then we hear the sirens. Getting closer. Then we see the lights and it isn’t a passing ambulance; it’s an MP jeep turning in to the gate, followed by a staff car and a second jeep. They pass the gate, take a right and head for the far end of the base, then circle back to us.
This is now serious. You can’t just go running around on the civilian streets with lights and sirens going unless you have a reason to have them going.
The entourage pulls up in front of us and the driver of the staff car jumps out to open the passenger’s door. The General gets out. By now, we’re believers. Except……..
The General’s uniform consists of a WW II overcoat and some sort of crushed cap like MacArthur might wear. He was also wearing a Groucho Marx nose, mustache and glasses, complete with spring mounted eyeballs which he pulled out and use to ‘eyeball’ us, as he harangued us for our multiple shortcomings. All while the staff and senior class laughed their rears off. We’d been had.
The funny thing though, was that nearly all of us had the same thought once we were convinced that the crisis was real. That thought was, “I’m all out of clean underwear.”
The mundane will trump any crisis.