Navy Story #10
First Week at OCS
Officer Candidate School (OCS) was quite an adventure, including even the first week. I showed up at OCS in Newport, Rhode Island, in the mid-afternoon of a beautiful fall day in 1972
(it was early November). After I parked my car (it was a Ford Cortina -- but that's another story!), and got my suitcase of stuff from the trunk, I was escorted by an upper-class officer candidate (OC) to someplace (I
think it was the cafeteria, but I'm not sure) to sign in and get my "company" assignment. I was assigned to Echo Company, class 7303 (E-7303, the full designation of my company/class, meant Echo Company, graduating
as the third class in 1973 -- April, 1973, it turned out).
Anyway, that first week was supposed to be traumatic, but I actually enjoyed it. I mentally made it a bit of a game to enjoy what was supposed to be mild harassment by the upper-class
OC's. They had a hard time figuring me out, I think. One afternoon we were told to get on our sweats and running shoes. The OC's were going to show us how to run. I had run track and cross-country in high school
and college, and I had been keeping up my running of 2 or 3 miles, 3 times a week, during the summer and fall after college. So I was in pretty good shape. As we ran in formation around the base, the OC trainer kept telling
me how to breathe, how to stride, how to relax, how to hold my arms, etc., and I just smiled and said "Yes, sir" like a good OC inductee. And I kept on running in my normal loping, relaxed, long-striding fashion,
pretty much the opposite of what he was telling me. :-) After we had run (really, I would have called it jogging) about a mile or so, the OC trainer said that anyone who wanted to break ranks and race him to the finish --
about 1/4 mile away -- could do so. So I did. He was in good shape, too. We ran at almost a full sprint for that quarter mile. I edged him out at the end, and we both walked around holding our sides and huffing and puffing
while the rest of the formation jogged in. The OC trainer congratulated me on a good run.
The last night (Sunday) of OC induction, which had only been a week long, actually did turn out to be traumatic. We had a full dress inspection late that evening. Company/class E-7303
had done a great job of learning how to properly clean a room, prepare our uniforms for inspection, and such, so the OC trainers couldn't find anything wrong or out of place. But then the trainer started yelling at us
-- we were at attention in the hallway -- because we hadn't put a "nip" in our "tuck". The "tuck" was how we did the back and sides of our uniform shirts so they stayed close to our bodies
and didn't bloom out. I still do my shirts this way, by the way. Anyway, he screamed at us to go back into our rooms and get on our running duds -- we were going to be punished for forgetting the "nip" in our
tuck. They were screaming and threatening us with another week of induction, too, even though classes were supposed to start the next day.
I did get upset this time. I couldn't believe they were being so unfair. We had tried so hard, and no one had ever told us about the "nip". When John Benson, my roommate,
and I were about halfway dressed, meaning we had our jock straps on and maybe a t-shirt, but nothing else, the trainers started pounding on our door and demanding that we "hit the gouge", which meant we were supposed
to immediately go back out to the hallway and come to attention with our feet on a certain line (crack) in the tiles. (We found out later that some of the other OC's had stationed themselves outside our rooms, and were
able to see through the cracks in the blinds just enough to be able to signal to the OC's in the hallway when we were undressed.) John and I nearly panicked. Finally, John said "We better go" so we ran out
there half-dressed, only to be greeted by the whole of the upper-class OC's in Echo Company, smiling, slapping us on the back, and offering us cold cans Coca-Cola. Wow. They sure got us that time! They were actually
very proud of us, and just wanted to give us a scare. They sure did! But what a relief I felt. I almost started crying. It was good to be done with induction, and to be appreciated for a job well done.
It turns out, of course, that there is no such thing as a "nip" in the tuck.