Inside Officer Candidates School - U.S. Marine Corps

On your marks, get set, fire in the hole! Scream right now! Fire in the hole! Stay safe, keep moving! Covering move! Get up there, move faster! All you dogs in place now! Eyes on the... We make Marine officers because that's what we do here. Whether that be with blank rounds from a 240 or RD-SIMs or smoke, we're going to put them under stress. What they struggle with here is just the grind of it. So it's a challenge for them. The onus is on them. Run! All of you run! Get on your back! Move in, move in! The purpose of Officer Cannon School is to really screen and evaluate those young individuals who are pursuing an opportunity to lead Marines, but it's to screen their leadership potential. The role of a Marine officer, as it's been since the beginning of the Marine Corps, is to selflessly serve Marines and influence, positively influence mission success while also ruthlessly caring for the Marines 24-7. Officer Cannon School is not designed to get you ready. You have to show up ready. First and foremost, we raise our right hand to serve our country and serve the Marines to the left and right of us. So that means that our Marines might be placed in an environment that may put their lives at risk and their safety at risk. So therefore, we have to be able to make sound decisions and be able to lead even when the environment's consistently changing. Here at Officer Cannon School, every candidate is required to demonstrate sufficiency on a range of skills. We'll break those skills up into three different broad categories. So we'll teach them everything from the history of the Marine Corps, our customs, our courtesies, our policies, our rank structure, everything that makes us a Marine Corps and an individual Marine and to introduce them to our service culture. Just like we discussed, that first portion is going to be that offensive. That second is going to be that defensive. Good to go? Yes, sir! In order for me to actually be able to teach the officer candidates, it's very important that I have the background that I do. But for them to actually understand how it's actually used in real-life scenarios, me having that experience allows me to teach them better. This is all about violence of action. You need to be ready to actually do these things. Good to go? Yes, sir! Secondly, here at Officer Cannon School, we evaluate the candidates' physical fitness and their readiness. Our physical fitness program here at Officer Cannon School contributes to our evaluation of a candidate's ability to sustain mental and physical toughness. Physical fitness does play into leadership because as a Marine officer and as a Marine, we require our service members to have that mental and physical toughness. We require them to have the ability to push past fatigue and physical discomfort to be able to lead in chaos. And lastly and more importantly, the category that we are really interested in the most is the leadership category. And in that leadership category, it translates to 50% of the candidate's grade. I am looking for that command presence and demeanor, which is very, very important when you look at leadership potential within these candidates. Can they get in front of a group of their peers and command them and get them to do what they need to do? Can they bring a certain energy that inspires that instant willingness and obedience? We only have 65 training days here, so it's up to the commanding officer with the advisement of his staff to determine how fast we move through transition phase, which is the first phase of training that they have here. And that phase is essentially the drill instructors being in charge, giving commands, teaching the platoons how to become a platoon, how to move as a unit, what's required of them as being a Marine. The instructor's role here is to make sure we preserve the trust of the American people to make sure that man or woman who graduates from Brownfield has been put to the test, has proven themselves worthy of the title and the privilege to lead. We need to be calm, cool, and collected when chaos hits. Aye, sir. Do we understand? Yes, sir. Being able to evaluate somebody on their leadership potential, that takes a lot of time because leadership is an intangible metric. So we have to quickly move past the transition of making a Marine. And that adaptation phase, as it's right after transition phase, the drill instructors step back as they're not taking as much charge, but it's now on the candidate. And they have to start demonstrating their ability to lead and make decisions. We're not doing it anymore. You are a candidate. So do it right now because the more you do it right, the more you build it in, the more you get confidence with it, and that will carry you throughout the rest of your training. This is the beginning step, the foundational step, of them being able to hold each other accountable, of them getting the experience of being in a billet. After that 21 days of adaptation phase, we move into decision-making phase. The majority of the evaluated events across the program of instruction are all contained in the decision-making phase. And that's really where the candidates are put in situations where they're not necessarily responsible for themselves. They're being evaluated now on how well their unit does underneath their leadership and how well collectively then the unit accomplishes its mission. They got the classroom instruction. They went out and did practical application in a field. We're going slow. We're teaching. We're really trying to retain. Now we're going to put them in a little bit more stressful environment. That's going to cause them to have to reach back, pull that information that they retained, and apply it in a stressful environment, which is what it's all about. We need to test that skill here and make sure that they're in the right mindset. We're going to induce friction, induce stress, whether it be with that 240, those blank rounds, whether it be through yelling, but I want to make sure that you can think calm, cool, collected when things around you are not. It's going to be mentally exhausting. It's going to be physically exhausting. You're going to be pushed to your limits. You're going to succumb to synthetic stress that is designed to put you in stressful situations to see how you'll act. Once they earn an eagle of an anchor, they enter what's called mentorship phase, and during mentorship phase is really platoon commander, platoon sergeant, sergeant instructors talking to them about what it's like being a Marine, the expectations of them as a lieutenant. It's more open to them to now start asking questions to the company staff to try to get some advice and some leadership guidance. Seeing the next generation of Marine Corps officers and holding that legacy, it really starts here with a good, firm foundation in basic tactics and instant willingness, obedience to orders and officership. They're learning all that here. I was prepared. I was prepared because it started with a good, firm foundation, a bedrock that was set here at OCS in which to grow upon. I guarantee you they'll reach back at their time here at OCS and think about everything that the drill instructors did for them, what the course did for them, what the period of instruction did for them to prepare them for what they were getting ready to walk out and go and do, what we were requesting them to do, what the nation demands of them to do. Their propensity to serve is there, but sometimes we're going to test your will and make sure that you have what it takes. Keep going through. You need to train how you fight. You need to be ready.