thedrifter
10-08-05, 09:29 AM
The obstacle course: A sadist's playground
By Christian Lowe / Times staff writer
It looks like something the Devil himself would build if he got his hands on a set of Lincoln Logs.
Stretching nearly 50 yards down a grassy field here at Officer Candidates School is a hulking monument to physical pain and mental frustration.
Some say they have mastered it. Others struggle. But everyone at some point will be humbled by the dreaded obstacle course.
It starts with an innocuous waist-high log that gives none of the officer candidates much trouble. Up and over with a plant of the hands and a swing of the legs. But that sense of confidence is quickly extinguished.
What follows is a sadist’s playground of diabolical dilemmas.
Obstacle No. 2 is a single horizontal bar – a chest-high, telephone-pole-sized problem that requires a hop and a throw of the legs to surmount. Then comes the combination bars, a tortuous concoction of wooden beams suspended nearly 10 feet from the ground that candidates have to climb and then walk down a series of logs sloping down toward the next obstacle: The wall.
Candidates hurl themselves against the wooden structure, straining up and over.
“Don’t skyline yourself!” instructors bark, admonishing candidates to stay low as they slither over the wall.
After all that pain and strain, mission accomplished? No way.
Dangling like the oversized tendrils of giant squid, the rope obstacle stands as a menacing reminder that at OCS you have to dig deep.
Everyone here knows how important the rope climb is to a candidates’ success or failure. You can get a lot of grief from your peers if you don’t make it to the top. It’s not unheard of for some candidates to skip weekend liberty and instead spend the time on base, working on the ropes.
In fact, OCS commanders often want to know how someone fared on the ropes when making a decision to pass or fail a candidate or to put them on probation.
“It’s a perfect test of a candidate’s physical stamina,” explained Maj. Vincent Ciuccoli, Charlie Company commander. “It’s like: ‘Can you do the ultimate test?’ ”
One candidate from 4th Platoon was sent before the company commander with a recommendation that he be disenrolled because of his performance on the “O” course, 4th Platoon commander Capt. Khari Wright recalled.
“By the eighth week, he should have been putting out harder on the course. I kinda thought he was holding back a little,” Wright explained.
Typically, the men scurry up the rope with no problem – at first that is. Using arm strength, the male candidates work their way to the top, slapping a heavy wooden beam 25 feet up with a shout of “combat!”
But when it’s a second go-around during the same training session, the arms give out.
Where the candidates go wrong, said Gunnery Sgt. James Dixon, a sergeant instructor for 4th Platoon, is they try for speed instead of technique – especially during timed runs through the course.
The key is to use your legs, wrapping your feet around the rope like an “S,” locking your feet and pushing rather than pulling your way up.
By the middle of the 10-week course, most have learned the tricks, and only a few still can’t make it up.
Still, for many of the 40 or so women in the company, the entire obstacle course looms like Mount Everest – nearly impossible to surmount.
Just making it over the first few barriers can be an exercise in futility. Watching the female candidates fling themselves against the chest-high wooden logs or tentatively tip-toe down the combination bars can make even onlookers clench their jaw with nervousness. During weekend liberty, women clearly outnumber the men who spend a few hours on their “O” course.
“You’ll find that it’s a big motivator when they make it over an obstacle,” said Gunnery Sgt. Shalanda Raynor, 1st Platoon’s senior enlisted Marine, as she watched candidates negotiating the O course in the steamy morning heat. “You’ll see, when it’s for a score, [the women] will make it up that rope.”
Ellie
By Christian Lowe / Times staff writer
It looks like something the Devil himself would build if he got his hands on a set of Lincoln Logs.
Stretching nearly 50 yards down a grassy field here at Officer Candidates School is a hulking monument to physical pain and mental frustration.
Some say they have mastered it. Others struggle. But everyone at some point will be humbled by the dreaded obstacle course.
It starts with an innocuous waist-high log that gives none of the officer candidates much trouble. Up and over with a plant of the hands and a swing of the legs. But that sense of confidence is quickly extinguished.
What follows is a sadist’s playground of diabolical dilemmas.
Obstacle No. 2 is a single horizontal bar – a chest-high, telephone-pole-sized problem that requires a hop and a throw of the legs to surmount. Then comes the combination bars, a tortuous concoction of wooden beams suspended nearly 10 feet from the ground that candidates have to climb and then walk down a series of logs sloping down toward the next obstacle: The wall.
Candidates hurl themselves against the wooden structure, straining up and over.
“Don’t skyline yourself!” instructors bark, admonishing candidates to stay low as they slither over the wall.
After all that pain and strain, mission accomplished? No way.
Dangling like the oversized tendrils of giant squid, the rope obstacle stands as a menacing reminder that at OCS you have to dig deep.
Everyone here knows how important the rope climb is to a candidates’ success or failure. You can get a lot of grief from your peers if you don’t make it to the top. It’s not unheard of for some candidates to skip weekend liberty and instead spend the time on base, working on the ropes.
In fact, OCS commanders often want to know how someone fared on the ropes when making a decision to pass or fail a candidate or to put them on probation.
“It’s a perfect test of a candidate’s physical stamina,” explained Maj. Vincent Ciuccoli, Charlie Company commander. “It’s like: ‘Can you do the ultimate test?’ ”
One candidate from 4th Platoon was sent before the company commander with a recommendation that he be disenrolled because of his performance on the “O” course, 4th Platoon commander Capt. Khari Wright recalled.
“By the eighth week, he should have been putting out harder on the course. I kinda thought he was holding back a little,” Wright explained.
Typically, the men scurry up the rope with no problem – at first that is. Using arm strength, the male candidates work their way to the top, slapping a heavy wooden beam 25 feet up with a shout of “combat!”
But when it’s a second go-around during the same training session, the arms give out.
Where the candidates go wrong, said Gunnery Sgt. James Dixon, a sergeant instructor for 4th Platoon, is they try for speed instead of technique – especially during timed runs through the course.
The key is to use your legs, wrapping your feet around the rope like an “S,” locking your feet and pushing rather than pulling your way up.
By the middle of the 10-week course, most have learned the tricks, and only a few still can’t make it up.
Still, for many of the 40 or so women in the company, the entire obstacle course looms like Mount Everest – nearly impossible to surmount.
Just making it over the first few barriers can be an exercise in futility. Watching the female candidates fling themselves against the chest-high wooden logs or tentatively tip-toe down the combination bars can make even onlookers clench their jaw with nervousness. During weekend liberty, women clearly outnumber the men who spend a few hours on their “O” course.
“You’ll find that it’s a big motivator when they make it over an obstacle,” said Gunnery Sgt. Shalanda Raynor, 1st Platoon’s senior enlisted Marine, as she watched candidates negotiating the O course in the steamy morning heat. “You’ll see, when it’s for a score, [the women] will make it up that rope.”
Ellie