thedrifter
10-10-05, 06:26 AM
Interesting or dull, lectures are key to candidate's success
By Christian Lowe / Times staff writer
Memories of high school history class or college economics lectures conjure up eye-rolling images of monotonous memorization and tedious tutoring. A real drag, right?
Try sitting through an hour-long lecture on land navigation after a five-mile run, in a grubby room filled with more than 200 foul-smelling officer candidates.
The word “torture” comes to mind.
For the men and women of Officer Candidates Course Class 186, the dozens of lectures they endure are a mixed bag. Becoming an officer is just as much an intellectual pursuit as it is physical. Long hours of basic military tactics courses, laws of war lectures and basic instruction on marching in formation can tax an already weary mind and body.
From the moment the candidates sit down in the classroom’s folding metal chairs, heads start bobbing as some immediately doze off.
Those who catch themselves before their forehead hits the desk rise from their seat with a conspicuous screech of the chair along the concrete floor and move to the edge of the room.
Standing along the walls, the candidates stave off fatigue and boredom as the lecturer drones on. Some sit attentively at the desk, but most stare blankly into space.
Not every class is an eye-glazer, though. Some have the candidates hooked for the duration.
In Capt. Robert Hancock’s military tactics class, the candidates were held in thrall by the infantry officer’s booming voice. Moving around the room as he spoke , the veteran company commander who most recently served with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, can make complex war fighting theories understandable for these fledgling officers.
From basic patrolling methods and hand signals to concepts as obscure as retired Air Force Col. John Boyd’s “OODA Loop” — short for a decision-making process that includes “observe,” “orient,” “decide” and “act” — which even some of the most high speed military theorists struggle with, were distilled into easily digested examples.
The theory developed by Boyd, who died in 1997, states that the key to military success is to get inside and to disrupt an adversary’s decision-making loop, inhibiting his ability to observe the battlefield, orient his forces, decide on an action or act on his decision.
The OODA — pronounced “OOH-dah” — loop is a challenging subject for staff officers at the National War College, let alone for the twenty-something officer candidates who’ve been exposed to the military for just weeks.
But Hancock pulled it off — and he had the exhausted Marines-to-be in the palm of his hand.
“You’ve got to embrace this stuff,” Hancock declared, all eyes focused on him as he walked the room. “You’ve got to learn it because this is what you’re going to do in the Marine Corps.”
Later in the week, it was back to another dull one: the art of close-order drill.
The poor gunnery sergeant teaching the class on marching skills had an unenviable task indeed. Trying to teach a room full of tired, seated candidates to march using a PowerPoint display seemed counterintuitive. Drilling seems like something best taught on the parade deck, not a hot, steamy classroom.
Soon, heads were bobbing and more and more candidates were standing against the wall trying to stay awake, or had moved to the bathroom to splash some water on their face. One of the candidate platoon leaders, Josh Piper, moved throughout the room tapping his classmates on the shoulder to keep them awake and alert.
Ellie
By Christian Lowe / Times staff writer
Memories of high school history class or college economics lectures conjure up eye-rolling images of monotonous memorization and tedious tutoring. A real drag, right?
Try sitting through an hour-long lecture on land navigation after a five-mile run, in a grubby room filled with more than 200 foul-smelling officer candidates.
The word “torture” comes to mind.
For the men and women of Officer Candidates Course Class 186, the dozens of lectures they endure are a mixed bag. Becoming an officer is just as much an intellectual pursuit as it is physical. Long hours of basic military tactics courses, laws of war lectures and basic instruction on marching in formation can tax an already weary mind and body.
From the moment the candidates sit down in the classroom’s folding metal chairs, heads start bobbing as some immediately doze off.
Those who catch themselves before their forehead hits the desk rise from their seat with a conspicuous screech of the chair along the concrete floor and move to the edge of the room.
Standing along the walls, the candidates stave off fatigue and boredom as the lecturer drones on. Some sit attentively at the desk, but most stare blankly into space.
Not every class is an eye-glazer, though. Some have the candidates hooked for the duration.
In Capt. Robert Hancock’s military tactics class, the candidates were held in thrall by the infantry officer’s booming voice. Moving around the room as he spoke , the veteran company commander who most recently served with 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, can make complex war fighting theories understandable for these fledgling officers.
From basic patrolling methods and hand signals to concepts as obscure as retired Air Force Col. John Boyd’s “OODA Loop” — short for a decision-making process that includes “observe,” “orient,” “decide” and “act” — which even some of the most high speed military theorists struggle with, were distilled into easily digested examples.
The theory developed by Boyd, who died in 1997, states that the key to military success is to get inside and to disrupt an adversary’s decision-making loop, inhibiting his ability to observe the battlefield, orient his forces, decide on an action or act on his decision.
The OODA — pronounced “OOH-dah” — loop is a challenging subject for staff officers at the National War College, let alone for the twenty-something officer candidates who’ve been exposed to the military for just weeks.
But Hancock pulled it off — and he had the exhausted Marines-to-be in the palm of his hand.
“You’ve got to embrace this stuff,” Hancock declared, all eyes focused on him as he walked the room. “You’ve got to learn it because this is what you’re going to do in the Marine Corps.”
Later in the week, it was back to another dull one: the art of close-order drill.
The poor gunnery sergeant teaching the class on marching skills had an unenviable task indeed. Trying to teach a room full of tired, seated candidates to march using a PowerPoint display seemed counterintuitive. Drilling seems like something best taught on the parade deck, not a hot, steamy classroom.
Soon, heads were bobbing and more and more candidates were standing against the wall trying to stay awake, or had moved to the bathroom to splash some water on their face. One of the candidate platoon leaders, Josh Piper, moved throughout the room tapping his classmates on the shoulder to keep them awake and alert.
Ellie