The Marines are known as the Few and the Proud, which means the men and women that lead them, must be beyond reproach. Recruiting Station Phoenix hosted a Pre Officer Candidate School weekend to prepare the candidates for their approaching trials to become Marine Corps officers.
Marines with the Officer Selection Team, Recruiting Station Phoenix hosted a Pre-Officer Candidate School Weekend to test its participant’s mental, physical and emotional strength at Camp Navajo, Ariz., April 20, 2018.
“Pre-OCS is a great opportunity for us to take all the applicants that we’ve been working with throughout the fiscal year, bring them up to Camp Navajo in Flagstaff, AZ and try to replicate OCS as closely as possible for them to be set up for success,” said Capt. Nolan C. Hickey, officer selection officer with Recruiting Station Phoenix.
The candidates have been training on their own before this weekend but this will give them an opportunity to conduct training similar to OCS in Quantico, Va.
“The purpose and mission of Pre OCS weekend is to get all of our applicants up in one place and to have zero distractions,” said Hickey. “Friday night we hit academics heavy, we started with how you check into OCS and how you mark your gear. Then we transition to some of the other finer classes such as land navigation, the 5 paragraph order, and then fire team tactics and how to control a fire team in a heavily wooded area such as Quantico, Va. and Flagstaff, Ariz.”
Once at OCS candidates begin their transition from a civilian into a military leader. The preparation the Officer Selection Team coordinates will assist these men and women in making that transition slightly easier.
“We’re not trying to break them down here; we’re trying to get them as prepared as possible before hand so the knowledge and the leadership is the least thing they need to worry about,” said 2nd Lt. Barbara Sophia Ripa, a newly commissioned member of the OST.
We bridge the gap so they don't have to focus as much on studying the material, said Ripa. They know it ahead of time and start applying it here, and then once they get to OCS they have a good idea and it really gets ingrained in them.
These officer candidates will have a leg up on their peers with Pre-OCS weekend as a stepping stone into their military careers.
“It sets them up for a better future, as a whole, when they continue onto The Basics School and even in the Fleet Marine Force, no matter what their MOS is, they’ve done and experienced this exercise for far longer than other candidates who do not have this pre OCS experience,” said Ripa.
| Date Taken: | 04.21.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 05.14.2018 11:26 |
| Story ID: | 276912 |
| Location: | CAMP NAVAJO, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, RS Phoenix tests its future officer candidates, by Sgt Alvin Pujols, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
