Could any high school junior pass the OCS academic requirements? Probably. However, the incessant hazing provided much more of a challenge. It drove me bananas.
Hazing? My dictionary says, "Hazing is to initiate or discipline fellow students by forcing (them) to do ridiculous, humiliating or painful things." At OCS, hazing also involved accepting unfair, unjust, and outlandish accusations without the right to make a rebuttal. Whenever an upperclassman called me a worthless bit of trash unworthy of becoming an officer, I had to accept his accusations as the absolute truth. I had no right to make a rebuttal. OCS was no place for anyone who had an uncontrollable temper or a short fuse.
My strongest objection to hazing involved having to put up with unwarranted criticism from obnoxious know-it-alls with no useful military skills or experience. In most instances, the less qualified the person doing the hazing the more aggressively they attacked.
Tormenting upperclassmen often had a cadet assume a brace position. His chest had to be fully extended and his chin pulled in until he was ready to choke. No matter what I did, my chest never protruded far enough, and my chin never touched the rear of my spine.
I never did get used to hiding my emotions while a sneering upperclassman did his best to upset me. I was lucky, however. I kept my cool.
Incidentally, the men with the loudest voices made the most traumatic impression.
I believe that women never had my kind of problems with hazing. I entered OCS before ladies were admitted. However, since women are said to show more emotions, it's probable that female cadets in subsequent classes received more slack.
Typical comments made during hazing included: "You didn't stand close enough to your razor." That accusation was standard no matter how many times I had shaved and re-shaved ten minutes before.
A time-honored saying proclaims: "Rank has its privileges." That however, is only true in the real world. The opposite was true at Officer's Candidate School. The worst thing any high-ranking noncom could do was to identify his previous enlisted rank.
The most belligerent hazers were the cadets who had never earned a promotion above corporal before arriving at OCS. The more vindictive of these cadets, felt obligated to make life miserable for the senior noncoms who had previously been in a position to give them orders. Most of these malcontents were verbally brutal. At least they weren't allowed to touch us without our permission.
Although I had removed all of my rank insignia before arriving at OCS, the stitch marks and discoloration of my shirts gave me away. That made me a prime target. The only member of my squadron getting worked over more than me was one of my roommates. His previous rank had been warrant officer. Between the two of us, we received more than our share of unwanted attention.
Our Liberty Arms Motel had venetian blinds on the windows. Although apparently meant to show class, they made exceptional dust magnets. The blinds and the more hard-to-reach corners of the room had to survive daily white-glove inspections. As a consequence, we received daily gigs until we finally identified the inspection idiosyncrasies and patterns.
One bit of hazing that I rather enjoyed involved being required to sing for my "masters." In my case, the song they invariably chose was "Paper Doll," a song written by Johnny S Black in 1915 but made popular by the Mills Brothers during 1942. It went:
"I'm gonna buy a paper doll that I can call my own,
"A Doll that other fellows cannot steal..."
For some unknown reason, I tended to roll my eyes in the middle of the song, giving the upperclassmen something to laugh about. They enjoyed teasing me. I enjoyed singing.
Some hazing proved to be excessive. The officers running OCS cut back on it once a significant number of war-tested veterans cracked up under the pressure.
OCS proved beneficial for me in a number of ways. First, I overcame my fear of heights after having to jump off the high diving board and into the pool. Second, they taught me to wear garters to keep my sox up. Third, they taught me to get a haircut more often than once every two months.
To this day, I have a hard time trying to understand how anyone ever graduated from West Point. Their hazing was said to be much more brutal.
You overcame and were the best officer you could be, I betcha - bet you didn't treat underlings like you were treated. An excellent story, one with a moral - do unto others as you would have done unto you.
Homer's Ill Iliad & Odd Sea Odyssey (420 pages) is an adult satire/parody rewrite of the classic stories of the 10 year Trojan War and of the 10 year adventure of Odysseus trying to return home to his native Ithaca.
Was OCS really a snap?
