Every OCS Class is assigned a class officer, a class Chief Petty Officer and a class Drill Instructor. Most of the class officers are put there to rot, they don't do much and it is not a good assignment in terms of advancement. Our class Officer, a Lieutenant, was no exception. I really have no idea what he did. We only sporadically saw him. He threatened to not let me graduate because I needed my wisdom teeth removed. Luckily, someone intervened. He also called me Wilson throughout the entire 13 weeks I was there. I didn't even look like the guy named Wilson in our class. Even at graduation, when I rendered my final salute to him, he saluted back and said something along the lines of "Well you made it, Wilson" I fired back "Smith, Sir" and walked off.
The class Chief Petty Officer was Senior Chief Lucas. I loved that hard charging Filipino. He had a really heavy accent but was super squared away. He was responsible for all the administration, with a 50+ class it was a huge job, but he never missed a beat. I like to think he was the one who talked some sense into the Class Officer and let me graduate on time.
Finally, the man we would see the most, and genuinely come to love and admire was our class drill instructor, Staff Sergeant Lewis. Unlike the class officers, they only picked the best Marines to come to OCS and most of them made rank. Most of the other drill instructors were Gunnery Sergeants, but Staff Sergeant Lewis was one paygrade lower. However, I am sure he picked up the next rank quite quickly. I think he was Haitian, he did not have an accent and he was a very fit man. He was slightly on the shorter and stockier side, but definitely a force to be reckoned with.
One of my first memories of SSgt Lewis was when he was teaching our entire class how to iron. There were almost 60 of us, crammed into this small room sitting indian style. Here is this ripped up guy, showing us how to iron, and doing it in the manliest way possible. Every move he made was, to quote the man, "quick and vicious"! I didn't know you could be quick and vicious while ironing, but he somehow made it so. I half expected him to put the iron out on his tongue! Then something very awkward happened. One of the girls in the class had been raising her hand for awhile and finally SSgt Lewis had enough. Just like with everything else, there is a specific procedure for asking a question. Something along the lines of "This Officer Candidate requests to ask the Class Drill Instructor, Staff Sergeant Lewis a question." The Drill Instructor would typically reply with a succinct "What" or "Spit it out" Pronouns were strictly forbidden, there was no I or me, but the best part was if you called SSgt Lewis "you" by accident. He would then say "what the hell do I look like, a female sheep"? I thought this was a clever retort. This girl is having all sorts of trouble getting her question out, each time that she has to restart she would get even more flustered and fumble some more. Finally, on the verge of tears, she simply shouts out "This Officer Candidate needs to go to the head to change her tampon" I don't think any of us were expecting anything like this! Certainly not SSgt Lewis, who is still wielding the iron. He just turned away and motioned for her to leave the room!
Mail call was always an interesting experience. We would all gather in the hallway (passageway) in the dorm area, and SSGT Lewis would have this enormous stack of mail. He would call your name, and hand your piece of mail to the "mail body" You would run up as fast as you possibly could, then clap both your hands onto the mail, quickly and viciously! If it was an envelope you could open it up at your leisure. However, if it was a package it had to be opened up in front of everyone to ensure there was no contraband. If you received candy, you had 30 seconds to eat it all, regardless of the quantity. One guy's mom sent enough full size Snickers bars so that we could all have one. By this time SSgt Lewis was starting to go a little easier on us, so he let us all have one, but it was done with orders as to when we could unwrap, take the first bite, swallow etc. Another guy had a bit of a prankster for a girlfriend. She sent him what appeared to be a big bag of Starburst. In fact, it was a large ziploc bag filled mostly with gravel and a few Starburst. So, SSgt Lewis instructed him to eat the starburst, and indeed he tried. Finally, SSgt Lewis noted that he wasn't swallowing. He barked at him and asked why he wasn't swallowing, the guy through a mouthful of gravel remarked that "Its gravel, Sir" This was one of the few times we saw SSgt Lewis chuckle as he told him to spit it out!
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