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PUSH-UPS! PUSH-UPS, SIR! HIGH KNEES! HIGH KNEES, SIR! I'M GOING TO GET TEAMWORK OUT OF YOU. SCREAM "I, SIR!" THIS IS day one at US Navy Officer Candidate School. 126 candidates begin their journey toward becoming naval officers with a punishing gauntlet known as First Tuesday. All candidates have college degrees. Some have just graduated and others have already served in the enlisted ranks. These uh young men and women that you are recording today are the newest officer candidates here at Navy OCS. This command produces 72% of all naval officers uh that are in the Navy.
First Tuesday is designed to test the candidates mentally and physically to weed out anyone having second thoughts and set the tone for 13 weeks of officer training. But their journey starts 2 days earlier with haircuts that signal the end of their civilian lives. When you felt that razor touch your head, what did that feel like? That transformation? It made it real. It made it feel like you are here. There's no going back. You have committed to this. The chief drill instructor OCS IS MASTER SERGEANT HASHACK. My name is Gunnery Sergeant Guerrero and I am the drill instructor for this specific class 01 by 26. So right now they're getting haircuts.
Uh it's their first haircut uh from here in OCS and they're getting the uniform issue, which is what they need TO START TRAINING. HORNOS [screaming] AT THE END, THAT'S YOU. I'M TALKING TO YOU. YES, SIR. I, SIR. RUN. WHY are Marine Corps drill instructors involved in OCS? The Marine Corps has a long history with Navy OCS. In the original Navy OCS, there were only drill instructors. The Marines bring their own skills and their own tactics.
Good. Yes, sir. It definitely felt weird, but it was something I was prepared for and ready for. My head was really spinning at first. They put us through a lot quickly here. I was terrified the entire time, wondering, is this Am I going to DOR on the first day? What's DOR? Uh that's drop on request, which means you quit. My parents were never comfortable with the idea, but they tolerated it. I remember the night I told them, both my parents were crying. They were crying when they dropped me off at the airport to come here. I think part of it is
just realizing that I could be put into the line of danger. To me, however, that seems rather intriguing to be the tip of the spear and be in the fight. Every time Upon receiving the command of execution, we will route step march to Nimitz Hall to carry out plan of the day. I, sir. 01 02 I would say the most mentally challenging part of it would be you don't know what's coming next.
It's a wake-up call. They know where they are after this day. Sit down right now. From this point ON, YOU WILL NOT SAY ANOTHER WORD. SCREAM I, SIR. OUR MISSION IS TO TRAIN EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU TO BECOME A UNITED STATES NAVAL OFFICER. WE WILL GIVE EVERY EFFORT TO TRAIN YOU, EVEN AFTER SOME OF YOU HAVE GIVEN UP ON YOURSELVES. STARTING NOW, YOU WILL TREAT ME AND ALL THE STAFF MEMBERS WITH THE HIGHEST RESPECT, FOR WE HAVE EARNED OUR PLACE AS SUCH AND WILL ACCEPT NOTHING LESS THAN THAT FROM YOU. ABOVE ALL ELSE, NEVER QUIT OR GIVE UP, FOR WE OFFER YOU THE CHALLENGE OF OFFICER CANDIDATE School and THE
OPPORTUNITY TO EARN YOUR COMMISSION AS A UNITED STATES NAVAL OFFICER. NOW, AND ONLY WHEN I TELL YOU TO, YOU ARE GOING TO STAND UP AND SHAKE OUT YOUR LEGS. ALL OF YOU WILL SCREAM "AYE, SIR!" STAND UP RIGHT NOW! AYE, SIR! 5 4 3 2 1 AYE, SIR! STAND UP RIGHT AYE, SIR! WE GIVE THEM EXPECTATIONS. We tell them what we expect from them and what we are going to what they should be expecting from us. They also get introduced to physical fitness. AYE, SIR! PUSH-UPS! AYE, SIR! IT'S IMPORTANT FOR THEM TO get pushed on the first Tuesday. One, they learn mental toughness. That's really the biggest thing. A lot of these adults don't know how much they can push themselves until they do it.
Once they are told to do something, they have no other choice but to actually execute the commands. So, the staff supporting the events, they are running around as I am calling the commands. Those staff members are helping me reiterate the commands for the back, in the middle, in the center for the ones that are not paying attention, as well as looking for people who are doing the exercises incorrectly. If they find a candidate that's making an exercise incorrectly, the leadership will pull that candidate and get him further evaluated in the back. Once they get pulled, they get sent to the back to the leadership where the leadership further evaluates them. And at that point, they make a decision whether the person has failed the event
or not. We have offered numerous videos online of the experience here and what we expect physically. Between the recruiters and the internet, we expect that you should show up here and have a little bit of physical fitness in you. However, this is a training command. So, we will take people's sons and daughters and get them to the standard that they need to be at. Get up! The first thing I'm looking for is safety. I'm making sure that they are all paying attention to me, that they're all responding. They might see it as responding, I'm making them scream, as being mean to them. However, when they
respond, it tells me that they're still there with me and that they're still awake and they're not injured. They're not going to pass out on me. And so, safety's always first. ALL OF YOU, DRINK WATER RIGHT [screaming] NOW! YOU GOT 60, 59, 58, 57, 56, 55, 54, 53, 52, 51. They pushed us hard and I have to admit I had doubts going in whether I could make it, but we didn't give up and learned a lot about ourselves in the process. Here we go, SCREW MY SIR! I'LL GIVE YOU A LITTLE BIT OF FUEL TODAY AND I'LL PUSH YOU WHATEVER'S COMING NEXT, SCREW MY SIR!
WHY YOU SLEEPING, PAIN? DON'T DON'T SAY IT, PAIN! IT WAS VERY TOUGH, BUT AT THE end of the day, it was a lot easier than everybody makes it out to be. You can't really fail, you just have to not be doing it. That's the only way you can fail. So, it wasn't as scary to me. Are tired, HUH? ARE WE TIRED? HEY, SIR, [screaming] ONE TIME TWO SIX. SCREAM NOW. SO, ONCE WE FINISHED WITH K, WE EXITED THE BUILDING. AND WE TAUGHT THEM DOUBLE TIME, which is just how they're going to move around during physical fitness in the mornings. I took them around the base, went on a little run, so they kind of got their heart rate up. And then we came to the pit here in Nimitz.
They're already been exercising in the building. Now they came to the pit. I know they're tired. But the mental toughness of not quitting, that's a good thing. That's a positive That's a mental toughness that they're going to continue progressing as the weeks goes on. SQUAD, EYES UP. SQUAD. OH, THE SAND PIT. IT DOES SUCK. Now you're going TO MOVE LIKE PISTONS. SCREAM MY SHIRT. GOING THROUGH IT, JUST whatever they tell you to do, just do it. YOU'RE ALL SUFFERING. IT'S A SMALL SANDBOX. YOU'RE in close proximity with all your fellow sailors. Kicking up dust, it's getting in your hair and your eyes, and it's running down your shirt. Just made it a whole different level of uncomfortable.
I'M GOING TO GET TEAMWORK OUT OF YOU. SCREAM MY SHIRT. THAT'S STILL NOT THE LOUDEST YOU CAN GET. SCREAM MY SHIRT. THAT'S STILL NOT ALL OF YOU RIGHT NOW. SCREAM MY SHIRT. ARE WE TIRED? PUSH-UPS. STOP. SO, WE CAN'T SCREAM, HUH? YOU JUST CHOOSE NOT TO. SCREAM MY SHIRT. AND NOW I KNOW. SCREAM MY SHIRT. NOW I KNOW WHEN YOU'RE NOT SCREAMING, AND WHEN YOU CHOOSE TO THEN YOU'RE GOING TO DO WHATEVER THE HELL YOU THINK YOU WANT TO DO. SCREAM I, SIR. SO, ONCE WE PT FOR 10 MINUTES, I send them back for a 30-second hydration. As they exited, they passed all the
staff members and just did not give a proper greeting of the day. What are you supposed TO DO EVERY TIME YOU PASS A STAFF MEMBER? GREET A STAFF MEMBER. DID WE DO THAT OVER THERE ANYTIME? NO, SIR. HOW ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME RIGHT NOW? I, SIR. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO BE RIGHT NOW? I, SIR. SCREAM. I EXPLAINED TO THEM THAT THEY ARE GOING TO BE HELD accountable for everything that they do wrong, especially if you have already been instructed once on how to DO IT.
HIGH PLANK. IF YOU DON'T GET IT RIGHT, YOU WILL learn very quickly. Just those small things, the proper greeting of the day, you have to pay attention to that cuz if you can't get that right, then how can they trust us with a ship? There are people today who this is their first major event where they see that they're struggling physically and they don't think they can do it. So, there's a good chance that today somebody's going to say, "I want to drop on request. This is not for me." We are going to pull that candidate to the side, talk to them, explain to them that their service agreement that they signed says that they have to do a minimum of 5 weeks. They don't have to do anything
past 5 weeks, but they need to do 5 weeks. Surprisingly, we actually have quite a few of them that choose not to DORFF 5 weeks. They realize that they can do this and see themselves improving and end up sticking WITH IT. THE WHY, RIGHT? YES, SIR. WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT REASONS, RIGHT? YES, SIR. WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT REASONS WHY WE WANT TO SERVE, YES, SIR. WHY YOU DECIDED [screaming] TO JOIN THE DRAGON NAVY AND COME TO DRAGON OFFICER CANDIDATE SCHOOL. SCREAM I, SIR. SO, WHEN I SAY WHY, WE DRAGON WILL THINK ABOUT THAT IN OUR DRAGON FREAKING BRAIN HOUSING GROUP AND remember to keep
pushing just a little bit more. SCREAM I, SIR. IF THAT WHY IS AS IMPORTANT AS YOU SAY IT IS, then that why is going to take you a very, very long way here in the next 13 weeks. SCREAM I SIR. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? YES, SIR. ZERO. [screaming] FREEZE, SIR. FREEZE. YOU ARE GOING TO GIVE THE WORD BEFORE YOU EXIT. FREEZE, SIR. FREEZE. GIVE THE PROPER GREETING OF THE DAY. THERE IS LADIES PRESENT, males obviously, so it's ladies and gentlemen.
SCREAM I SIR. GET OUT. I SIR. I WAS STARTING TO WONDER when or if that was going to end, but we kept going and it did end and we made it. I sir. It's hard, but it's a fun type of hard. You know, pushing yourself to that next level. It hurts. It's tough. It's pushing you in all these different ways. There's still no place I'd rather be. Any other questions? No, sir.
