6 Months of Memories in 60 Seconds - By Tom Levitt Class 2-68

-


Life is about doing some things once, and the best things more often. August 26, 1967 collected many young men from all around America and assembled them at Transportation Officer Candidate School, Fort Eustis, Virginia. Some older and some younger, but all were brothers soon to become Bravo 2-68. 6 months of military scholastics, regimental formations, parades, pushups, running, spit shining, breaking starch, hospital corners on bunks…. and Cubicle displays in perfect harmony and geometry. TAC’s, CATO’s, snarling Seniors, no junior candidates, and a screeching Company Commander. Frigid FTX, gas chamber, entrenching tools, fox holes, and all the comforts of the great outdoors along the James River. Leadership Reaction Course (LRC) – unsolvable exercises but nevertheless attempted. USS Neversail, front gate to back Railroad, more running, and more spit shining. Pogey bait for sure, and suffering all the more for it. Eyeball Annie… "tighten up candidate". Pull ups before entering the mess hall, eating “square” meals. Front Leaning Rest (Whoever named this a “rest” position was a masochist). The Golden Spoke, Strawberry Banks, Yorktown, and precious few weekend passes. Highly buffed floors, "strac" wall lockers and foot lockers, super clean latrines, dustless barracks, and “Woolius Gigantus”. Magic this, magic that, hide it away in the Commander’s ceiling. Nuke attacks, boots without socks and laces, steel pots without helmet liner, skivvies, ponchos, and perimeter defense. Washington, D.C. trip in the snow. Five mile tours with M-14 and full web gear. PT, PT, and more PT Sir! “Drop”… give me five zero Candidate! The Senior Ceremony – Turning Red – The last TOCS class.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for commenting

Popular posts from this blog

Hazing - Jeff Wheeler - Class 11-67, Fox 1

-
  Hazing.   If I remember correctly we hadn't turned TC Red on our helmets but we were close. Colonel Coffee had just ordered all of his company commanders to have their TAC Officers stand down from hazing cadets during their meals. However, All candidate Belentoni had to do was smile and he'd get sent out of the mess hall to do a set of pushups. (They knew he could knock out 20, one handed, in a minute or so.) So that night in our regular latrine afterhours group meeting, we as a company agreed that the next time Belentoni got sent out of the mess hall, we would all shout and follow him out for pushups. Our TACs were furious that our entire company spilled out of the mess hall into the street and did pushups. We never knew of COL. Coffee found out about it, but we paid for our collective outburst, as we always did, by formation running.
Read more

Memory of Class 16-67 by Chuck Seland

-
Image
  Officer Candidate School   Class 16-67 (17 February – 2 August 1967)   by Charles A. Seland             The 80 officer candidates in Alpha Company gathered in the new, one-story, metal pre-fabricated H-shaped barracks which we now called home. Each two-person cubicle had two foot lockers, a set of bunk beds, two small tables and two chairs. Our wall lockers (two each) were in the hallway. Once our cubicles were assigned, we settled in quickly while assessing the environment and the other candidates. Following the evening meal at the nearby Dining Facility, we returned to our billets to assemble and adjust our belongings in the foot and wall lockers in accordance with the standards of the Officer Candidate School (OCS).  Then three lieutenants arrived,   called TAC Officers (Train, Advise, and Counsel).  They had recently graduated from other OCS’s.  They knew the standards and were hell-bent...
Read more