My First Command - By Bill Cousins Class 20-67

 

I was in TOCS class 20-67, Echo One. During the first 15 weeks or so, I had several assignments in the candidate chain of command but nothing that made me stand out or come under special scrutiny. On Sunday afternoon we had a new candidate chain of command installed, and I thought, oh man, I can “skate” because I had no assignment that coming week.

 The following day, Monday, we were in formation after lunch about to march back to class. I heard a familiar voice, with a Georgia twang that I recognized as that of Captain Shelton Wood. He said, “Candidate Cousins, report!” He had never done that before, to anyone, so I thought I was being dropped from the program, where I would revert to being an Infantry PFC and shipped to Viet Nam.

 I reported to CPT Wood, and the rest of the company marched off down the street toward the classroom. CPT Wood said, “Follow me candidate.” He led me into the day room and asked, “What do you see Candidate?” I was pretty nervous but pointed out a fuzz ball under a chair and that some magazines on the coffee table were slightly askew, and maybe the blinds weren’t precisely aligned, off by maybe a fraction of an inch.

 We then walked through the company barracks, and he asked me to point out deficiencies, and there were a few, slack bunks, dust on the windowsill, desk items not aligned precisely. He led me across the street toward the classrooms and while walking he said, “Candidate do you know why I asked you to accompany me?” I said “Sir, Candidate Cousins, no sir”. He said “Candidate, you are the new company commander”. My heart sank because I knew I was being set up to be kicked out, not that they needed any excuse.

 We walked into the classroom where he made a speech about training a mule by motivation with a carrot and discipline with a stick, then announced that the entire candidate chain of command had been relieved, and I was the new company commander.

 Of course, all the candidates who had just been relieved thought they were getting kicked out. He asked me to pick my own staff and I picked my XO, first sergeant and platoon leaders, then let them pick their own platoon sergeants and squad leaders.

Somehow, after much suffering, and a lot of pushups, I survived my week as candidate company commander, but still wonder to this day why I was picked. No one else in our company had been randomly selected like that, and I thought I was invisible and “under the radar”, but of course no one ever was. We lost two classmates two days before graduation. Not recycled back to another class, but gone.

 Shortly after that, our class was promoted to senior candidate, and CPT Wood left and returned for another tour in Viet Nam. Our new company commander, 1LT Bernie Roberson wanted to get our attention and demoted the entire class back to basic candidate. Back to black helmets and no tabs.

 We had to request, on a Disposition Form, (DF), each and every privilege we had as seniors to be restored. It took about a week and a half, but after many DFs were returned for corrections and resubmission, we were finally promoted again to senior candidate.