Officer Development School

I am now a Naval Officer!  I have to say I'm a little bit disappointed with how my commissioning went.  I was supposed to have my local Naval Officer (gee, where could I find one of those?) administer my oath of office and commission me prior to attending ODS.  I was excited to have my husband administer my oath and officially commission me into the Navy.  We had plans to have a small ceremony in the same tavern where I pinned on his dolphins.  Somehow in the cobwebs of bureaucracy the paperwork didn't get to me ahead of time, and didn't even arrive to Newport until the 3rd week of ODS!  By then it was just a rushed, sign here and pass it on type thing.  They did let me dress up and pretend like I was an ensign before that point, which I found kind of strange.

ODS overall was easy and fun.  How many people can say that about their basic military training!?  I consider myself lucky.  The silly rules and oppressive heat did start to get to me a little bit by the end, but I really can't complain.

Day 1 of ODS was check in.  Besides unpacking, there really was nothing for us to do, so it was pretty boring.  The entire second day was spent in the uniform shop with a mix of getting stuck with pins, waiting in lines and trick-or-treating with our sea bags.  It was a long, expensive day.

uniform shop haul

The real indoctrination started on day 3, when we were required to be asleep in our racks at 4:30 am, the same time our class Chief came yelling down the hallway for us to "be on the line" immediately in PT gear, with tied shoes and glow belts.  Fortunately I woke up a little bit early and was ready to go.  We also received our first of many remedial physical training (RPT) sessions on Day 3.  RPT was the go-to punishment (although they don't like to call it "punishment") for anything we did wrong.  The first reason was for talking in the uniform shop.  We were expected to be silent the entire day, which of course we weren't.  RPT begins with Chief yelling "GET ON YOUR FACE RIGHT NOW!!"  To which we assume a push-up position.  Then she yells "DOWN, UP," to which we respond "PAIN, DISCIPLINE" as we do a push-up.  She may have us do more push-ups or change to "IN, OUT" to which we respond "IN AYE CHIEF, OUT AYE CHIEF" while pulling our knees into our chest and back out again.  The third exercise, which Chief favored if we were being too slow or had poor form, would start with "GET ON YOUR BACKS... 6!! ...90!!"  to which we responded "6 AYE CHIEF... 90 AYE CHIEF" while holding our legs at either 90 degrees or 6 inches off the deck.  The slower we were the faster she would change the exercise we were doing.  It was a little bit scary the first time, but after realizing that we never did more than about 3 minutes of exercise at a time, it really was not intimidating.  The hardest part was actually that we did these in the "kill zone" - the center section of the hallway, where it was not quite wide enough for 2 people to be across from each other without bumping heads.  I constantly had elbows in my face while trying to push up.

Kill zone - so much room for pushups

On day 4 we had our third class swim.  This involved 4 basic swimming tasks.  The first was to jump off a 10 foot platform.  I thought people would have trouble with that, but everyone in our class did that with no problem.  The second task was to swim 50 yards, which was where people started to have trouble.  It amazes me that people joined the Navy with no swimming ability.  The third task was a face down float for 5 minutes.  Of course you can lift your head to breathe, but the goal is to see if people are comfortable with their face in the water with minimal movement.  Lots of people started flailing and failed that part.  The final task was to jump in wearing a poopy suit (coveralls) and inflate them.  People did pretty well with that task.  I wished we had more swimming after the third class swim, but that was it for the 5 weeks.

Day 5 started off with the physical readiness test (PRT)... although I think they called this one a physical fitness assessment (PFA) since it was not going in our permanent record.  Regardless of the name, the test consists of 2 minutes to do pushups followed by 2 minutes to do sit ups and then a 1.5 mile run.  For my age group I was required to do 16 pushups, 46 sit ups and run in 15 minutes and 30 seconds.  I did pretty well with 65 sit ups and 13:52 on the run, but barely eked out the 16 pushups.

Can you see me in the middle of the back row??

The other time during week one was filled with briefs on basic Navy knowledge, and learning how to march in order to get place to place.  There were also highly frequent collections of bodily fluids to check for diseases, pregnancy, drug use and immunities.  Eating in the galley took a little bit of getting used to.  We had 15 minutes to eat in silence.  I thought I would be going hungry when I heard about this, but it turns out I can eat faster than I thought.  We also had no room to complain compared to the people attending officer candidate school (OCS) who had a lot of noisy procedures to go through in order to eat.  I thought their yelling just sounded like noise at first, but the more drill we learned, the more it started to sound like words.

Week 2 started with our first uniform inspection.  Before we would be allowed to wear our khakis we had to be inspected in them.  Naturally this occurred at 5am after we all stayed up late learning how to wear shirt stays and iron creases.  Luckily for me I had a nice inspector who asked me only the third general order of the sentry, and how far above my pocket my ribbon should be.  I was pretty well prepared for the knowledge questions, but it was still nice to get easy questions.  Others were not so lucky.  4 people in a row behind me couldn't give the correct sleeve insignia for a vice admiral.  Other inspectors were also much more strict about shiny shoes and loose threads.

After our inspection we headed to the firefighting trainer.  The few seconds that I actually got to fight fire was fun, but waiting around for my turn in full gear was not.  I have a new found respect for firefighters!  Imagine wearing a jumpsuit made of oven mitts, thick rubber boots, hood, mask, heavy air tank... and then standing 3 feet from flames with a fire hose.  Exhausting, but fun.

very sweaty post-firefighting

The next day we had a damage control wet trainer aboard the USS Buttercup.  It is an actual free floating ship that sinks as it fills up with water!  The deck is about 24 x 28 feet and it sits in an indoor pool.  For the first evolution I was the investigator so I got to be the first one down all the hatches to assess damage and tell the scene leader what we needed to do to repair.  I had to report cracks in the hull, leaking pipes, sprung hatches, and more.  Fortunately just before the trainer they told us exactly how to repair all of these things.  The instructors had fun reopening valves we shut, kinking our hoses and spraying us in the face with fire hoses.

yep, I can turn valves

those are my legs, coming out of chest-deep water

Heading out for liberty

Week 3 began with an exam covering basic Navy knowledge that we had learned.  I did pretty well, with a 96%  Later in the week we had an inspection of our summer whites in order to wear them on liberty.  Liberty was a very exciting prospect since the first weekend we were allowed only to the track and the second weekend we were confined to the base.  Our third weekend also fell just after independence day so we had a 4 day weekend!  We also earned privileges of coffee, make up and earrings by the third weekend.  I had duty on the 4th, so I had to stay on base, but was able to watch fireworks from the Officers' club.  A Japanese destroyer was pulled in to Newport for a couple days over the weekend, so I had an opportunity to take a tour, which was very cool. The rest of the weekend I explored downtown Newport and some of the local mansions.

Aboard JS ISOYUKI (DD 127)

Girls at The Breakers

Week 4 was Division Officer Leadership Course.  This was a change from our usual lecture hall style learning.  We were divided up into small groups for discussions and had snacks and coffee!  We discussed a lot of basic leadership topics, watched some of the Carrier documentary, and gave presentations on various topics and notable individuals in the Navy.

The fourth weekend we had even more liberties!  We were given a 200 mile radius and permission to drink alcohol.  Some people took a trip to Boston, but having just lived there I didn't join that trip. Instead I stayed in the Newport area and enjoyed visits from my husband and my Mom.

Week 5 was a bit of a blur.  We were all mentally checked out by then and didn't really do much.  Thursday night we had a reception and Friday was graduation.  I was excited and thankful that my parents, sister and in-laws were all able to come!