In the Valley by Jason Lambright

Author:Jason Lambright [Lambright, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-06-18T07:00:00+00:00

A dick of an officer stood before Paul and his apprehensive classmates. Just last night, he had in-processed to his new unit, the 166th Infantry Regiment (Training), Third Battalion, Company B, Officer Candidate School, located on Mumbai 3.

He was assigned in a gruff, cursory method to Second Platoon, First Squad. The method they used in assigning his billet was simplicity itself: each soldier in the processing line had received a consecutive halo feed that filled slots automatically.

That explained their current predicament. Leadership slots had been filled at random, not by ability. And while a number of the “students” here were experienced NCOs and soldiers, many were not. Some poor suckers had won an OCS slot simply by joining the force, graduating basic, and being selected for leadership because they had a college degree.

God, if Paul had only known what a meat grinder of a course this was going to be, he might have turned it down. He had always known that the officer selection schools were a pretty rough experience, but this was worse than he imagined. It was even worse than basic.

How could OCS be worse than basic? Basic was brutal, and the punishments for infractions were severe. OCS was no different. Basic was all about teaching elemental soldiering skills; OCS was about leading soldiers to do the basic things well. Basic conditioned the body, so did OCS. There were some subtle differences, but on the surface they seemed similar. But there was one huge, unsubtle difference that Paul had not fully appreciated before arriving at this godforsaken drill field on Mumbai 3.

In basic, competent instructors who had a precise program for how everything was supposed to be done had led the trainees. The trainees simply had to show up and be brutalized—that is, trained.

At OCS, the trainees conducted the training. It was like letting the lunatics run the asylum. The trainees did everything from requesting chow, to organizing physical training, to ensuring that all soldiers were in the right place at the right time. They did all of it.

And right now, Paul and his fellow trainees were suffering for the mistakes their “leaders” had made. This particular minute’s infraction had been failing to follow the training schedule in getting all trainees to the classroom, on time and to standard.

The class was called “Proper Operation of the Mk VIIb Battle Optic.” Well, Paul and his fellow classmates, Class 52A, were learning about the front-leaning rest position, instead. The front-leaning rest position is the push-up position. Holding oneself rigid in that way gets to really hurting after a while.

The dick of an officer was striding in front of their shivering, heaving selves while he lectured them. “Candidates, your leaders have failed you.”

In front of the formation of students, two candidates were standing and watching. They were the student platoon sergeant and the student platoon leader. They were not allowed to join in the suffering; they could only stand and watch. Paul would learn later during his own leadership hazing that watching, instead of doing, just made the experience worse.

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