Advice From an Old Candidate

Candidates, this post is from a PLC candidate back in the day. He has an excellent leadership recommendation for you that would benefit your unit much if you could implement it at OCS.

I went thru PLC when it was still in the boonies at Camp Upshur. One thing happened the first couple of days we were there that I think is still important today. I was in 1st Plt. From our squad bay we could see the doors to the company offfice. We noticed two or three groups of 2-5 people going to the office to DOR. One of our guys (I wish i could remember his real name and give him credit,but he always went by “Polack”) came up with “We should make it a platoon rule that if you want to drop you go do it yourself, You don’t try and talk anyone into going with you.”  We all voted to make it our rule. We had a very low drop rate. Somehow that rule bound us together very early in the program. No one wanted to be a rat and drop. This may be a more important piece of advice for females due to the tendency of females to want to do things by committee.

4 thoughts on “Advice From an Old Candidate

  1. I think it’s a bit of a stereotype to assume that females want to do things by committee. I am a female, and my platoon didn’t have a single “group drop.” In fact, we had a handful of people that wanted to drop, and fellow candidates would talk them out of it. While this is a helpful post, the stereotyping of females is unnecessary.

    1. Especially considering that the type of female that attends OCS, most likely is not the type to do things by committee. I don’t remember signing up to be a Marine because my friends wanted me to.

  2. This is excellent! Making a pact like that can only increase the camaraderie and make you work better and harder together as a platoon. Thanks for that nugget of gold!

    1. I would actually offer the the reverse should be true. Anyone wanting to DOR should have to run it by his battle buddy first.

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