Fitness test and Completing the Packet

In order to complete your OCS Packet, you need to include three letters of recommendation, a security clearance packet, Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), a handwritten essay and a typed essay. You also have to include some other stuff but the recruiter will provide the paperwork and you have to simply fill it out.

The recruiter will wants the letter of recommendations from prominent figures. However, it should not be "cut & paste" material and should assess you as an individual. Unfortunately, not all of us have the luxury of having connections with senators or former generals. Therefore, as the average Joe, you should try to seek people you meet in a regular basis at work or school. So ideally, it should be your supervisors or professors. If you slept in most of your classes or simply didn't have the opportunity to connect with any of your professors, you might want to simply ask your teaching assistants or co-workers. I have heard of some OCS candidates getting desperate enough to ask their friends or relatives, but do this if you really do not have any other option. Thankfully, I was able to convince a few of my instructors to write me letters of recommendation although it did take some time.

The security clearance requires you write a whole bunch of information including references and your previous addresses. It's really long and tedious. Considering how you need to dig back like 5-10 years, it can be really painful to gather all that information. It will take hours and hours to complete. You might need to ask your parents for some of that info and pray that they have it.

Next, you need an essay on why you want to become an Army Officer. For this essay, you need to focus on the "Officer" part. To do this, your general focus will be on leadership for most people. Although you should not be explicit about this, you need to sort of explain why you want to be an officer instead of an enlisted. In addition, you can't make yourself seem shallow by explaining that you want to get paid more or come of as an elitist by saying you have diploma. Therefore, you should focus on why you want to be a leader and why leadership is important to you. You can fill up the rest of the essay with patriotism and serving your country, but the meat of it should be on leadership.

The handwritten essay should be verbatim (word for word) of your typed essay. Be sure to write neatly in your regular handwriting (or at least in your neat version of your regular handwriting). It should be on a blank white paper, but be sure to put it over a lined paper so you can line up your sentences. It should be on one page, so write small. Be sure to sign and date BOTH essays.

For the APFT, you will need to do a 2 mile run, 2 minute push ups, and 2 minute sit ups. I have not regularly ran 2 miles, so I struggled with that. Personally, I felt that preparing for the push ups and sit ups is easy because it's strength building. However, the running requires more time because in order to run well, you need to have good cardiovascular strength. Considering how I haven't ran much since high school, I struggled a lot with the running. Thankfully, I was able to (barely) pass the running. I did well on the push ups and sit ups and ended up getting roughly 240ish out of 300. I hope to get 300 by the time I finish basic training since officers are supposed to be setting the example for the rest.

One other thing I want to point out is that you need to write in order the branches you want to get into. When they ask for the branch, it is in reference to the branches of the Army, like intel, infantry, etc. The form is called the Application for Appointment, but I forgot the form number. They list the branch by their abbreviations and it might be overwhelming if you are not familiar with any of the Army branches. So I recommend that you ask your recruiter for the form beforehand so that you can do some research. The info is easily accessible on the Internet.

I am watching a movie as we speak and have not reread this blog. So please excuse any typos or incoherent sentences.