The U.S. Army Engineer Officer Candidate Regiment Class 516 Alpha returned to Fort Belvoir Saturday for a morning tour of the base and a dinner at the Officers’ Club.
Thirty five of the surviving 48 members of the class attended, many of them returning to Belvoir for the first time since they graduated in 1968.
As part of the tour, they were shown the Officer’s Club, Belvoir’s garrison command headquarters, and the Officer Candidate Regiment where they took their classes. Afterward, a few drove to the soccer fields that used to be the parade field where they performed drill.
“It was great,” said retired Capt. Rick Minick of the tour. “It was nice that the Officer Candidate Regiment location was held to the last stop, even though there’s nothing there anymore. Seeing the parade field was pretty spectacular, because it sure brought back some memories.”
Of the 53 members of the graduating class, 11 went on to become career officers; three of them colonels.
Each member recalled the tough times they endured during their training, specifically, the sleep and food deprivation they endured over the first two months.
“There was horizontal ladder that we had to work down every night when we got to the mess hall for dinner,” said retired Capt. Dan Goodwin. “Once we got in, a senior candidate would designate two junior candidates - the table gunner and beverage corporal. The table gunner had to recite the meal for the evening and the beverage corporal, what was available to drink before we could eat.”
Though their training was tough, it also taught the class life lessons they have carried with each other since.
“Never in the period of six months or less had any of us grown to know a nucleus as well as we grew to know one another,” said retired 1st Lt. Wayne Hull. “You had to learn ‘Hey, man, I can’t do it all myself, I have to rely on this guy to roll T-shirts or somebody else to spit-shine a boot.’ He who tried to take care of his own self, failed for the most part. That’s what it was all about. Whether it was eating or sleeping, you had to look out for your buddy.”
Each candidate was graded on his physical training, academic performance and leadership skills.
Minick remembers as the weeks went by learning how the most subtle action could be viewed as a display of leadership.
“After (physical training), we went to the morning breakfast and we would march to class afterwards and something as simple as stepping forward and counting out the cadence of a cutesy little military song would be a subtle display of leadership,” said Minick. “You were being watched and graded, even when you were marching to class.”
Hull said being able to adapt to different situations was another important lesson he learned as each person’s role and responsibilities would change daily.
“One day, you would be platoon sergeant and the next day you’d be the buck private under another platoon sergeant,” said Hull. “We all experienced that somewhere along that line. You wound up being carried, so to speak as well as being a carrier. You had to learn how to do both.”
Several of the candidates also recalled seeing civilians during their time in training and thinking how they had no idea what the young Soldiers were going through.
“You’d be out there on the parade grounds going through PT and you would look out onto Route 1 and there would be civilians driving past,” said Minick. “You would think those people live in such a different world then what we are living in right now.”
Though it was a grueling process, each returning member admitted they learned discipline and leadership skills that helped them achieve success as both officers and as civilian employees. The suffering they endured during their training was a small price to pay for the life lessons they learned.
“All we really wanted was to get commissioned,” said Minick. “The ends justified the means.”
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