Officer Candidates School (United States Marine Corps)

Officer Candidates School (United States Marine Corps)

The United States Marine Corps Officer Candidates School (OCS) is the entry-level training for Marine officers, equivalent to recruit training for enlisted Marines. Located at Marine Corps Base Quantico, the school trains, screens, and evaluates potential Marine Corps officers. Unlike the other United States military services, the majority of Marine Corps officers complete OCS to earn a commission; the exceptions are midshipmen from the United States Naval Academy, limited duty officers, and inter-service transfers.

Depending on the source, Officer Candidates go through either a 10-week, or two 6-week courses over separate summers, designed primarily to screen and evaluate candidates' fitness to lead Marines by placing them in leadership positions in a stressful environment. Students are evaluated during 2-3 day garrison command billets at the company and platoon level, and squad and fire-team level tactical billets during field exercises.

Read more about Officer Candidates School (United States Marine Corps):  History, Selection and Entry, Training, Further Training

Famous quotes containing the words officer, candidates, school, states and/or marine:

    There was something so free and self-contained about him, something in the young fellow’s movements, that made that officer aware of him. And this irritated the Prussian. He did not choose to be touched into life by his servant.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    He had first discovered a propensity for savagery in the acrid lavatories of a minor English public school where he used to press the heads of the new boys into the ceramic bowl and pull the flush upon them to drown their gurgling protests.
    Angela Carter (1940–1992)

    Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

    God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.
    Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)