Week Four of Navy Officer Candidate School

The Fourth Week of Navy OCS

RLP Inspection Week: Your RLP inspection will occur Thursday of this week. Preparation for RLP should have began during your 2nd or even 1st week. Here are some suggestions to make life easier:

· Get started preparing immediately. You may think you have plenty of time to prepare, but it will save a lot of stress and rushing around if you get started early. The first thing you will need to get done is your stamping. Start by practicing on your white undershirts. Once you’ve become good at stamping, then move on to stamping the articles you will actually use for the inspection.

· The sooner you start stamping and IPing, the quicker you can go to the Exchange to buy replacement items if you mess up. Don’t put off some items until the night before only to mess up the stamp and not have time to get a new item.

· Initial impressions can make or break RLP. Put your best foot forward by having a squared away locker.

· Obvious hits such as buttons not buttoned, zippers not zipped and grounded, inspection tags inside of garments, shoe laces not tucked, etc., really irritate inspectors. Pay special attention to those things you are most likely to overlook.

· IP’s should be removed before attempting to press any garment. This is one of the few times teamwork can help enormously. Multiple sets of eyes looking over inspection garments can help to catch any slight errors that would otherwise be missed. Remember, IP’s are to be found only on your uniform as worn. Threads inside of garments (with the exception of obvious one’s) are not hits (This depends on the discretion of the Drill Instructor that inspects you).

· Stenciling is important, however, do not waste time trying to be too precise on articles such as your socks, shirts, etc. The only items a stencil can be measured on are your go-slowers, laundry bags, towels, handkerchiefs, stationary box, and belts.

· The easiest way to apply new brass belt tips is: first, put the tip on the belt by hand, then place the tip in a book and slam your rifle down on the book a couple of times as hard as you can until the tip is tight on the belt. Make sure you wear gloves to avoid getting fingerprints on the brass.

· Clean your desk with Pledge but not the inside of your locker. The best way to clean the inside of your locker is with baby wipes and a black sock or your watch cap because your inspector will check your locker for dust with one of those items.

· The easiest way to press your khakis is by saturating them (while wet) with Sta-Flo or some other spray starch. Hang them in your locker until dry (overnight) and press as normal. They are guaranteed to be like cardboard.

· When you cut your belts to the right size, cover the cut end with clear nail polish to prevent it from fraying. Do not use the nail polish on your khakis, as it will stain them. Use the nail polish only to stop the ends of belts from fraying.

· Check for lint on your clothing the day of RLP.

· Know all of your knowledge VERBATIM.

· RLP consists or more than just an inspection. If your PT needs work, or have no military bearing, the Drill Instructors will be more likely to ‘come after you’ and you will probably fail even with a perfect locker. Some say RLP is subjective, others say it is purely objective. Who knows, you can make the decision for yourself when you go through it, but the fact is, giving everything you have at morning PT, always showing intensity and being ballistic in everything you do can not hurt your chances of passing RLP. Grading of RLP occurs the second you arrive. 

The following excerpt from the 30 May 1994 issue of Navy Times provides a fair synopsis of the experience:

“…the 34 candidates dressed in well-pressed summer whites - seven others have already dropped out – are a diverse lot. They are black, brown, yellow and white, male and female, nuke and aviation, surface and unrestricted line. But they share one thing in common today.

They are all hating life.

Young men and women, graduates from Harvard, Penn and state universities around the country, who weeks earlier were living carefree lives of students, stayed up until 3 a.m. last night polishing brass belt buckles until they reflected like mirrors. They slept on the hard linoleum floor so that their bunks would be pristine and wrinkle free for the morning inspection. Like alchemists, they experimented with novel ways to prevent ancient, rusting waste cans from flaking onto the floor when drill instructors pound on them during inspection. They did the same with what look to be about 40-year old brown leather book bags, which are cracked and worn with age. 

…the DI’s enter the four-bunk rooms to smooth beds, clean weapons and orderly lockers. When they end the inspection for each room precisely eight minutes later, slamming the door behind them, they leave a tornado-like path of destruction. Candidates are left standing at attention, but looking disheveled and demoralized. Their pant pockets are pulled inside out, their belts unceremoniously ripped from their waists and lying on the floor, and their voices hoarse from shouting rapid-fire responses to the demanding DI’s.

Towels that were folded with precision and freshly shined shoes that were placed in straight, ordered rows, are strewn about the room. Carefully ironed uniforms are pulled off their hangers in piles. The bunks, so perfectly make, with the pillow an exact twelve inches from the fold over of the sheet, are a wreck. And the gunnery sergeants are just warming up.” – Patrick Pexton, “Trying to Tame a New Breed of Cats,” Navy Times, 30 May 1994.

This is the first opportunity for your class to secure. By securing your class will be given special privileges. This could mean on base liberty or even off base liberty on Fridays and Saturdays, with additional phone privileges during the week. A class average of 83 is needed to secure. Ultimately, your class team makes the decision regardless of what average your class obtained. DO NOT expect any of these privileges even if your class achieves the needed score. It is more than rare for any special privileges to be granted after the RLP. It is even more rare for an entire class to obtain the required score.