Zina Dong-gun

While adapting to covid-19 and all the mitigation that comes along with it, trying to present yourself in a way that will make you shine brighter became more difficult. For instance, there were no company level billets, PT was reduced, and some events were even cancelled (not all were due to covid however).

Nonetheless I, along with many  others, still graduated.

Things change and you have to be ready to stop a dime and prepare to do a 180. As for me, I’m currently finishing up my senior year at Virginia Tech and will be commissioning in May of 2021.

This topic can vary greatly, as many people have opinions on what the winners and losers are, and what separates them. I think that the biggest thing that separates them is in the preparation. The more you prepare for OCS, the better off you will be. When the weeks get busy, you will be able to tell who prepared and who did not (it often correlates well with who stays up past lights frequently and who doesn’t).

Here is a basic outline of what you should prepare if you want to do well at OCS.

If we are setting the winners as those individuals who stand out to the Instructors and other candidates then this is what you will need to know. In order for others to perceive you as a winner, you’re going to want to be as prepared as you can when you arrive on Brown field.

That means mentally, physically, and educationally. Knowing a lot of the academic information will help you greatly when it comes time to take notes in classes when you are struggling to stay awake (yes, you will be that tired eventually).

However, in your preparation you shouldn’t only focus on the events in the PFT (pull-ups, crunches, run time). You should work on all sorts of calisthenics, run more than just 3 miles at a time and occasionally add some weight to those runs, and definitely hike on your own. The best way to prepare yourself emotionally is to set your ego aside. You will have your moment at OCS where an instructor just won’t leave you alone. Don’t worry, we have all been there and it will end. Just be ready for it.

I can only imagine that the “losers” in this situation are people who end up getting dropped and do not graduate. These individuals often get dropped for a variety of reasons. Some don’t meet the required academic standards (anything below an 80 is failing at OCS), some don’t make the leadership grades, and sometimes you see people dropped for integrity violations (cheating on a test, lying, contraband, etc.).

I saw the most people get dropped because they DOR (drop on request). Most of those individuals decide by about week 3-4 of the 10-week program that the Marine Corps is not for them. Outside of DORs, the most common reason for candidates getting dropped was simply because they didn’t have the grades in the leadership category. Those grades mostly consist of the Leadership Reaction Courses (LRCs) and Squad Unit Leadership Evaluations (SULEs). The best way to prepare for those is to know your 5 paragraph order, and to simply be confident in your own leadership. If you can do that then you will be fine.

Remember that the LRCs are not designed to see how you can solve the problem, but rather how you are able to deal with failure and coming up with a new plan because, as you will hear many times, no plan survives first contact.

To simply put it, what separates the winners and losers at OCS is all in the preparation of the individual.

Study and prepare beforehand and you will do okay. Learn to deal with failure, as most candidates will fail at some point. The key is to learn from it and move on.

Written by:

Jason Powers

• The game is played on a grid that's 3 squares by 3 squares.
• You are X , your friend (or the computer in this case) is O .
• The first player to get 3 of her marks in a row (up, down, across, or diagonally) is the winner.
• When all 9 squares are full, the game is over.

Craft ACT: Craft + Design Centre

Address: North Building, 1, 180 London Cct, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia

Brush some cooking oil on a large and wide rectangular spatula Spread about ¼ to ⅓ cup of the fish paste to the spatula with a knife Use your

March 20, 1602 marked the beginning of the inexorable end for many a state in the then known world. On that day, four hundred years ago, a group of Dutch merchants and independent trading companies, impatient with the monopoly that the Portuguese had established over the spice trade with East Asia at the end of the fifteenth century and keeping the British imperial merchants in check, founded the Vereenigde Landsche Ge-Oktroyeerde Oostindische Compagnie, better known to the Anglophone world as the Dutch East India Company or simply the VOC. The executive directorate of the VOC was called the Heeren Sewentien or the "Lords Seventeen". The Company had a federal character, comprising six chambers.

The VOC was granted a government charter, which effectively guaranteed it the right to the spice trade monopoly in East Asia. However, this government charter secured the VOC more than a trade monopoly: it gave the VOC the power to colonise whichever territory it desired and enslaving the indigenous people according to market requirements and VOC political imperatives. This meant that the VOC did not merely get involved in trade wars with European and Asian powers from its headquarters in Batavia, but waged full-scale warfare on indigenous people in those countries that would not cooperate with its demands for tea and spices such as cloves, nutmeg and pepper, or who resisted the cash-crop economy that the VOC was forcing onto them. A prime example is the island of Banda in the Indonesian Archipelago. The VOC simply killed off the Bandanese, appropriated the island, and cultivated nutmeg as a monoculture, using slave labour from neighbouring countries.

The VOC monopoly of the spice trade meant that it determined the prices of the commodities, their production and availability and determined which other powers could participate in the trade, setting out clearly the conditions under which this would be possible. In addition the VOC developed the world's first stock market in Amsterdam with durable assets and controlled investment schemes. It should be noted that the spice trade route was also used to transport precious metals such as gold and silver for European destinations. As a result a number of trading stations were built across East Asia. In terms of trade and commerce Holland reached the height of its power in this period, and sympathetic historians look back at this period as its golden age.

However the extent of suffering wreaked by the VOC in this period is incalculable. Many an East Asian country, such as Indonesia, that had been colonised by the Dutch because of the VOC project, still have to deal with the legacy of colonisation and slavery four hundred years later.

Present-day South Africa is no different in this regard. In 1649 a recommendation, called a Remonstrantie, was made to the Directors of the VOC to establish a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope for ships passing it en route to the lands of tea and spices. In this memorandum the quality of the land at the foot of Table mountain and the shores of Table Bay were praised for their fertility. Visions of fresh fruit and vegetables were conjured up. The "friendliness" of the indigenous pastoralists, who would supply fresh meat was likewise extolled. Hence in 1652 the VOC sent a group of Dutchmen under the command of one Jan van Riebeeck to set up a refreshment station and to provide facilities for crew who had fallen ill to diseases such as scurvy on the long journeys between Holland and East Asia.

Within weeks of his arrival at the Cape, Van Riebeeck requested slaves to work at setting up the refreshment, as the Cape was not to be a colony, with the right to enslaving the indigenous population. Good relations with the indigenous people, the Khoikhoi and the San, were to be maintained. Although Van Riebeeck did not receive slaves immediately, and although the Cape was not to be more than a refreshment station, the economic demands and the greed for land soon reversed Van Riebeeck's mandate and instructions. Within four years of Van Riebeeck's arrival, the first war between the Khoikhoi and the Dutch broke out, as the Khoi clans tried to drive away the Dutch who had appropriated their land, forcing them into less fertile areas of the region. Soon the colonial project was well underway. With the systematic importation of slaves from mainly Dutch East Asia the Cape economy developed into a slave-based economy. This had profound repercussions at all levels of society, determining as it did social relations based on a slave/servant-master paradigm that translated within a short period of time into a racial hierarchical social order. Europeans/whites became the masters, while the indigenous population was either decimated or subjugated to the level of a slave/servant class.

Holland's power started declining towards the end of the eighteenth century, giving way to the burgeoning British imperialist power. This coincided, too, with Europe's discovery of its greater love for the fashionable beverage called coffee in comparison to the more mundane tea. This meant that Europe's commercial interests were being directed towards the Caribbean instead of Batavia.