"Did you brush your teeth this morning? Your breath stinks!" Lt. William F. Martin tells Matthew Gottschalk. To someone else, he says, "Did you brush your nails? You make me sick."

Another day, another rude awakening at OCS.

Today, the members of Class 05-08 get a taste of the major challenge that awaits them in three weeks -- an exacting and stressful personnel inspection, not by Navy officers but by Marine drill instructors.

This is the first day the students have been liberated from their despised "poopy" suits, the baggy green coveralls they have worn since arriving five days ago. They now get to wear khaki pants and shirts and black shoes. But they better be wearing the new uniforms properly.

Their shoes and belt buckles need to be shined to a high gloss, their pants and shirts must be free of wrinkles and loose threads, and their "gigline" should be perfectly straight, meaning their shirt buttons, belt buckle and pants zipper are all in line. Zipper pulls must be "grounded," not sticking out, and shoelaces tied the OCS way. Nails must be clipped, faces shaved and teeth brushed.

The officers go up to each student, get right in their faces and look them up and down. They flip up their collars and shirt pockets looking for lint and loose threads. As they do, they ask the students to recite the orders of a sentry and other information they need to memorize. They repeatedly interrupt the students' answers to point out supposed deficiencies.

Jason Moehlmann stammers when asked to recite articles of the officer's code of conduct.

"Do you have a learning disability or a speech impediment?" he's asked.

Gottschalk admits he doesn't know one of the articles of the code of conduct, which describe what do when you become a prisoner of war.

"Lt. Sutherland, your candidate here brazenly does not know the sixth article of the code of conduct," Martin says. "He says, ‘You know what, I don't have to worry about that. I'm going to be on a ship or on a base. I don't have to worry about times of war and being captured by an enemy.' "

Martin's voice drips with sarcasm as he continues, "You know what, that's the kind of officer I want to serve with. I'm done here. Put your cover [cap] in your war locker and get back on the line."

When another candidate gets flummoxed answering a question, Martin says that in a true crisis, "You're never going to get an order out."

The real inspection, which will be much more detailed and intense, comes in the fourth week of the program. Today's drill is meant to get the students prepared for what's coming and to emphasize the authority that comes with rank.

"If they're right, they're wrong," says Sutherland. "You want to let them know who's in charge."

THE INSPECTION is part of a day known as Outpost. It's the culmination of the first week's indoctrination activities and the beginning of what's called the militarization phase.

The transition is symbolized not only by the jettisoning of the poopy suits but by a move from their current segregated quarters to the barracks where the upper classes are located. In other words, they are joining the rest of the regiment. The move, however, won't be as simple as packing a bag and walking over to their new quarters. Gunnery Sgt. Sandra Center, their class drill instructor, will make sure of that.

"Move it out right now!" she orders after the Navy officers have finished the inspection.

She leads them into the main corridor for some morning physical training. They do leg lifts, pushups and run in place.

Then it's time to pack up. They return to their hallways and retrieve their tall, narrow sea bags. Center orders them to quickly go into their rooms and to come out holding up one article of clothing in each hand and one in their mouths.

"Pack it right now!" she says.

They place the items in the bag, and on her command, lift the bags in the air and slam them up and down on the floor to better pack them. Soon they are holding socks, underwear and khaki pants and shirts in their hands and mouths and lifting bags that are becoming increasingly heavy. While one student is in his room getting more items, an officer walks by and dumps the contents of his bag on the floor. The student, puzzled when he comes out, has to pack it all over again.

The students are told to wrap their arms around the bags, with the straps facing outward, and to lift them to their chins and march out of the building. Outside, they form two columns. Center stands at the front. She faces forward with one hand reaching behind to touch the sea bags of the two students behind her. She orders them to march in her steps. The candidates stand so close to one another that their bags rest on the back of the person in front of them. They must march in unison, following Center's lead, or risk toppling upon each other, like dominoes.

A student's bag is slowly slipping down. Navy Senior Chief Jonathan Calloway snatches it away and throws it to the ground.

"Carry it right or don't carry it at all," he says.

They stop at the Rose Garden. Despite its name, there are no flowers or vegetation whatsoever. It's only sand.

"You are going to drop your sea bag and get in the sand pit," Center shouts.

She orders them to do more exercises in the sand. It's chilly outside. But sweat is beginning to show through their new uniforms.

When they reach their new quarters at Nimitz Hall, they stow their sea bags and then fall out in the hallway for more exercises.

Nicole Lobecker, who passed the physical test earlier in the week, is beginning to look awfully red in the face. She presses on with the pushups and leg lifts. Master Gunnery Sgt. Robert Foshee, the chief drill instructor, looks her over. He feels the skin on her upper arm and thinks she has stopped sweating. He tells her to drink and pours a canteen over her head and back while everyone else continues exercising. Officers assigned to safety positions mop up the puddles left on the floor.

Center sees what's going on and comes up to Lobecker. She looks her over critically.

Enroute to their new barracks, the 05-08 hits the sand box for push-ups. Journal photo / Frieda Squires

"You need to go!" she says, stretching her arm out and pointing her finger sharply at Lobecker. "You're going straight to H [Holding Company]. Do you understand that?"

Lobecker is taken to the infirmary to get checked out. The others have survived Outpost.

"It's designed to be a stressful and degrading atmosphere," Sutherland says afterward.

"We took them from indoctrination candidates to officer candidates," says Center. "All the mistakes they made during that phase will be unacceptable as officer candidates."

THE NEXT MORNING, Saturday, begins with still more rigorous exercise. They do calisthenics in the hallway before Center leads them outside to a different sand pit. This one, says Foshee, is called S.U.Y.A. He smiles when he explains that it stands for "Sand Up Your A--" The candidates must crawl on their hands and knees into the sand pit and do more exercises.

"Usually we have a water hose and we spray them down, but it's too cold for that," he says..

The students are told to grab handfuls of sand and to dump it into their sweatshirt pouch pockets.

"Stuff it!" Foshee bellows.

When they are taken to the hallway of their new quarters, Center reminds them of the sand in their pockets.

"Dump it," Center commands.

The students spill handfuls over the freshly cleaned and painted hallway.

"Get on the deck right now," she orders. As she makes them do exercises on the sandy floor, she says, "This is where you're going to be staying. Now you're going to be standing up without killing yourselves because of the friggin' sand on the deck."

After they rise, she leads them on a tour of the building. In each main corridor, she makes them do calisthenics while telling them what part of the building it is. At one point, she has them crawl backwards down the hallway.

Gunnery Sgt. Sandra Center points to an overheated Nicole Lobecker and yells, "You're out!" during the 5:30 a.m. fitness test in the passageways of Nimitz Hall. Checked by Chief Calhoun, Lobecker is pulled out of class 05-08 and sent to the hospital. Journal photo / Frieda Squires

In a stairwell, she halts them. She makes them shout, "Aye, ma'am!" louder and louder. Then she directs them, screaming outside through a double set of doors into a weakly lit courtyard.

But instead of being greeted with more exercise, the upperclassmen at OCS are waiting in formation. Center stays inside and pulls the doors closed.

Sit down, the new students are told, as Gatorade and granola bars are passed out..

"Go ahead and relax and enjoy those refreshments," says Jameson Fincher, the regimental commander, who will graduate in just a couple of weeks. "Take a deep breath."

It's a rare moment of relaxation, warmth and camaraderie during the first week at OCS, this morning's evolution is called "Welcome Aboard;" the leaders of the upper classes offer advice to the newest students.

"We're here for anything you need," says Fincher. "You need a lot of dedication for this program. It has to be something you want."

"I can't stress enough the importance of teamwork. Teamwork. Teamwork. If one fails, you all fail." says Class 04 Vice President Johnny Field. "Stick together. Work as a group."

Then each of the upper classes sings a pop song they have rehearsed, humorously substituting the original lyrics for ones that poke fun of the OCS experience.

"You've had a tough week," the newest arrivals are told. "Get showered up."

That, however, won't be all the cleaning they'll have to do. There's still all that sand dumped all over their hallway and tracked into their rooms.

"They are going to have to spend all day cleaning up their area," says Foshee.

Why? "It's just an added stress," he says.

Lobecker, he says, was released from the infirmary several hours after Outpost. But since she wasn't able to complete the activity, she has been dropped from Class 05-08. She has now joined former classmate Sarah Engemann in Holding Company and the uncertainty of when and if they will become officers.