Many of the officers of the 325th were 90-Day Wonders who went to the Officer Candidate School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, the training school for combat engineers.

Gordon Morse arrived in July 1942, suddenly being discharged as a sergeant in the 28th Infantry, where he had become the squad leader of a submachine gun unit, and re-enlisted as a candidate in the OCS--

"Stripped all my chevrons and division insignia off today. Felt funny leaving after being with the fellows so long."

In later years, he'd always said that he'd gotten "volunteered" for OCS. He'd taken the test along with everyone else. He'd scored well, but when it was "suggested" that everyone over a certain score should "volunteer" for OCS, he didn't rush up. For one thing, college had never been his cup of tea. He'd always excelled in the engineering classes but hated the other classes. But most of all he liked being sergeant, and he liked his friends in Company L, 28th Infantry. But the colonel called him into his office. "Morse," he said. "You didn't apply for OCS." "No, sir," he said. "Morse," he said, "that's the wrong answer." The one good thing he hoped would come of it was that he would be able to marry his girlfriend because he'd have more money and some ability to have her visit the base. As my father wrote at the time, "Can you imagine how funny I felt when the order came through to go to school. For some reason I can't picture myself as a Lieutenant, really have my doubts about the outcome of this venture."

"This is my barracks. Picture is taken from outside of quadrangle. X marks the spot"

"Working on this tomorrow--Comes in sections 2 X 4 X 12. Interesting. 1-1-10 Army classification for loadings--10 ton"

The first shock was that it was a beautiful park-like place after a year and six months at Fort Jackson--"more like a college campus." The second shock was that he had almost no time to himself--"Talk about being busy, if I had two hands on each arm, I could use them and keep my shadow busy too. School starts at 6 and continues until 9 at nite no let up." But the worst shock was starting out on the bottom again--"A rookie all over again. This being a rookie gets tiresome. This has the reputation of being the hardest school in the Army next to West Point. The discipline is very strict. They flunk over 50% out. I hate to say it but my chances of getting a commission from here are pretty slim."

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