ROTC
students train at Pendleton
By Joseph Serna
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
It didn’t really taste like coffee, it didn’t really smell like coffee,
but, like coffee, the warm liquid caffeine woke everyone up just the same – and
that was all anyone needed at 5 a.m. with a mile march ahead and a 30-pound rucksack
on their back.
When even the sun has yet to wake from its slumber, cadets from three universities
aided only by the sounds of footsteps over wet grass and gravel and the unpredictable
bursts of light coming from the Tactical Operation Center (TOC) tent up the hill,
made their way towards the rendezvous to be picked up for Saturday’s first
training mission.
Over the weekend, 68 people participated in Reserve Officers’ Training
Corps (ROTC) field training exercises at Camp Pendleton, with focus on polishing
the skills of a few for next summer’s Warrior Forge 2005 in Washington
state and familiarizing the rest with military operations and training.
Cal
State Long Beach cadets and staff in coordination
with USC and UC Irvine ran the field training
exercise.
“ Two
things I learned in the field: bring
oranges and brush your teeth,” said
Cadet Battalion Commander Ekzhin Ear.
The half a dozen or more oranges he brought and consumed—with a trail
of biodegradable peels, he joked—came in use in the weekend’s first
training exercise, which started Friday morning. It was a land navigation mission
that lasted five hours for some. He is a Military Science Four, or MS
IV.
The program classifies its cadets virtually parallel to regular college class
standing. A freshman in college is an MS I, a sophomore is an MS II,
and so on.
The cadets, ranging from MS I to MS IV, were assigned coordinates for eight
markers to locate on a 4,500-meter-by-6,000-meter field. Given only a
compass and grid that detailed the terrain and coordinates, the cadets had
five hours to successfully reach five of the eight, all of which could be located
in a thick of bushes cadets would have to force their way through.
They repeated the exercise at night, using only a red-lens “chem” light,
which produces far less visibility for the cadet, but makes it harder for an
enemy to see him. The number of markers and amount of time were reduced
for the night exercise.
There were over 20 points on the field, and each team of cadets was assigned
a different set of locations.
Depending on the cadet’s skills at map navigation, trekking to a location
can either be relatively easy or nearly impossible.
“ If you’re confident, 25 minutes, if not, double it,” Ear
said.
One cadet spent nearly two hours before giving up on one location, where the
marker had been placed only at knee height.
“ We think we’re somewhere around…” paused Kevin Jones,
an MS II, before looking up at the hills as he tried to plot his location, not
an uncommon practice among the cadets during the exercise.
Using
the compass and two reference points,
such as a tree or hill, cadets have been
trained to triangulate their position
so they know where they are and can figure
out where to go.
“ When you have 40 people under you, you have to know how to go from point
A to point B,” said
Lt. Col. R. Kyle George. “You can liken ROTC to any other management
training in another business.”
Students under contract in the ROTC are not enlisted soldiers, a common misconception,
according to George.
Even if they are enlisted in one of the armed forces, their dual-commitment
to ROTC, called the Simultaneous Membership Program, keeps them from being
taken overseas to Iraq or any other location until they are commissioned officers.
For most students under contract with the ROTC, a commitment is mandatory after
the first two years, and students graduate after four years of college.
“
It starts as a very small commitment as a freshman,” George said. For
the first two semesters, students only take one-unit courses to be in the
ROTC program on campus. Starting junior year, it becomes a three-unit
course.
What they do not teach in the classroom—such as land navigation at night,
shooting an M-16, and rappelling—is taught out in the field.
Following Friday’s training, cadets set up a perimeter and slept in sleeping
bags under night sky, where they could expect a maximum of five hours of sleep.
After wake up and the nearly one-mile march with their rucksacks— backpacks
that carry everything from sleeping bags to helmets—to their pick-up
point, the cadets split into their two respective platoons which would alternate
their training in the day.
One went to the range and got Basic Rifle Marksmanship training, firing an
M-16 at a target 25 meters away. The more inexperienced cadets fired
first, with the more experienced acting as coaches.
After the necessary amount of shots for a cadet to “zero” in on
their target, meaning their sights and aim have been adjusted for the most
accurate shot, each cadet would shoot at a new paper target for a score.
Cadets had 40 rounds, or two clips, each from a different firing position,
to get 23 hits, the minimum qualifying score.
While bullet shells were flying, the second platoon cadets were falling from
60-foot towers.
The second platoon was trained on rappelling, a way of vertically descending
using a rope, such as down a wall, building, or a helicopter.
One cadet was injured and taken by medics when he slammed his shoulder during
his initial descent down the wall.
Saturday’s training went into the evening, when cadets switched off hour-long
shifts keeping “fire watch” over the camp.
The next day the cadets faced field leadership reaction training, in which
small groups of cadets would go through a course and periodically be met with
a new scenario, such as someone dying, or some other change in the situation
and they were forced to make a decision on the spot.
Though the risk is evident, for those who choose the life, the payoff can be
worth it, George said.
“
The army is just like everywhere else: you’ll get whatever you put
into it,” said Capt. Tom Mitchell, a recruiting officer at CSULB.
“
Leadership courses are there for you to, you know, grab your balls and execute,” said
Allen Leutele, an MS III. He plans on being an officer in the infantry
and eventually retiring a military man.
Even if the military is not a career choice, the leadership learned and the
experience gained from ROTC are applicable in civilian life, Mitchell said.
“
With a military background, it’s easier to get a government job,” said
Tony Li, an MS IV.
A civil engineering major at CSULB, Li plans to take his connections and experience
from the army and applying them toward a career outside of the military, eventually
starting his own construction company.
“
We’re the best leadership program in college,” George said. “We’re
able to get them out in four [years] because we emphasize academics.”
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