Just before 10 a.m. on Saturday, a group of young women and men stood around the grounds of Camp Pendleton in their Army battle dress uniforms waiting to be called to formation.

The cadets are part of the Army ROTC. This past weekend ROTC participated in a three-day event known as the Field Training Exercise in which they learned and practiced leadership skills. Fifty cadets from Cal State Long Beach and approximately 80 from USC came together to work as a team.

Once instructions were given on the day's schedule, cadets began walking to the location of their first exercise: land navigation.

The purpose of this exercise was to find as many of the eight points scattered throughout the field, by using maps and compasses. The cadets were given half of an hour to study course sheets and maps. Preparation time enabled them to familiarize themselves with the map and plot points on the grids.

In this exercise, according to Capt. Dan Dorchinsky, freshmen and sophomore cadets "buddied up," while juniors and seniors were on their own. For cadets without prior military service, this was the first experience of being in the Army.

"It's a taste of what it's going to be like," said Cadet Richard Rafael.

Each cadet carried two canteens of water, black gloves, a compass and a rucksack along with their BDU's. The sun began to heat things up as the cadets got ready to move.

Third-year Cadet Brian Szemes, a business finance major at CSULB, was on his own. He said searching for a point was very important. It was crucial to know where he was going, because the slightest mistake could be very costly if it were an actual situation.

Engineer Hill was another challenge cadets had to face. All of the hillŐs trails were visible from the top. Many of the cadets were out of breath as they reached the top.

Cadet Szemes returned before time was up, managing to find five points.

"It was hard to determine which was the point," Szemes said, "because some points were close together."

After a lunch break, it was time for the rope bridge. In this exercise, cadets learned how to tie a sweet seat on themselves. This was used as a harness to pull themselves across the rope with the aid of a D-ring.

The grenade assault set cadets running and jumping into a ditch full of grenade shells.

In the grenade throw cadets aimed for targets. Many of the cadets missed, but others were right on target.

In the high crawl cadets had to crawl on their stomachs under barbed wire.

On the low crawl the cadets had to crawl with their faces in the dirt, trying not to touch the wire.

The back crawl seemed a little harder because cadets had to crawl with their face up.

The sweat was visible on their faces as they tried not to touch the wire.

Fourth-year cadets were on hand to help evaluate and motivate the new recruits to complete the course. Both CSULB and USC cheered each other on to the finish.

"They'll be quite tired when they come back Sunday," said Capt. Dorchinsky.

"They also learned a lot of responsibility," added 2nd Lt. Gregor.