that may not seem to make a whole
lot of sense on the surface.
Timothy Mungie
It’s 5 a.m. on a Saturday. While many San Diego State University students are just crawling into bed or continuing their normal Friday night party, the Aztec Army ROTC Battalion is mustered in a parking lot at SDSU, getting ready to prove the “We do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day” statement.
They are forming up to board buses that will take them from SDSU to the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base near Oceanside.
But before they can leave, all of their gear must be stowed aboard the bus. When the plan does not go as smoothly as expected, the Military Science juniors and seniors (MS3s and MS4s) order the freshmen and sophomores (MS1s and MS2s) to do push-ups.
They finally get it right, the bus is loaded and they’re off to Camp Pendleton.
Upon arrival at Pendleton, the group splits into two groups. The MS3s and MS4s train in land navigation, and the MS1s and MS2s go to the rappelling tower.
ROTC stands for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps and is one of the primary sources of the U.S. Army’s commissioned officers. There are ROTC programs at over 300 colleges and universities in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.
One of the most prominent alumni of the ROTC program is retired Gen. Colin Powell, who served as the nation’s first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America’s highest active-duty military officer.
Once at the rappelling tower, cadets slide down ropes, sometimes back first, bouncing off the side of the tower with their feet. Other times they go head first straight down through a hole in the top of the tower.
“When you (first) look down, you think it’s pretty high,” Thomas Berrey, a computer science freshman, said. “Especially at 100 feet. It was pretty scary.”
MS3 Christine Nofuente said, “Right now, I am the training officer. I’m here to watch the training, then brief the colonel.”
What brought her to the Army happened in high school. She applied for a scholarship from both the Army and Air Force and was awarded the Army scholarship.
“Oh well, the military is the military. They’re going to bring me in somehow,” she said.
Once a year, during the summer, the cadets have the opportunity to attend what is called “Advanced Camp,” a two-week, intensive training camp at an army base in the state of Washington.
Most everybody at Advanced Camp has the same training, unless you have come from one of the military institutes, said Nofuente, an athletic-training major.
When she went through the program, she said she had one cadet from the New Mexico Military Institute and one cadet from the Marion Military Institute in Alabama in her training group at Advanced Camp.
“They were a little more squared away than everybody else,” Nofuente said. “But everybody uses the same field manual.”
Nofuente’s goal is to get into the Army’s physical therapy program. She also would like to be stationed in Japan for awhile.
During the exercise, the cadets eat their Military Ready-to-Eat(MRE) lunches. MREs are meals individually packaged in a tough, durable, waterproof package, which includes a main course, powdered fruit, powdered beverage and desert. The package also includes condiments such as salt, pepper and hot sauce.
The meal is prepared by adding water to an outer bag. The water heats by reacting with a chemical card in the bag, cooking the food in the inner bag.
The MREs achieved their fame as the staple of the ground troops during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
From the rappelling tower, the cadets go to the land navigation site, and later, the camp site. It is about a five-mile drive followed by a 1.5-mile march. Squad members do it with their sacks full.
The cadets also participate in land navigation exercises.
To begin these exercises, each cadet measures off the size of his or her pace. To do this, the cadet will walk a pre-measured distance, counting the paces, both up and down a hill. The total number is divided by two, because one’s pace is naturally longer when walking down a hill than when walking up, and then divided by the distance of the walk.
The cadets are given a compass and a topographical map, and after being trained on map reading and compass usage, they set off to navigate a predetermined course. The cadets are graded on how quickly and accurately they navigate the course.
Accuracy is measured by the cadets passing certain points on the course in a particular order.
The last major operation before dinner is setting up the tents for the night’s sleep. While it may seem simple to set up the two-man tents for the battalion, it turns out to be a highly organized operation and as vital a training exercise as any other.
The MS3s supervise the MS1s and MS2s in the procedure.
The MS4s spend the weekend exercise at Camp Pendleton evaluating the leadership skills of the MS3s in areas such as decisiveness, mission accomplishment, initiative, delegation and sensitivity.
“For instance, one squad member came late to formation, unprepared, rucksack not packed,” MS4 Timothy Mungie said. “That would reflect his influence. Maybe he was lacking in oral communication. It’s still a reflection on (the MS3). I’m responsible for the whole unit. (The MS3) is responsible for his squad.”
The MS3s also evaluate themselves.
After the MS3s complete their evaluations, they compare their self-evaluations with those of the MS4s.
“In most cases, they (the evaluations) agree. But sometimes they are different. Maybe there is something I missed, or maybe they got guidance from the cadre,” Mungie, a business major, said.
The cadre comprises of active duty soldiers who are the actual course instructors for the battalion, which consists of four commissioned officers between the rank of captain and lieutenant colonel.
“There’s a lot of things we do here that may not seem to make a whole lot of sense on the surface,” Mungie said. “But, in reality, what they’re doing is training the cadets to perform under stress and perform to a higher standard.”
The Camp Pendleton Galley provides dinner during the exercise. Tonight the galley is serving chicken, mashed potatoes and peas.
On Sunday morning, the cadets awake, break camp and head to the firing range, where they participate in a firing exercise and target practice before heading back to SDSU for Monday-morning classes.
