Cadets
get realistic battle training
Tuesday,
March 26, 2002
By:
by Brian McNeill
Members
of Virginia Tech and Radford University’s Army ROTC
programs spent Saturday in the woods firing automatic
weapons and taking cover from simulated artillery fire.
Saturday was the New River Battalion’s annual Spring
Field Training Exercise, a realistic battle simulation
complete with M-16’s, smoke grenades and Chinook
helicopters.
Held at Tech’s Kentland Farms, the FTX gives cadets a
chance to use their military science classroom skills in
various mock battle scenarios.
“It’s definitely more fun than doing it on campus,”
said Jeffrey Pace, a member of Tech’s Corps of Cadets
and a sophomore general engineering major. “It’s more
realistic doing it out in the woods. It’s like a camping
trip.”
The cadets, dressed in full camouflage and armed with
M-16’s, spent the day being evaluated for their
leadership, problem solving and technical skills.
Broken into patrols, the cadets would rotate through
different scenarios. Juniors would lead the underclassmen
in fighting against seniors.
In one scenario, a patrol of cadets traveled through the
woods, not knowing what they would encounter. Their enemy,
the seniors, led them into a kill zone with multiple
machine guns on top of a hill.
The cadets had to take out each position, shoot the enemy
with blanks and search their bodies for intelligence.
In another scenario, the patrol of cadets had to raid a
supply station — a small camp of seniors barbecuing
shish kabobs. The cadets attempted to sneak up on the camp
to shoot the seniors, but met heavy resistance from the
seniors’ M-16’s and fake grenades.
After the cadets had experienced each battle scenario,
they met up with the other patrols and were taken back to
campus via Chinook helicopters.
Chris Berge, the Army ROTC program’s press liaison and a
senior forestry major, said FTX is one of the final
stepping stones for the juniors before their major test at
the Fort Lewis Advance Camp in Washington during the
summer.
“It’s one of the building blocks to prepare you to be
evaluated,” he said. “They evaluate you for your
leadership potential and prepare you to be an officer.”
Going to advance camp is required of all Army ROTC
programs, Berge said. Cadets at the camp are evaluated for
physical fitness, marksmanship, land navigation and
leadership. |
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