Each fall, the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps’ (ROTC) Maverick Battalion, which includes Gustavus, Minnesota State University Mankato and Bethany Lutheran College, takes its cadets and prospective cadets north to Camp Ripley for the fall Field Training Exercises, or FTX. This series of outdoor exercises is designed to give cadets a taste of some of what the Army does, as well as to instruct the cadets with hands-on training in land navigation, weapons use and cleaning, marksmanship, grenade throwing and leadership, among other things. This two-day FTX started for Gustavus Cadets at 5:45 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20 when the bus from Mankato State arrived at Three Flags.

“This is the largest group we’ve ever had,” said Master Sergeant Donald Friend, one of the officers at the FTX. There were around eighty cadets, both contracted and non-contracted. Within the battalion, there are eight cadets from Gustavus, four juniors and four first-years, six of whom are currently contracted.
The entire FTX is designed, created and executed by the MSIVs (Military Science, 4th year cadets). “[For] FTX I was a platoon leader, so I was in charge of 20 people there, … The MSIVs planned all the stuff … we had to make sure that everybody was accounted for and knew what they were doing so they didn’t get lost or anything,” said Troy French, a junior geography major and MSIII.

French has been in the program since before coming to Gustavus. Next year, French and the other MSIVs will be orchestrating the training exercises. “That’s kind of how the ROTC works; every year you get more leadership roles,” said French.

The ROTC program is centered on practical and leadership skills.  “We’re trying to get them to start the basic foundations of leadership,” said Friend. A cadet who goes through all the training and graduates and commissions enters a branch of the Army as an officer following college. Around half of the cadets at the FTX will eventually commission.

Upon arrival at Ripley, each cadet was issued an M16, which they then kept with them for the rest of the FTX. The first phase of the FTX was composed of a series of round-robin courses designed to instruct the cadets on proper grenade-throwing technique, compass use, pace counts (used for land navigation) and proper shooting technique, as well as actual shooting of the M16s.

Last year, cadets completed their weapons training on a simulator, which does not have the same effect as firing live rounds. “The live rounds make you more aware of safety. Instead of laughing with your friends [on the simulator] you’re focused on safety and getting graded on how you do. … So you are more focused on your target,” said French.

Cadets first had to adjust their sights using a paper silhouette target made to resemble a torso at three-hundred meters. That equates to a target merely one and a half inches wide, being shot at from twenty-five meters away.

“I enjoyed learning how to properly … and accurately shoot a firearm. … Once I got the sight picture aligned, I was doing a pretty good job. … I got tense for a couple of them [and] was pretty inconsistent. … Then, when I relaxed, they were pretty close and they were on-target; even,” said Phil Cleary, a sophomore and MSII. Cleary joined The ROTC just the second week of this September. “The idea of participating in the army-serving my country-is an ideal that appeals to me. Joining the ROTC is a great way to see if that is something I would like to pursue,” said Cleary. He is not yet contracted and has until next fall before he has to decide whether to contract or drop the program.

The round-robin training and weapons firing covered the first half of Saturday. For the afternoon and evening, cadets completed the day and night land navigation training exercises. “The land nav. was definitely harder this year; it was in a different, hillier course with harder terrain,” said French.

The course this year is said to be the most difficult land navigation course in all of Camp Ripley. It is riddled with steep wooded hills rising hundreds of feet before dropping into deep ravines, which makes it very difficult to navigate.

“I liked the land navigation course. [It’s] kind of a way to problem solve and work together as a group. Since I do math and physics, I kind of like problem solving. You kind of have to figure out what you know and not make a mistake otherwise you’ll be totally lost. [It’s difficult] attempting to locate … a coordinate using just a compass and a map,” said Cleary. Navigating the course with Cleary were First-years Lance Switzer and Mario Thayer.

Hiking using angles derived from the compass, cadets used their pace counts they learned in the round-robin exercises to measure the distance, in multiples of one hundred meters, to a point they had plotted on their maps. “The hardest part of that was counting paces. … It’s easy to get distracted [in a group, and lose count],” said Cleary.

The night navigation is even more difficult. The course is the same, simply with fewer points. During the day, cadets were given eight points, of which they needed to find five. Between the day and night courses was a barbecue and time to rest and get water for the night course. During the night land navigation, cadets were given five points, of which they needed to find three in order to pass. Cadets bedded down in sleeping bags, spending the night outside.

After a night out under the fall sky, cadets woke up before sunrise to a box breakfast and a bus ride to the grenade assault course and obstacle confidence course. The obstacle confidence course was composed of a series of wooden obstacles ranging from a low crawl to a giant’s ladder, and even swinging with a rope over a torso high log. Cadets were timed in their completion of both courses.

The grenade assault course was composed of a series of stations on defined targets of bunkers, foxholes and vehicles.  Cadets do not throw live grenades until the summer between their junior and senior years, so the grenades were simulated grenade bodies with fuses. They still make a loud pop but have no charge or fragmentation. The course is designed to critique and train proper throwing and cover techniques, as well as accuracy.

“I definitely enjoyed the hand grenade assault course: active, challenging, quick; you have to think how you’re going to throw the grenade, where I’m going to throw it, how hard; think on your feet and on your face,” said Cleary. Several of the throwing positions started from prone or stayed in prone, and cadets had to throw the grenade from that lying position.

The whole FTX was capped off with a three mile ruck-march with full rucksacks to the gun-cleaning house. Here cadets completely disassembled and cleaned their weapons, removing all bits of carbon and grime from the weekend. A final inspection of it allowed the cadets to return the weapon and board the bus back to campus with their Quizno’s box meal in hand.

On the ride back, the officers and MSIVs conducted an after action review (AAR) of FTX. “We go through the AAR, which gets a response from everybody [and] gets what everybody liked and didn’t like so we can improve for next year. … It’s always a progression to make [FTX] better,” said French.

“I was unsure of what I would be experiencing in [FTX], but what I did [experience] … it challenged [me] to do things I didn’t think I could do,” said Cleary.

The ROTC does two training exercises at Ripley each year, one in the fall and one in the spring.