Pointlife
To the civilian eye, this obviously appears to be a paint gun. However, within a training operation, it can be transformed into an powerful M-16 not to be treated lightly.
IFTX training exercise works to add experience to ROTC
The Pointer
jmath438@uwsp.edu
A tactical training weekend at Fort McCoy, Wis. prepared the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point’s Army Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets for their summer training courses.
Fort McCoy is located two hours southwest of Stevens Point by first taking highway 51 south followed by taking highway 21 west. This drive, in addition to the training that ROTC members go through, helps to build a further sense of community and brotherhood.
Freshman and sophomore ROTC cadets from UW-SP and the UW-Stout attended an Internal Field Training Exercise at Fort McCoy, which included training in day and nighttime land navigation and squad tactics.
“You’re put into a situation where the leadership for the squad or platoon is given a situation where they have to gather your guys together, go out and you’ll have to recon on an objective,” said ROTC Cadet Ryan Wallis.
Lane training, a combat simulation, pits the different school’s squads against each other using paintball guns to simulate combat.
“We had our entire department broke up into three squads,” said ROTC Cadet Andrew Letson. “They’re doing all these rehearsals, getting their standard operating procedures. They get out to the site and you get attacked. You have to have someone to collect the casualties … you have to have a designated team inside the squad to go do that while everybody else provides security.”
Army ROTC is an officer training course and part of one’s college curriculum. Upon graduating from ROTC, a cadet is commissioned to the Army having already received the rank of second lieutenant. Along with leader training, ROTC pays its cadets‘ college tuition.
IFTX is done in preparation for the Leader Development and Assessment Course, a five-week summer course which evaluates and trains Army ROTC cadets. LDAC is held in Fort Lewis and is typically held between a cadet’s junior and senior years.
“You have the knowledge of the tactical and team organization that will be going on,” said ROTC Cadet Andrea Anderson. “But then going out there and doing it is a little bit different because of all the different stress factors.”
