Army ROTC hits the pool

on March 4, 2005 at 12:00 am

Joel Featherstone

The mission is to get the entire squad across the pool without breaking the surface of the water between two ropes and get four charges of ammunition to the other side, while keeping the charges dry.

The tools include one long rope, a plastic crate, which hold the dummy charges and a diving board.

Easier said than done.

“There are many different ways to accomplish it. Not one of them is not right. It’s just, can they do it?” Cliff Plowman, Army ROTC operations officer in charge of training, said, while watching from the sidelines as the cadets attempted to complete the mission.

For the weekly Army ROTC lab last Thursday afternoon, the cadets headed out to the HYPER Pool for some training in the water.

“It’s about leadership. What we try to do is to put them in some environment that’s either emotionally, mentally or physically stressful at the same time,” Lt. Col. Rand Curtis said, who is the senior officer for Utah State University’s Army ROTC. “Anyone can lead when you’re sitting around the living room, but when you get a little panic going or you’re doing something that’s difficult or scary and some of these guys are afraid of the water, that’s why we do it in the water, it adds a whole another level of pucker factor.”

The cadets were split into two large groups to work on two different activities in the water. One focused on communication, to pass the charges across the pool, and one focused on planning beforehand, where the cadets were put in buddy teams.

For the charges mission, the one group of cadets split into two – one to be on the receiving end to catch the rope and take the charges and one on the high dive to throw the rope and send the charges.

The cadets tossed the rope across the pool from the diving board, while another cadet in the pool tried to catch the rope without letting the slack hit the section of water between the ropes.

On the first try the rope hit the water and the cadets were required to do flutter kicks as a punishment. The second try brought the same results – with flutter kicks.

The third try was successful, as Cadet Justin Reeder jumped up from the pool, caught the rope and pulled the slack before it hit the water.

Then the remaining cadets had to swim across the pool, swimming under the dead zone. However, after two sets of flutter kicks and some push ups for failing to throw the rope perfectly on the first two tries, swimming under water proved more difficult as one cadet bobed his head before getting to the safe zone.

It then took three more times to get everyone across the pool, with each mistake being punished by push ups and more flutter kicks and starting over. But, after some trial and error, the cadets executed the mission.

“Kind of how we want to train them in the Army, is to push them as far as we can physically and to push them even farther so when they do get into battle, they know how far physically they can be stressed,” Capt. Reece Roberts said.

After the cadets finished they were brought together to discuss communication and leadership.

“The thing is, they accomplished the mission, but we were focusing a lot on their leadership skills too,” Executive Officer Josiah Griffin said. “Sure they got the stuff across, but did they show good leadership while they were doing it?”

For the buddy team activity, pairs of cadets were tied at the wrist and only one could be above water at a time, limiting any verbal communication. They had to transport mines, or water bottles filled with weights, to an underwater bucket on the opposite side of the pool.

“The most stressful part is whenever we were in the buddy team,” Reeder said. “In the buddy team you can’t really communicate when your in the water, because one person’s above water and one person is underwater. It teaches you the importance of planning before you start out because once you’re in it, you can’t talk.”

Reece said the activities were to teach the cadets to adapt to new situations and learn from mistakes.

“The more they mess up the better things go, because that’s where you learn. You don’t if everything goes right,” he said. “We just throw situations at them that they have no idea what the right answer is and see what they figure out.”

The USU Army ROTC class can be taken for elective credit and does not require commitment to the Army.

Go to http://armyrotc.usu.edu. for more information.

-joelfeathers@cc.usu.edu

Justin Reeder pushes along the crate filled with dummy charges as Josh Dawson and Jay Fisher hold the rope high so the charges do not touch the water. The activity was to teach ROTC cadets leadership skills. (Photo by John Zsiray)