ROTC hosts annual Leadership Lab Day

ROTC Spider Battalion's cadence calls reached University of Richmond students' ears as early as 6:45 Saturday morning as the unit conducted a three-mile run through campus.

The early morning chants rallied the cadets for Leadership Lab Day, which included an awards ceremony and battlefield training.

Things went a little different than planned because of the weather, said 2nd Lt. Jane Carey, a recent ROTC graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University who is working for the Spider Battalion until she receives her post in the aviation branch of the Army.

It was hard not being able to use the originally planned space of Richmond's intramural fields for the battle drills because the ground was too soggy, Carey said.

Instead, freshmen and sophomores -- known as MS1s and MS2s -- went to Millhiser Gym where they focused on more basic drills and the juniors -- known as MS3s -- trained on a plot of grass next to Jepson Alumni Center. The seniors -- MS4s -- led the drills and had planned the day's activities for the rest of the cadets.

A helicopter was supposed to land on the IM fields for the cadets to practice loading into the aircraft. Instead, chairs were set up in Millhiser gym to simulate a helicopter.

The trick to the drill was to dump one's rucksack to the side just before getting into the helicopter, said Pat Coughlin, a junior ROTC member. The last two members to board throw the bags in after the cadets, he said.

The purpose was to prepare the cadets to travel by helicopter to their next training exercise at the end of February at Fort A.P. Hill.

All ROTC training leads up to the six-week-long Leadership Development and Assessment Course at Fort Lewis in Washington after a cadet's third year in the program. At LDAC, the senior cadets from all over the country are ranked based on GPA, physical training scores and performance at the course.

The rank cadets are given can influence how much of a decision they will have in their future Army post, Lt. Col. Mark Thomson said.

Thomson recently was made chairman of the Spider Battalion -- which is composed of students from Richmond, VCU, Longwood University, Hampden-Sydney College, Randolph-Macon College and Virginia Union University.

The battalion is a student-run organization, Thomson said. Cadres, or military science professors, have to hold themselves back not to intervene. If they were to jump in, the cadets might do an exercise right, but they would never learn as much, he said.

MS4s focus on preparing the juniors for LDAC and can make the training easier or harder on the juniors depending what they just went through six months before, Thomson said.

MS3s were given a classroom tutorial of the ambush drill they would go through that day and then were broken up into groups of about eight to 12 members to break it down.

Seniors talked the juniors through the exercise.

It was the juniors' chance to ask questions and focus more on the learning than actually doing, said Steven Darby, senior ROTC member at Longwood University.

Towards the end of the ambush exercise, juniors circled around VCU senior Cadet Command Sgt. Maj. Morgan Perry as he gave advice on how to handle the coming months of their careers.

Each member of ROTC is given a mentor a year ahead of him or her in the program, Perry said. They get together for meals and talk and get to know each other so that the members can tell when a fellow cadet is having a hard time, he said.

"You can't do anything without taking care of your soldiers," Perry said.

Cadet Battalion Commander Joshua Aho said, "They always tell us the Army is the biggest fraternity."

Aho, a Hampden-Sydney College senior, said whenever members of the Army saw someone in uniform or with a sticker on the back of their car, they automatically shared a connection and had plenty to talk about.

Thomson was impressed with the men who have joined ROTC in active wartime, he said. He didn't know if he would have been able to do the same thing, he said.

"It definitely gives you a new perspective on things," Coughlin said. "You hear kids complaining about 8 a.m. classes and you want to say, 'Hey, I've been up since 5 a.m.'"

The Spider Battalion will travel to Fort A.P. Hill Feb. 25-27 by helicopter for their next spring-training exercise.

Contact reporter Brittany Brady at brittany.brady@richmond.edu