GREENOUGH - Fancy a game of "throw-quet" in the woods some weekend?That's what they called the grenade-tossing exercise at last weekend's Ranger Challenge for Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets in Lubrecht Forest. Lots of sports have their battlefield analogies, but the ROTC competitors practice the sport of the battlefield.
The grenade toss features three stations and an obstacle. The cadet must sprint to a cover position (a high or low log wall), peek at the target and toss the grenade close enough to score a kill. If you've ever wondered about the saying "Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and marriage," this event has every variation on display. One target
Another is an enclosed bunker. Cadets must lie alongside the wall, close enough to drop the grenade through a slit opening, and then roll away. Under the pressure of competition, it's remarkable how many cadets fail this challenge, forgetting to arm the grenade or to roll to safety.
The University of Montana ROTC program fielded a Maroon squad and a Silver squad. While UM's ROTC program has 125 cadets, just 18 of them qualified to compete in the challenge.Luke Schiedermayer led the Maroon squad, the university's first-string cadets. He came to UM from Philipsburg. He's majoring in political science. But the light in his eyes shines for an officer's career.
"This is like a football team, only enhanced," he said. "Lives are on the line. We're not doing this to be experts in combat situations. Your machine gunner is going to be a lot better than you are with the machine gun. This is to build leadership abilities in officers."
The annual Ranger Challenge brought together 120 of the top cadets in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Each squad must have at least one female cadet, and everyone must perform in all events.
"This is our varsity sport, and this is our Super Bowl," UM's Lt. Col. Max Carpenter explained. "These guys do all their academics plus training seven periods a week."Like other college sports, the Ranger Challenge gives a little boost to a student's post-graduation life. ROTC cadets earn points over their college years by taking part in training camps and special events. Those points combine with their GPA for a score that determines their chances of getting the job they want in the military.
Combat operations are the most preferred, Carpenter said. While it seems counterintuitive in this time of war that the infantry, armor and aviation fields would be choosy, the Army has needs for lots of different officer types. Carpenter said billets in logistics, supply depots and fuel management are "less competitive."
"We've got 16 different branches of the Army, so it's a pretty good cross-section that goes into it," Carpenter said. "They're looking for the whole-person concept: athlete, academia and leadership. If (cadets) can balance those, do all three, they can pretty much choose what branch they want.
"When you're out there as a young leader in today's Army, you're making tactical decisions that have strategic implications. The world's watching, so you're looking for that person who can deal with ambiguous situations and do the right thing."
Ranger Challenge has six events. Competition starts Army-style, at 4:30 a.m. Everybody performs the standard Army physical fitness test, which is grueling in its simplicity. Just do two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups, and run two miles. In 20-degree darkness.ROTC Sgt. Maj. Mike Jarnevic said Courtney Dawkins cracked out 112 sit-ups in two minutes. Jarnevic coaches the cadets in physical conditioning. He said he could do 104 at his best.
To get the students in shape, Jarnevic suggests a mixed routine of upper-body exercises and roadwork. And he adds in a
10-minute yoga routine for flexibility, balance and breathing control.
Dawkins grew up in Atlanta, and was a junior ROTC cadet there. She chose to attend UM after researching numerous universities with ROTC programs, concluding Missoula had the challenge she was looking for. She's studying Chinese and Spanish, along with her military courses. And she has personal goals to meet.
"I did my first Challenge last year," Dawkins said. "So I've been really working out this year. That ruck march last year almost did me. I made it, but I think I passed out at the finish line. If I had more to give, I'd have given it."
The "ruck march" is a 10-kilometer trip with full battle gear, including 40-pound rucksacks and rifles. It traditionally ends the Ranger Challenge. Squads must finish as a team, and can't spread out along the course more than 20 meters. So they can only travel as fast as their slowest, or most injured, member.
In between come the most military events. There's weapons assembly, where cadets run 100 meters, disassemble an M-16 rifle, put it back together and run back.
Orienteering obviously belongs in such a competition. Teams must maneuver through the forest, finding way-points and not getting lost. The assembled sergeants judging events got a good laugh when one team complained that a bear was blocking access to a way-point.And it isn't an event, but Ranger Challenge calorie consumption could make a good reality show. There aren't many places where you'll see athletes snarfing dehydrated coffee grains right out of the bag.
Up to this point, the Ranger Challenge looks a lot like a track meet in camouflage. The events seem individual, with teammates shouting encouragement but providing little else. Schiedermayer calls huddles after every event to update the competition standings.
"We're still in the money," Schiedermayer tells them after a particularly good grenade-tossing round. "It's not over until the smoke clears."
Which brings us to the bridge competition.UM's B squad lines up to listen to the rules of bridge building. The first rule is: Don't touch the sandbags. They make up the "bank" of the river. Because Lubrecht Forest doesn't have a real river to cross (some other schools do use real rivers), the squads must string their bridges across 65 or 85 yards of forest.
The cadets get five minutes to tie makeshift climbing harnesses around their waists. Then they're inspected for safety, with points deducted for carabiners clipped
in upside-down or rope ends improperly tucked in. So far, not so much.
Then the real thing begins.
B squad opens like a Leatherman tool. One member grabs the rope and runs (think "swims") across the "river." He ties a special knot around a tree on the far side.
On the near side, one cadet is feeding the line, while the others prepare to wind it around their base tree in a complicated pulley system. When it's tied, as one they grab the end and reef the slack out of the bridge. Then they boost one another up to the line, clip in and zip to the other side. When eight have crossed, the ninth cadet unties his end and run-swims across the gap.
The whole process took UM's B squad 4 minutes, 14 seconds.
Civilians may look in wonder and amusement at the military's dedication to order. The uniforms, the marching, the clipped language all seem like variations of a secret handshake - something to show who's in the club. It's hard to see the battlefield value of
spit-shined shoes.
Until you see B Squad roar across that bridge.
"It seems more and more people know less and less about the military," Jarnevic observed. "They think it's like what they see in Hollywood. I came in during the '70s. The quality of personnel today is 10 times better. And a lot of these folks are going to see combat in the next couple years. It's just inevitable."
Reach reporter Rob Chaney at (406) 523-5382 or by e-mail at rchaney@missoulian.com. Photographer Linda Thompson can be reached at (406) 523-5270 or by e-mail at lthompson@missoulian.com.
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