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NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Leah Jackson (jacksonl@nsula.edu
)
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
4/18/2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES - Nine cadets from Northwestern State University's military science program have been selected to attend the U.S. Army's 32-day top officer training exercise at Fort Lewis, Wash., this summer. The exercise is the culminating leadership event for the Reserve Officer's Training Corps, or ROTC.
Senior Gerardo Montes of Fresno, Calif., and juniors Justin Hill of St. Amant, Matthew Le Blanc of New Orleans, Choicey Pellerin of Lafayette, Garrett John of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Freddie Rios of Miami, Fla.; Tommy Seiker of Kansas City, Mo.; Danita Green of Alexandria and Kennieth Mayweather of Dallas will join more than 4,000 other "cadets" from colleges and universities nationwide for the massive exercise, known as the Leader Development and Assessment Course.
"LDAC is where very cadet in the country gets a chance to show what they know, head to head with their fellow cadets," said Lt. Col. Teresa Galgano, professor of military science at NSU. "Everything they do is under the leadership of other cadets, who are evaluated every time they're in charge. This is the last big training event, the last major test, before we entrust them with leading American Soldiers."
Also known as Operation Warrior Forge, the training exercise is comprised of activities combined to build and test cadets' confidence, technical skills, physical agility and endurance, and leadership capability. The exercise will include M-16 familiarization and marksmanship, land navigation, confidence training, water survival, hand-to-hand combat, security operations, first aid, field leader's reaction course, and various individual and group tactical training venues.
Cadets also spend about 10 days in field conditions responding to training situations devised by U.S. Army soldiers with recent experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Our job every day in ROTC is to ensure that the young people entering Army service have the very best training," said Col. Steve Corbett, commander of Operation Warrior Forge at Fort Lewis. "Warrior Forge is made up of 5,000 dedicated professional Soldiers and civilians all working hard to ensure that the military science students who will become new Army lieutenants are ready to lead America's most precious defense resource soldiers."