Training and Assessing Tomorrow’s Leaders:
U.S. Army ROTC
t began on June 8, 2000, and ended on August 12, 2000.
It was held at Fort Lewis, Wash. It trained and evaluated 3,757 Army Reserve Officers Training Corps
(ROTC) cadets in 11 regiments. These cadets came
from schools across America, from the Pacific Ocean to
the Atlantic, and also from the University of Guam to
the University of Puerto Rico. It also helped to train
275 National Guard officer candidates from 31 states in a
12th regiment. It provided both individual and collective
training and evaluation of these cadets. It was supported by
a number of active, Reserve and National Guard units. It was
the U.S. Army ROTC Advanced Camp.
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ARMY ■ August 2001
Advanced Camp 2000
Text and Photographs
By Lt. Col. Greg Lane, USAR
August 2001 ■ ARMY
45
Cadets from 2nd Squad, 1st Platoon,
Company B, 9th Regiment, prepare to
move out on a mission at a squad
situational training exercise (STX)
during Advanced Camp 2000.
Army ROTC Advanced Camp is a
five week, 35 day experience which
takes cadets from their 269 home college or university campuses during
the summer break and gives them one
common Army experience. In this experience, a platoon evaluation team,
consisting of an experienced officer (a
captain or a major), a senior sergeant
(sergeant first class or master sergeant) and a newly commissioned
2nd lieutenant, evaluates and coaches
them. Committees made up of other
officers and sergeants evaluate specific individual and collective skills
ranging from the Army physical fitness test (APFT) to platoon-level tactical operations. The goal is to develop
and assess each cadet in terms of his
or her leadership potential as a future
Army officer.
great deal goes into the making of the Advanced Camp
experience: complex budgeting to pay for cadre and
cadet travel to and from Fort
Lewis and additional funds for all
classes of supply to support Advanced Camp; assembling support
personnel, ranging from host unit
support from Fort Lewis units to opposing force troops for the tactical
exercises; and innumerable hours of
preparation by cadre from across the
Ch. (Capt.) Paul Lasley, 2nd Ranger Battalion, offers inspirational words to members of 1st Platoon, Company B, 9th Regiment, as they near the completion of AdUnited States. The Army pours this efvanced Camp 2000.
fort into Advanced Camp in return for
getting a good readout on the majority of its future officer corps. Army ROTC provides the requires that each cadet be rated in seven leadership positions. Three of these occur in garrison operations and
bulk of each year’s new lieutenants, about 70 percent.
The core of Advanced Camp is the leadership develop- range from squad leader to company commander. One
ment program (LDP), which is the process that Cadet leadership position occurs at the squad level during the
Command applies to assess and develop its cadets. Using Field Leader’s Reaction Course (FLRC) early in the Adseven Army core values and 16 dimensions of leadership vanced Camp cycle. Of the other three, two are conducted
behavior, LDP measures each future officer’s performance during the five-day squad situational training exercise
and helps make the call on that cadet’s potential as an (STX) with each cadet having two tactical missions as
Army officer. During the 35 days of Advanced Camp, LDP squad leader. The last leader position is evaluated during
the five-day platoon STX. These seven evaluations, comLT. COL. GREG LANE, USAR, serves with the 100th Division pleted by seven different evaluators on each cadet, provide
as a Command and General Staff College instructor and is an roughly 70 to 80 percent of a cadet’s grade at Advanced
assistant professor of military science at Austin Peay State Camp.
Each cadet is scored on the basis of 1,000 points:
University in Clarksville, Tenn.
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ARMY ■ August 2001
Cadet Aaron Blanchard (University
of California,
Davis) runs back
to his platoon after
receiving the
“bone” award for
Army physical fitness test spirit at
Advanced Camp
2000.
bat, combat support and combat service support. The first of three field
training exercises (FTXs) follows on
day 11, with the focus being land navigation, both day and night. Individual, team and squad training continues with hand grenade, machine gun,
fire support, chemical and individual
tactical training events. On day 20, the
second FTX begins, which focuses on
squad tactics. This exercise is called
squad STX. After a brief respite, on
day 27, the platoon STX/FTXs begin.
On day 31, the platoons redeploy and
begin preparation for clearing and
graduation. On day 35, cadets graduate and go to follow-on training (airborne, air assault and cadet troopleading training) or back home to
await the start of the school year.
Cadets Megan Diserens (Central Missouri State University), right foreground, Courtney Ewing (Florida State University), second from right, and Jeremiah Wildermuth
Advanced Camp 2000 was broken
doing assembly and disassembly of M60 machine guns at Advanced Camp 2000.
down into 11 regiments of Army ROTC
cadets and one regiment of National
Guard Officer Candidate School (OCS) cadets. These regi100 points—APFT (APFT score divided by three).
ments consisted of 300-plus cadets each, divided into two
100 points—land navigation (written, day and night).
companies of four platoons each. Beginning with the first
400 points—seven evaluated leader positions.
300 points—tactical (TAC) summary (ratings in the 16 regiment on June 8, each regiment received its cadets in
three-day staggered starts, allowing each regiment to folleadership dimensions of the leader-evaluated positions).
100 points—TAC evaluation of performance and poten- low the same training path as its predecessors. The 11th
regiment began on July 8, and four days later the first regitial.
Advanced Camp training proceeds along an individual ment graduated, on July 12. The 11th regiment graduated
to collective task progression. Cadets take the APFT on day on August 11, and other regiments graduated in three-day
four, and it must be passed either then or four days later increments between the first and the 11th regiment. The
during a makeup. Following the APFT is the FLRC; then last regiment, the 12th (National Guard OCS), began on
comes basic rifle marksmanship (BRM) followed by water July 29 and graduated on August 12, completing its 15-day
safety and confidence training. Branch orientation day schedule and formally ending Advanced Camp 2000.
Each cadet regiment has an affiliation with a currently
gives each cadet a look at all Army basic branches in comAugust 2001 ■ ARMY
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Cadet Mark Desaultes (Johns Hopkins
University), left, gets feedback and an
order from Capt. Jeff Martuscelli
(Rutgers University) on the Squad STX
exercise at Advanced Camp 2000.
serving regiment in the active Army
or National Guard. This affiliation
program, begun in 1985, serves to
give cadets a link to “field” Army
units, as well as developing the
cadets’ historical interest in the profession of arms through a specific
unit’s heritage. The active units in this
program are Infantry, Cavalry, Armored Cavalry and Field Artillery.
ur regiment was well supported by elements of the
513th Transportation Battalion, a tenant unit at Fort Lewis. From manning a
support cell to providing barracks repair or helping with supply issues and some field support, the 513th
team gave us the critical support necessary to make Advanced Camp happen for us. Also providing essential support was a team of Army Reserve chaplains. The chaplains
led services in the field and in garrison and provided a
spiritual and emotional lift to those with whom they came
in contact.
My platoon had cadets from schools ranging from Harvard to the University of Guam, and from The Citadel to
the University of California, Davis. These men and
women, who did not know one another or me before Advanced Camp, pulled together to form an incredibly cohesive, motivated and proficient platoon. They were the
honor platoon in the regiment and won other honors ranging from the highest APFT average in the regiment to the
fastest squad obstacle course time at Advanced Camp.
O
Cadets Valdez (Austin Peay State University), left, and Norton (Siena College), right, pin 2nd lieutenant bars on
Michael Warren (Austin Peay State University) at an Advanced Camp 2000 end-of-camp commissioning ceremony.
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ARMY ■ August 2001
Over the course of Advanced Camp, problems sometimes arose, and gripes were heard. From the way cadets
were brought to Fort Lewis and in-processed, to the way
some committees conducted business, complaints with
varying degrees of validity were voiced. There were observations made on how to improve things, ranging from
having combat arms, drill sergeant qualified TAC sergeants coach their own platoon cadets in BRM, to adopting
a Basic Training-style in-processing system, to not giving
the APFT in a sawdust pit. The potential subjectivity of
some evaluations, differences in evaluator standards and
the belief that some evaluators focused more on performance than potential also caused concern. Such questioning is encouraging, however, because it demonstrates the
critical thinking on the part of cadre and cadets. These observations showed the cadre’s willingness to think about
what we had done at Advanced Camp and to come up
with ways to do things better.
How well did Advanced Camp do its job of developing
and assessing cadets? From my perspective, the system
worked. We had cadets who excelled and were rewarded
for their efforts with good scores coming out of camp.
These scores will strengthen their accession packets going
to Cadet Command, leading to determination of active or
reserve commissioning and the cadets’ branches. There
were also cadets who did not meet the standard, either
medically, physically, in personal behavior or in meeting
other Advanced Camp performance standards. These
cadets went home, which is as it should be. Not everyone
can or should be an Army officer.
Overall, ROTC Advanced Camp 2000 performed its mission of developing and assessing future Army leaders. It
was my privilege to have been involved with this experience, and I believe all involved would say it was worthwhile for cadre and cadets alike. The future will tell us
how well Advanced Camp 2000 served the Army and our
nation.
B