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On a breezy Friday afternoon nearly 50 Army ROTC cadets from the University of Oregon are packed into a charter bus that reeks of diesel fuel and sweat as it glides down the western slope of Oregon’s coast range. Shards of orange light from the setting sun slice through birch and conifer trees along the road as the bus heads toward Camp Rilea, a National Guard base near the northwestern tip of the state. As the bus approaches the entrance to the camp, one young man starts quietly singing the first verse of Bob Dylan’s Masters of War. A few minutes later, the cadets debark, breathing in what will be their final relaxed breaths this weekend. For 40 of the next 48 hours, they will be taking part in intense war training exercises. They’ll take turns leading and participating in six-person, two-hour-long patrols through thick forest – a la Platoon – while under the scrutinizing eye of experienced, often battle-hardened Army veterans. They’ll be ambushed, fired at with M-16 blanks and forced to navigate difficult terrain while battling patrols of National Guard volunteers posing as fictional “Caquetan” Army soldiers. These drills are designed to test their character and readiness for positions of leadership and are based on the old Army philosophy: the more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat. Saturday. 9am. The cadets are working off four hours of sleep. They attended battle briefings until midnight last night and then were awakened at 4am for drills, breakfast and battle preparation. Now in their second two-hour combat scenario of the morning, they carry M-16s, shoulder fully-loaded 40-pound rucksacks and wear Kevlar helmets while searching for the enemy in a dense stand of coastal Douglas fir. The only things that are not real are the bullets in their guns (blanks) and the running password for the operation (“muffin.”) Paul Sherwin, a sharp-featured, six-foot-six college junior with thick dark hair and an easy smile, helps lead a squad of five other cadets. He steps slowly over patches of ferns, feeling the ground with his feet and keeping his eyes up in search of the enemy. He moves slowly and talks frequently with the others, much to the frustration of the officer observing the exercise. Suddenly, a member of the Caquetan Army, the enemy, bursts over a hill and startles him. “Ayuda me! Ayuda me!” he yells. Sherwin is calm as he translates for the group. “You need help?” “Si,” he says, pointing to a hand covered in fake blood. Sherwin, protected by another squad member holding an M-16, slings his weapon over his shoulder and starts attending to the man’s wounds. The other squad members set-up a security perimeter in case of an ambush and immediately spot a man standing in a clump of trees with a rifle. “Put the weapon down! Put the weapon down!” yells a cadet. Everyone drops to the ground. “Man, what are you doing?” yells the captured soldier to his friend. After a few tense moments, the man in the trees drops his rifle and lies face-down in the dirt. As a cadet approaches him, the captured soldier next to Sherwin jumps up and leaps back over the hill in an attempt to escape. The cadet backing up Sherwin tackles the escapee immediately, rolling in the soft, brown dirt. When he and Sherwin subdue him, the exercise ends. Sherwin brushes off his uniform, checks his weapon and takes a moment to catch his breath before receiving his battlefield evaluation, the required conclusion of each two-hour scenario. He’s told that he did a good job leading the group and is rated “excellent” on the mental aspects of the drill, but he moved the squad too slowly and didn’t push his people hard enough. The scenario exposes what the officer in charge sees as a chink in Sherwin’s character: He takes in too much feedback; he’s too concerned with pleasing people – a flaw that could potentially hinder his growth as a leader.
Sherwin is like most ROTC cadets: He joined for the money. He receives a $400 monthly stipend and additional assistance with school books. Like many ROTC cadets around the country, he also serves in the National Guard to earn more money for college. Sherwin likes the Army because he sees it as practical now and practical later. ROTC and the National Guard will fund his college education. Then he wants to work for the government just like his parents and retire young after 20 years of service. He’s surprised himself, however, by learning to love the Army. It’s not just about the money any more. The leadership training and sense of family appeal to him. The Army, he says, holds him accountable for becoming a better person, just like his parents do. To Major Mark Chappelle, the thick-necked combat veteran and former Army Ranger who is Sherwin’s advisor, the young cadet is family. Chappelle’s sternness is widely known among the cadets, but his advocacy for them is even more renowned. Chappelle looks after his charges with a quiet parental ferocity. Recently, Chappelle got a phone call from Sherwin’s National Guard unit. The unit was called up and headed for Iraq, and Sherwin – although a college student – was slated to go, having missed the deadline for signing a critical document that would have exempted him. His assignment would be driving unarmored Humvees. Chappelle immediately intervened on Sherwin’s behalf, placing several phone calls and driving down to the National Guard armory twice. Sherwin was in the ROTC program, he reminded the Guard officers, and the intent of that program was for Sherwin to graduate from college and become a commissioned Army officer. Chappelle won his case and in doing so may have saved the cadet’s life. At least that’s what Sherwin believes. He would later learn that three men from his Guard unit were killed when their unarmored Humvee detonated a roadside bomb in Baghdad. At the weekend war training, the cadets have been up and moving for nearly nine hours and finally get a 15-minute break for lunch. They sit in a circle at the foot of several large pine trees and pull sealed bags containing meals ready to eat, or MREs, from their rucksacks. The highly caloric MREs, which have a shelf life of three years, contain cooked meat vacuum-sealed in thick silver bags, crackers, processed cheese, dried fruit and military-issue energy bars notorious for stopping-up the digestive tract. Sherwin takes out an Army knife and cuts into his silver bag to discover what he calls “meat surprise” – likely pork in a sweet raspberry sauce – and then takes a large bite. Kira Weyrauch, a 21-year-old cadet with porcelain skin and intense blue eyes, tells him he’s too skinny and hands him some of her M&Ms. Sherwin eats them, then looks suspiciously at his energy bar before taking a large bite. 1pm. The squad moves out again against the Caquetan Army. Weyrauch leads a simulated Army Ranger patrol and takes three people off a dirt path and into the forest. She spots a berm and slowly crawls over a carpet of thick, green leaves as she approaches the top. She sets down her M-16 and reaches for her binoculars. Master Sgt. Ott, the Army observer for the exercise, crawls up beside her. “Give me a report, cadet.” “Two men. Light smoke. Location Delta Gulf. Uniform most likely enemy. Time: 13:15. Equipment: small arms, .50 cal.” Weyrauch is a 3.8 honor student with a classic type-A personality. She’s outperformed everyone on this exercise today, the only cadet to spot the enemy without the enemy spotting her first. But she’s not calm and controlled. She’s uptight, talking fast. She wants more information. She looks to Ott for guidance, who reassures her she’s doing fine. “You did great,” Ott says after the exercise. “Your major area of development, though, is not stressing yourself. You did great,” he repeats. “Don’t worry about every little detail.” The result of this particular exercise is ironic: Weyrauch, a woman, cannot become an Army Ranger, but Ott – himself an Army Ranger with extensive battle experience – gives her the only overall “excellent” rating for the day in the scenario. 3pm. Sherwin is put in the lead of the final reconnaissance drill of the day. Sherwin, Weyrauch and the other cadets have been marching, searching, thinking or defending for nearly 11 hours. The mission begins quickly as they search out a bunker in the woods. The first error occurs when some of Sherwin’s soldiers spread out a bit too far. Then a bigger mistake: Sherwin leads a scouting mission but leaves nobody behind in charge. After he returns, the squad pushes on for five minutes. But progress stops again when Sherwin realizes that a bunker would most likely be above him, not below him. He pauses, then pulls everyone together, and they follow him up a tree-covered hill. He spots a bunker site and picks a clean approach without being detected. The squad attacks. The firecracker pop of M-16 blanks, the whine of whistles and the stench of yellow smoke fills the air as he and several other cadets charge the bunker and overwhelm two enemy snipers. Immediately afterward, the Army major observing the exercise pulls everyone together. “How’d you do, soldier?” he asks Sherwin in front of the group. “Stank it up, sir.” “Why?” “The assault plan fell through.” “No it didn’t. You attacked the bunker. So what else?” “I didn’t feel like I had positive control of the squad.” “Anybody agree?” asks the major, looking around. “Okay, yes, that’s what happened. What was good?” “We picked a good route for attacking the bunker, and we were successful. We also had good communication,” says Sherwin. “How do you have good communication without good control?” That gives Sherwin pause. “That’s a good question, sir.” The major turns to the squad. “So what do you need to turn good communication into good control?” Silence. “No one? Okay. Speed. You’ve got to make a decision fast. It’s not just you, Sherwin. We’ve seen it all day.” Sherwin’s face and eyes are red, and his lips are pursed. When the major isn’t looking at him, he looks down. Afterward, the major pulls him aside. “My first impression of you was that you were calm and confident, and I was right. Even though you didn’t know everything here, people still listened to you and treated you well afterward. That means they respect you, and I like that. “You have great social skills, but the downside is that you’re too willing to seek advice, and advice can be bad. Your decisions don’t always have to be right; but the process has to be faster.” The Army tests Sherwin’s character nearly every day – not just on weekends. At the regular 6:30am physical training sessions on the university track, the sprints and nausea-inducing distance runs teach him physical and mental discipline. They teach him that pain is necessary for growth. The pool training sessions, where he grudgingly swims in his heavy cotton uniform, are as much about not drowning as they are about maintaining control in uncomfortable situations. On Thursday, the one day of the week that he is required to wear his uniform on campus, he’s presented with an unique set of challenges. He must respect the uniform. He must salute the officers. And he must keep his cool on a campus known for its anti-war activism. The “cadre,” a team of real Army officers and enlisted soldiers, is in charge of the cadets’ character development. In charge of the cadre is Lt. Col. John Sneed, a fit 41-year-old with piercing blue eyes that never seem to blink. Character to him, and to the Army, is about a person’s inner strength, his or her willingness to do what is right and to persevere regardless of the circumstances or consequences. Sneed resents anything that interferes with his goal of building the character of his cadets, and the recent prison abuses in Iraq are of particular concern. “The reports are disturbing, confusing and disappointing,” he says to Sherwin and the other cadets lined up after their physical training session. “It makes you wonder what you’re getting into. “We’re all tested at times to do the right thing,” he tells them. “You need to have the moral courage to refuse an illegal order. You need to say, ‘That’s not the way I’m going to lead American soldiers.’ If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, then I’m not going to commission you.” Sherwin and Weyrauch, both juniors, know that the pressure on this year’s nationwide graduating class of ROTC cadets is far more intense than in the past. The over 3000 newly minted 21- and 22-year-old second lieutenants will soon be the leaders, counselors, strategists and motivators for platoons of 30 or more. Their deployments will quite possibly take them to Afghanistan and Iraq in less than a year, and some of them will be put in the position of leading battle-hardened veterans five to 10 years their senior. On a spring morning, the mist is thick and weaves like a ghost through the conifers covering a large hill behind the university track. Sherwin and Weyrauch lie on their backs in the early morning hours, their stomachs spasming as they finish a painful set of scissor kicks. Several cadets near them start laughing, a release from the pain, when barrel-chested Sneed explodes from the back of the group. “If you’re not leading the exercise, keep your damn mouth closed!” he yells. Afterward, he pulls aside the seniors who are supposed to be models of leadership and character for the younger cadets. “Who can tell me what went wrong today?” “Sir, the leader messed up and then started laughing. He didn’t take himself seriously,” says a cadet. “Right. What else?” he asks, facing a group of blank stares. “Why didn’t any of you step up to lead and help him fix his mistake?” He waits for a long moment, then fills the silence. “This is serious business here,” he tells them. “This is not a circus. This is not a fraternity party. As the leaders here, it’s your job to step up. You’re preparing yourself and those cadets under you for the toughest job in the world – being a U.S. Army officer.” Sherwin, Weyrauch and their peers are not soldiers, not yet, but they will soon graduate into an unsure world and take their place in an Army in the midst of transition as it shifts to smaller forces that can deploy quickly anywhere in the world. These forces must be led by officers with character and courage. A few weeks later at the end-of-the-year military formal, Sneed is solemn as he looks over the graduating class of cadets. “You graduating seniors, before long you’ll be in harm’s way,” he says, turning his gaze to the younger cadets, too, to Sherwin and Weyrauch and their classmates. “We’ve trained you to be mentally and physically tough. But it’s the battles inside you have to win.”
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