FORT KNOX, Ky. — Today, Cadet Summer Training is renowned as the Army’s largest annual training event, bringing over 10,000 ROTC cadets to Fort Knox each summer as part of their commissioning journey.
The first unified CST was conducted by U.S. Army Cadet Command at Fort Knox, Kentucky in the summer of 2015. According to USACC officials, the summer program steadily contributes to the annual commissioning of over 5,000 cadets.
But how did it become such a large initiative?
Did you know: The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps was so well-respected by the Korean war that the Army decided to rely on ROTC rather than Officer Candidate School (OCS) to ensure junior officers met training standards for the war.
According to USACC officials, though ROTC wasn’t officially activated until 1916 and CST didn’t come into play until much later, the program began nearly a hundred years earlier as a simple idea from Capt. Alden Partridge, a former superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. The idea was to provide military training to civilians attending an institution of higher learning. The benefits to these individuals and the military were mutual – the military would have a reservoir of trained military leaders at the ready when needed; when not needed, the men would be free to pursue their civilian careers.
“It was really a worthwhile investment,” said Dr. Leo Daugherty, USACC historian. “The Army had the means of training a vast amount of officers in case of mobilization, and it has produced some of the finest combat officers this country has seen.”
According to Daugherty, Partridge’s vision remained the foundation for ROTC training, but the initiative has seen many upgrades during its long history: one of the most important being the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Vitalization Act of 1964.
Daugherty said the Act introduced a supplemental two-year contract that closely resembles modern curriculum as well as the idea of a summer camp. This closed the training gap for those unable to complete Basic Camp during the academic year by allowing them to attend a six-week version during the summer prior to their third Military Science year.
At the time cadets were participating in summer training at several different locations under many independent programs. Daugherty said it was later, when USACC moved to Fort Knox, that the program would transition to the modern-day CST.
“This really is the cradle of real evolution for ROTC training,” said Daugherty. “It was the evolution toward Basic Camp and Advanced Camp that really modernized the training of a young officer. Now it's evolved into what I would call a first-class training program for 76% of the Army's officers.”
Did you know: Charles Lindbergh – an aviator famed for being the first to make a solo transatlantic flight – trained at Fort Knox during summer Basic Camp in the 1920s as an ROTC cadet. Officials say he rode his motorcycle to post to attend camp before he flew across the Atlantic.
According to Daugherty, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Smith, commanding general of USACC from 2012 to 2014, said that with the departure of the Armor Center and School from Fort Knox to Fort Benning and the consolidation of USACC, modern training facilities and barracks would be available for summer training. This meant that, “Cadets will be the focus at Fort Knox.”
Summer training programs that were once separate – Leaders Training Course (LTC), Leaders Development Assessment Course (LDAC), Officer Candidate School (OCS) and Direct Commissioning Course – were consolidated to the one location and renamed the Cadet Initial Training Course (CITC).
The vision for this adapted program was simple: an emphasis on squad and individual training experience.
“We take a kid out of a college environment, and we give them a challenge,” said Daugherty. “We have to make it so challenging that the kids are going to want it, and that really is the distinguishing factor in the history of ROTC and CST training.”
The 2014 summer training centered around the Peer-to-Peer Connection (PoP) model, which allowed cadets to work in direct roles with their lieutenants and drill sergeants. Officials said this served as a pseudo-pilot for the newly synthesized and revised Cadet Summer Training that was introduced and executed at Fort Knox for the first time in 2015.
The program has been conducted annually since then.
Core competencies for CST include the Warrior Ethos and Army Values, tactical skills, land navigation, chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear (CBRN) and first aid training, marksmanship, drill and ceremony, physical fitness and resiliency, and field and situational training exercises.
“[CST] gives young cadets who are going to be future Army officers a very good foundation for what they're going to receive at Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) and throughout their career,” said Daugherty. “In the Army, we start the process right here.”
Over the years, officials say the summer curriculum has continued to adapt, adding subprograms and providing opportunities to attend military badge producing schools that provide cadets an additional leg up upon commissioning. Some of these programs include the Nurse Summer Training Program, Cadet Leader Training, Cadet Advanced Individual Training and various cadet internships.
While most adaptations have been made to advance lethality and readiness, some were made out of necessity. Where originally the purpose of CST was to consolidate training to a centralized location, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 forced cadre to execute training across a vast platform of major installations to ensure social distancing.
Rather than having one large training event for basic and advanced camps during the summer, according to Daugherty, the cadets completed two smaller-scale field exercises – one in the fall and one in the spring.
Additionally, cadets that were unable to complete on-campus training were afforded the opportunity to complete a two-week leadership field training exercise and warrior tasks course to close the gap in field competencies. Upon their return to combined training at Fort Knox in 2021, cadets and supporting personnel were required to continue wearing masks and practice social distancing.
Post-COVID, leadership continues to strive for adaptation and modernization within the summer program.
The Night Infiltration Course, for example, made its way back to Basic Camp in 2022 for CST cadets: the first time the course has been used at Fort Knox since 2010.
Also, according to Daugherty, a conversation with previous Commanding General of U.S. Army Cadet Command Maj. Gen. (ret.) Antonio Munera about Unmanned Aeriel System (UAS) scenarios led to its inclusion in field training in CST 2024.
“You should have seen his eyes when I mentioned the word drones,” said Daugherty. “He said, ‘Leo, I want you to get with CST and come up with an idea so we can have a field problem with drones,’ … so, we did.
“You see, he was adapting; and that's really what all of our commanding generals have done over the years.”
Today, CST consists of two military training camps – basic and advanced – taking place over 100 days between school years, and it is set to provide ROTC cadets with a foundation of proficiencies for their future careers.
Editor’s Note: The historic information contained in this article was provided by U.S. Army Cadet Command.
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