After the hours of planning and rehear... VIEW ORIGINAL
WEST POINT, N.Y. (July 27, 2012) -- The mission didn't end well. An unguarded flank, extensive casualties and improvised explosive devices left undetected all amounted to a less-than-successful beginning to the field training exercise for one platoon.
It's all by design, however.
The FTX--72 hours of continuous operations in and around Camp Buckner--makes up the culminating event of Cadet Field Training for the Class of 2015. After four weeks absorbing huge amounts of military instruction--everything from artillery and marksmanship training to IED interdiction, urban operations and land navigation--cadets are tasked with applying these skills at the FTX.
By all accounts, it's mentally and physically exhausting, and the missions rotate from repelling an ambush, reconnaissance in force, clearing a weapons cache and conducting a raid.
The opposition force, comprised mostly of recent West Point graduates, added stress to the situations requiring cadets to either act more decisively or further test their ability to effectively react and adapt to uncertainty on the battlefield. Lane walkers observe all the action and are quick to point out mistakes and demonstrate corrective actions.
Standards are consistently high, but field training is not designed to make Rangers out of these cadets, said Class of 2013 Cadet Justen Anka, the CFT Regiment commander.
"They're getting a lot of tactical training, but what we really want to see out of them is leader development," Anka said. "The yearlings can really see what leadership looks like in a field environment because they're directly involved in it."
Every CFT training site is incorporated into the exercise, and while they may not be completely proficient at everything, the results are often impressive.
"We don't expect them to retain all this information, but we'll see a team come together having never touched a certain weapon before, but the eight of them can manage to assemble it perfectly," Anka said. "Actually, one team beat the artillery time standard by 30 seconds and never had worked with the gun before today."
The FTX is non-stop from the start, Anka said.
"Absolutely non-stop. Probably the best part of it is they don't know what they'll be doing for the three days," Anka said. "When they went out there they knew a point in the forest they had to get to and nothing else. From then on, information is passed down to them and they execute the missions. They're literally on their toes the whole time because the missions never stop."
Class of 2013 Cadet Brian Cobbs, the platoon leader for 2nd Company, 2nd Platoon, said each mission is preceded by a planning, rehearsal and briefing phase.
"It's important to get every element in line before going on a mission," he said. "The briefings will cover everything from beginning to end, like movements, recon and pretty much every action."
Cobbs said he developed a better understanding of practicing tactical patience in situations of extreme duress. It was a learning experience all the way through, he said, from interacting with fellow platoon leaders to developing rapport among the troops.
"It was also important to tune in to your platoon and really learn who your Soldiers are and what makes them go," Cobbs said. "We developed a high morale and company spirit, so we always want to do our best and be the best in everything we do."
More about Cadet Field Training:
• There are 263 members of the Cadet Field Training cadre, comprised of upperclass cadets who trained two weeks prior to CFT in the Leader Training Program.
• The cadre adopted the name Task Force Runkle in honor of 1st Lt. John M. Runkle Jr., a Class of 2009 graduate, who was killed in action May 26, 2011, when his unit was struck by an improvised explosive device in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. He served with the 4th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, based at Fort Campbell, Ky. Members of the Runkle family will be in attendance at the CFT Awards Ceremony at Camp Buckner today.
• Supporting the LTP and CFT training this summer is a task force from 3rd Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, from Fort Polk, La.
• The Class of 2015 and cadet cadre are not the only ones to participate in Cadet Field Training. This summer, 18 midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy are part of the training, as well as 69 ROTC cadets from universities and colleges nationwide and 24 international cadets from Brazil, Chile and Taiwan, to name a few.
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