Boots on the Ground: The Long March Ahead

For the entire project including stories and photos, visit the Boots on the Ground web page. 

ROTC cadets from schools across Southern California, including UCLA, completed a four-day Leadership Development Exercise at the Marine Corps Base in Camp Pendleton earlier this April. Apart from being assessed on how well they executed military tactics and displayed physical endurance, the Bruin Battalion was also evaluated on how well they utilized their interpersonal skills and showed empathy as leaders. These future members of the United States Army are actively being taught to wield diplomacy with the same skill as an assault rifle.

TRANSCRIPT:

ALARKON: What does it mean to be a leader? For the Bruin Battalion, it means taking charge of a situation, even when it’s frighteningly real.

ALARKON: A cadet drops to the ground, clutching her thigh. Thankfully, there’s no blood because she’s only posing as a wounded civilian, while other cadets attempt to get her medical care.

ALARKON: Here at Camp Pendleton, ROTC cadets are busy completing missions like this one, where their objective is to find a high value target in a small but hostile town. They’re forced to react in real time both to enemy forces and civilians while tending to injuries and fatalities.

ALARKON: There’s a lot of role playing and cadets are running high on adrenaline while instructors coolly assess their performance on the side.

MAGGIO: From what I saw they did good. It was designed for chaos and chaos is what ensued.

ALARKON: That’s Sergeant First Class August Maggio.

MAGGIO: A lot of the cadets stepped up if the leadership failed or wasn’t acting. I think they learned over the past two days what is expected of them because they are gonna be the future leaders of the military. They have to get accustomed to that, not always having it spoonfed to them. Kind of, here’s some info, fill in the blanks, make it happen by this time, period. If they don’t then they’re gonna get the motivation sticks again and we get them moving.

ALARKON: He’s wearing a tactical vest which carries smoke canisters and a number of what are referred to as “motivation sticks.”

MAGGIO: A motivation stick would either be a grenade simulator or an RE simulator. Just to make them speed up a little bit. Every once in awhile I gotta motivate them up. They like it, no matter how much they think they don’t.

ALARKON: The success of these missions, according to First Lieutenant Natasha Ikejiri, relies on two key things.

IKEJIRI: Communication and teamwork. I think a lot of them wanted to do the cool jobs and they neglected their own jobs. It’s kind of a mess but it’s perfect because it’s gonna simulate what it’s actually like in combat.

ALARKON: It’s the first time many of these cadets have worked together outside of the classroom. Despite the labs they’ve been to, nothing’s a better learning experience than being out in the field. Officer Trainer Mentor Kyle Johnson, a politics student at Pepperdine University, provided some feedback after a platoon of cadets responded poorly to one of many ambushes.

JOHNSON: They need to figure out how to work with each other more effectively. We’re going through what’s called a battle drill. A battle drill is standard standard throughout the army. This is definitely a learning experience. I can’t hold that against them because it is their first time ever doing this. For some of them it’s their first time holding a weapon.

ALARKON: While there’s a strong focus on military tactics, there’s an even stronger emphasis placed on cadets flexing their diplomatic muscles. They’re given missions in which they have to develop rapport with potentially hostile forces. Officer Trainer Mentor Stephen Ferrer, who studies kinesiology at CSUN, says such forces determine whether cadets achieve their objectives.

FERRER: The mission of the platoon was to visit the village and conduct a Key Leader Engagement in order for them to gain some information on high value targets that are in the area, and gain information on the infrastructure, the economy–anything this village needs because their mission right now is to win the hearts and minds of their sector, of their area of operation.

ALARKON: Officer Trainer Mentor Gerardo Lopez, a sociology student at UCLA, says it’s one of the ways the army is becoming more culturally adaptable.

LOPEZ: We have to be willing to be open to different cultures, different ideas, different perceptions, you know, because we’re in different countries. We come to these countries and we don’t know much.

ALARKON: Master Sergeant Paul de Lemos elaborates.

DE LEMOS: That’s why there’s an emphasis on it here with these cadets because they will be platoon leaders. They will be the ones that are making those key leader engagements. They’ll be doing them daily, sometimes twice daily. A simple half hour meeting over some tea and talking a little bit of business with a police chief, that’s a KLE. So that they know that hey, we got your back and you got our back. That’s what it’s all about.

ALARKON: He says it’s important for cadets to learn a less heavy-handed approach because the future of the army rests with them.

DE LEMOS: It’s very easy to go in somewhere, cause a lot of damage and leave. But then we don’t really help anything. The only way to make things better in these countries is to go in there, conduct the operations necessary to remove the problem but also empower them by engaging with those leaders and working hand in hand with them to rebuild their country in any way possible.

DE: LEMOS: Whether that means we do operations with them to capture more insurgents or we conduct operations with them to build a well or a school, it’s very vital that we meet with them. It shows the people from those countries that we do care. We’re not just coming in to break stuff and leave.

ALARKON: What do the future leaders of the United States Army look like? What draws them to this particular kind of public service?

ALARKON: For Cadet Conor McDonald, who studies political science and Russian studies at UCLA, it was as simple as seeing a UPS guy roll up to his house.

MCDONALD: Basically when I was a little kid, the UPS truck came and dropped off a package. I was so amazed that this big group of people can work together to create a system that can help everyone as much as the post office does.

ALARKON: As he lies in the dust, chin anchored against the butt of his assault rifle, he says being in ROTC just feels right.

MCDONALD: And it always has. I’ve known I’ve wanted to do this since I was a little kid. But honestly, no matter how much you get crapped upon in this program, I enjoy my time here. I feel like I’m doing a public service and it’s a fun one too. I’m great friends with everyone else here.

ALARKON: Similarly, Cadet Cheryl Zhu, a geography and geospatial information science student at UCLA, was drawn to ROTC for a sense of purpose, and she stayed for the people she met.

ZHU: They care about each other, they care about me. They help me a lot to get through difficult times and to help me become the person I am today because they encourage me to be better and more confident, and they challenge me.

ALARKON: On the other hand, Cadet Ashley Fairbanks, a communication studies (student) at UCLA, hopes to take the skills she learns from ROTC and apply it throughout her career in public service.

FAIRBANKS: One of my main goals after ROTC is either join LAPD or LAFD. After that my goal is to go into politics when I retire. After you’ve been into a soldier’s shoes, or a police officer’s shoes, or a fireman’s shoes, and you’re also an everyday person. You have that ability to grasp with all the knowledge you have and be like okay, this needs to be changed because this isn’t fair to our soldiers, this isn’t fair to our citizens, the shouldn’t be doing this. On the political level, you can make that happen.

ALARKON: Observer Trainer Mentor Timu Saari was instrumental in organizing LDX. He says the changes to the ROTC training program are designed to produce a new breed of soldiers.

SAARI: I think it focuses on a different sort of leader. We’re focused on character, not so much how fast you are or how many pushups can you do. Now those things are important, but there are so many more important things. I hope that these steps, as we go along, just do a better job to bring that sort of leader, who is adaptable, who is capable of relating to such a diverse world that is ever evolving.

ALARKON: Only time will tell if this shift in focus succeeds an actual conflict zone. For now, the rounds the cadets fire at each other are blank. At the end of each day, opposition forces remove their costumes and become friendly cadets again. Motivation sticks are just motivation sticks, and not life-threatening grenades. And in the morning, when they’re woken up before the sun, they’ll continue their march on the long road ahead.

ALARKON: For the Daily Bruin, I’m Katrina Alarkon.