EHS, CU ROTC programs team up for joint exercises

They came running out of the woods yelling, “Attack! Attack! Attack!” and were greeted with shouts of “Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

All the ruckus was the first of several planned joint exercises between Eisenhower High School’s (EHS) and Cameron University’s ROTC programs. The “attackers” were members of the CU program who were playing the roles of the enemy. EHS JROTC members, who were paired up with CU cadets, returned “fire.”

CU Senior Military Instructor Master Sgt. Henry Pettigrew explained why members of both programs were skulking around the woods at Cameron University on a recent Fall morning.

“We are trying to bridge the gap between their program and our program,” he said. “We want to show them what we do if they want to take the next step.

“We want to show them the type of training they will need if they want to be a commissioned officer. They have to be good in tactics and good in leadership decisions. We put them in a realistic situation to pull these leadership characteristics out of them. Leadership is more important than the tactical side of the house to be an officer. That is your bread and butter.”

Steven Hall, EHS instructor, said the joint exercise shows his students what the ROTC program looks like at the collegiate level.

“They see everything the instructor has been telling them is true,” Hall said. “Anything is possible. It shows them the opportunities open to them.”

An important part of the program was pairing EHS and CU students “so they can pick their brains,” Hall said.

Students first did a slow walk-through of the exercise while CU leaders explained the objective. Garth Carey, from CU, described a recent mission as Movement into Contact training.

“The enemy is in the area and we don’t know where they are, but we hope we run into them,” he said before all the “shooting” broke out. “We will walk in the general direction of where the enemy might be and hope we see the enemy first. Then we will try to engage. We do a walk-through to get everyone familiar with the concept, which is usually done in dense foliage.”

EHS JROTC Cadet Capt. Jessie Bush and her Cameron counterpart Cadet Alex King were taken by surprise when the “enemy” came bursting out of the woods.

“It’s fun,” Bush said as she lay on the ground cradling a dummy gun in her arms and yelling “bang” at the enemy. “I’ve already stepped on a grenade (which in reality was a golf ball). I didn’t see it. Technically, I’m dead. I kinda feel like a possum playing dead.”

Bush said she was startled when cadets burst out of the bushes in front of her on the attack.

“I don’t think I killed anyone today,” she said. “I don’t have good aim or arm strength. I need to work on that.”

She also was rueful that she didn’t have a belt for her canteen.

“It’s wobbling around my leg and is very annoying,” she said. “Too bad I didn’t bring sunscreen.”

Bush said she is considering joining the Army Reserves and wants to enroll in the Cameron ROTC program. Eventually, she would like to be a tattoo artist and own her own studio.

“This will help me be a leader and be a teammate,” she said of her JROTC training, where she is learning how to work with money and communicate with a team.

EHS Cadet Sgt. Maj. Gavin Mielke agreed with Bush’s assessment of the exercise.

“It’s been pretty fun,” he said. “It’s fun to hang out with people more experienced than me.”

Mielke was taking advantage of the opportunity to interact with the Cameron cadets. He expressed interest in what CU offers and what technical fields he could go into, especially information technology.

Meanwhile, he was enjoying being out in the field.

“I wasn’t expecting to be given a dummy rifle and be running around like this,” he said. Unlike his fellow cadet Bush, he had not stepped on a grenade. “To my knowledge, I should still be alive.”

Hall said he was pleased by the joint exercise and is planning more with Cameron.

“It’s going to make our program better,” he said.