Catholics everywhere have an obligation to attend Sunday Mass, but how can they do this in a military setting? Cadets of 6th Regiment, Advanced Camp, specifically the Catholic Cadets, were in luck when there was a field Mass held at Densburger Base Camp on July 11, 2021 during their refit from rigorous field training exercises. Field Mass is not necessarily an uncommon occurrence, however this one stood out because of its host: Bishop Richard Spencer. Bishop Spencer is a highly recognized member of the Church, who has traveled across the country and world doing religious work, meeting the Pope and various [...]

It started around 3:30 am on July 12, 2021. The Cadets of 6th Regiment, Advanced Camp took position in the middle of the deep woods and got to work planning. Treating their Field Training Exercise as if it was a real mission, stealth was a priority. Whispers, red lights, and crawling through mud were the norm at Fort Knox, KY’s Panther Phase. Most apparent however, was the waiting. After the planning started, most of 1st Platoon, C Company stayed mostly still for hours. They would secure a well-fortified perimeter, then would lay vigilant on the ground, despite rain and bugs all [...]

Being an Army officer requires a person to devote themselves to the tasks at hand, both physically and mentally. To do this requires more than just will; it requires confidence. Cadets of 7th Regiment put themselves to the test on July 8, 2021, in the Confidence Course: a set of eight obstacles in the woods of Fort Knox, KY. The obstacles were designed to force Cadets to learn to manipulate their bodies in difficult and unconventional ways to prepare them to navigate an unforeseen environment. But more than this, completion of the Confidence Course would get these Cadets to question what [...]

On an unpredictable battlefield, only nine seconds, and a good set of gear, can be the difference between mild irritation and suffocation. This was taught to Cadets of 7th Regiment, Advanced Camp through an uncomfortably hands-on method on July 7, 2021, during their Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear training, or CBRN, at Fort Knox, KY. After being given extensive lessons on their JSLIST (Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology) suits, a set of protective clothing to wear over their uniforms, as well as the M50 Protective Masks, Cadets formed lines and charged into a small, unventilated concrete building in the woods. [...]

For millennia, humans have navigated the world using the stars and maps. Unfortunately, most people nowadays can’t find their own home without using their cellphones or some other form of assisted navigation. While many have lost or abandoned this ancestral ability, the art and talent of navigating using traditional means remains an important part of being a Soldier.  “It is a very important skill because we can’t rely too much on technology,” said Gabriel Cordero-Velasquez, a Cadet from the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez. “We’re not always going to have technology there to assist us.” Cadet Summer Training prepares Cadets to [...]

Only ten days into Basic Camp, and 1st Regiment is beginning to adapt to life in the Army. It’s tough, but they are not alone. On July 5, 2021, 1st Regiment took their introduction to the Army Combat Fitness Test, or ACFT. The ACFT is the Army’s new physical fitness assessment to determine a person’s general readiness for combat. It consists of six parts: deadlifts, hand-release pushups, a sprint-drag-carry, power throws, leg tucks, and finally a two-mile run. This training created a stage to display a large part of life in the Army, which is the support and bonding from peers [...]

Imagine the tension of hanging in a roller coaster car during that slight pause at the top of the first vertical drop, anticipating the ride down. This is similar to what the Cadets of 6th Regiment, Advanced Camp experienced today on July 3, 2021, except there was no car, and they were hanging by a rope with their legs supporting them against a flat wall before jumping off and rappelling 64-feet down. The rappel tower is meant to push Cadets to overcome their fears, and to build up trust in their gear and procedures. The stakes felt high, but these Cadets [...]

When the Cadets of 8th Regiment, Advanced Camp, arrived to the Warrior Skills training site on Thursday, July 1, the excitement could be felt in the air. Smiling faces bounced around scouting every inch of the green military tents in the distance. For the Cadets, Warrior Skills is the first hands-on training event of their Cadet Summer Training, and the place where they learned to save lives and provide indirect fire support for ground troops. Cadets started the event by receiving a mandatory safety brief from the Cadre staff and later split into platoons to challenge the Call for Fire lane [...]

On April 22, 1915, German troops wrote a gruesome new chapter in the book of modern warfare with the deployment of poison gas on the unsuspecting Allied troops defending Ypres, Belgium. Since then, the use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons became widespread among nations and have been used as recent as the 1990s when Iraqi forces deployed Nerve Agents and CS Gas against its own population to control a popular uprising. To prevent a repeat of the Ypres attack, the U.S. Military developed the Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP) and trained its troops in the effective reaction against the [...]

First there was the silence of aiming. Next the first couple gunshots of the eager. Eventually, the shots cascaded from the lined-up Cadets so fast that it sounded reminiscent of the opening drum solo of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher.” Although it sounds like fun, 6th Regiment, Advanced Camp’s Weapons Group Zero training was a serious event that demanded intense concentration. Each Platoon took a prone-supported position on a shooting range at Fort Knox, KY, and fired volleys of five rounds from their M4 rifles at a target approximately twenty-five meters away. The goal: grouping their shots together, and adjusting their [...]

The moon was still bright in the sky on July 1st, 2021, when the Cadets of 6th Regiment, Advanced Camp were already gathering outside to put their bodies to the Army’s test. Not so much the crack of dawn, but rather in the middle of the night, platoons marched in perfect formation, flags flying, ready to give their all to the ACFT. The ACFT, or Army Combat Fitness Test, is the Army’s new test administered universally to Soldiers and Cadets alike to assess their general readiness for combat situations. The six assessments are deadlifts, power throws, hand-release pushups, a sprint-drag-carry, hanging [...]

Army ROTC prides itself on finding the best and brightest students in the country, but this mission cannot be accomplished without proper mentorship at the university level. “I think that there is a danger in academia of having a nose buried in the book,” said Kelby Woodard, Headmaster of Saint Thomas Academy. “I think seeing how it actually is done on the ground, in action, is really important, for academia in particular, or else they get out of touch.” Woodard, along with a handful of other faculty members of various schools and universities, was chosen to visit Cadet Summer Training at [...]

“Trust is very important especially as a leader,” said Cadet Henry Mulli, a student at Loyola University Maryland. “You have to trust your subordinates especially when disseminating information so everybody knows what’s going on.”

“Gas! Gas! Gas!” yelled Cadre. Much like a boxer taking a surprise upper-cut, Cadets scrambled to react. They only had nine seconds to let technique take over. “It punches you in the face as soon as you take that mask off,” said Cadet Jakob Jasperson of Pittsburg State University, Kansas. “My face burns, almost instantly you start crying, and your nose, it just runs so fast … you start coughing, and you can’t control your breathing.” Cadets of 3rd Regiment Advanced Camp were trained to be ready for the worst on the morning of June 17th, 2021. CBRN (commonly pronounced “see-burn”) [...]

There is a lot that goes into being a warrior, and it isn’t always what you’d expect. This is what the Cadets of 5th Regiment Advanced Camp made apparent in their ‘Warrior Skills’ training. The two halves of Warrior Skills training are Call for Fire and Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TC3). Although not all Cadets are going into infantry service, these infantry skills are vital to becoming an officer. Call for Fire involves using radio communication to artillery positions. Cadets worked in pairs with their battle buddies to demonstrate their abilities. “What we’re doing here is getting the basics down, so that if we ever find [...]

“We spent all day at the range and that was pretty exhausting mentally and physically and then we had to stay up and pack our rucks,” said Cadet Jamar Carlisle, a student from at Georgia State University. “That kind of played a toll, but overall I think everybody is pretty excited to get this six-miler down.”

Just one week after their arrival at Fort Knox, KY, the Cadets of 4th Regiment, Advanced Camp marched to their hand grenade training on the sunny morning of June 14, 2021. Despite having been strangers when they got here, these Cadets had been spending almost every minute of every day together for the past week, and it showed in their behavior. No Cadet seemed out of place, and they used every minute of down time to make conversation. “Delta company, fourth platoon feels like family already,” said Cadet Liberty Henson from the University of Central Florida. “At first it was kind of [...]

“It burns,” said Ampofo. “It feels like cooking peppers and onions and a whole bunch of spices and stuff, like spicy siracha basically.”

“In those moments you have those negative thoughts, but in the end, I kept telling myself that I can do this," said Hoyle. "This is only the beginning of a long path, a long journey that I can continue if I’m willing to push forward and keep going and not give up.”

By: Amy Turner and Kyle Crawford Fort Knox KY — Despite an unprecedented past year and a half, Cadet Summer Training (CST) is well underway training future U.S. Army officers. COVID-19 precautions have been put into place such as requiring Cadets to wear masks for a 10-day monitoring period. Cadets will also be tested upon their arrival to Fort Knox. Before exiting the 10-day monitoring period, pool testing methods are used. Pool testing is a method that tests various Cadets from groups composed of the people that interact most closely together. If a certain group has multiple people testing positive then [...]

“This is a calm, steady environment for them to be able to shoot calmly, get their weapons zeroed and be able to confirm their zeros so that whenever they are in a war fighting situation they don’t have to worry about shooting and missing the target,” said Tucker.

“I think getting woken up by our cadre at 3 am definitely gets my adrenaline pumping and it gets me ready for the day,” said Cadet Lindsay Martz, a student at Edinboro University from Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania.

“The Confidence Course, also known as the obstacle course, is just an opportunity for the Cadets to negotiate different obstacles to build confidence with themselves, to build camaraderie, to build team work and to overcome some fears that one would normally associate with heights,” said Sgt. 1st Class Obie Carswell. He is the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) for the Confidence Course and an instructor for MSII and MSIII classes at Vanderbilt University, assigned to 7th Brigade Cadet Command.

Every Summer, thousands of Cadets come from all over the nation to attend Cadet Summer Training (CST) in Fort Knox, Ky. Ensuring the safety of those Cadets is the number one priority for US Army Cadet Command (USACC).  That is why Army medical personnel and local emergency first responders worked together to make certain that if an injury or incident occurs, they can respond to the situation in a timely and efficient manner.  On June 2nd, 2021 emergency first responders and Army medical personnel, who are known as Task Force (TF) Med, conducted the first Casualty Evacuation (CASEVAC) joint training exercise [...]

“The Cadets are expected to learn how to properly grip the grenade depending on if they are left or right handed,” said Douglas. “Correctly employ the grenade in the correct form. Today we went over prone to kneeling and kneeling to standing.”