Junior Reserve Officer Training cadets use camp to build leadership, teamwork skills

      More than five hundred Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) Cadets from 44 high schools streamed into Fort McCoy Saturday, June 19 as the Cadet Leadership Challenge Camp operated by the Chicago Public Schools and the U.S. Army Cadet Command began its training week.

Col. Kevin Kelley, JROTC camp commandant, addresses cadets and emphasizes safety for their Cadet Leadership Challenge Camp.  (Contributed photo)

      The camp is one of many operated around the country to give high school cadets the opportunity for some unique training while building their leadership and teamwork skills.

      About 75 high school instructors, most of them military retirees, a dozen college ROTC cadets, and a sprinkling of Army Reserve and National Guard members were here as well to conduct training and supervise the cadets.

      Camp Commandant Col. Kevin Kelley said he looked forward to an outstanding experience for the cadets as he welcomed them to the camp in a formation of all the cadets Saturday evening. Kelley is the Senior Army Instructor at Clemente High School.

      Command Sgt. Maj. Lloyd McKinney from Phoenix High School, the camp command sergeant major, also welcomed the cadets, and like Kelley, he emphasized safety first in training.

A JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge Camp cadet rappels from the 34-foot tower at Fort McCoy. (Contributed photo)

      Cadets at the JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge Camp participated in a full week of training activities that tested their physical fitness and challenged their self-confidence. At the end of that time, those who tried to do their best were able to take pride in accomplishing things that most young people never get to do.

      Some training events for the week were:

      Conditioning Course:  Cadets find out how  good of shape they are in by using this course. They go over, around, under, or through a series of obstacles with strength, balance, agility and speed to come out on top in this event. But even if they don't finish first, the cadets still have a chance to challenge themselves and find out how good they are.

      Confidence Course:  Life is full of obstacles, and in order to make it through,  the cadets need self-confidence. Part of that comes from telling themselves they can do things that are pretty tough. At the Cadet Leadership Challenge Camp, they can do even better - on the Confidence Course, they faced a variety of obstacles and challenges.  As they worked their way through them, the cadets got to know themselves better and became more confident in their friends and themselves.

      Land Navigation:  Ensures the cadets don't  get lost in the woods. For this event, the cadets received instruction in the morning on map reading and the use of the compass.          Then, they went to the land navigation course in the afternoon, and were able to hit all their checkpoints and make it to the finish.  

      Airborne Tower:  Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?         Well, it's a definite rush to get those few seconds of free fall, and it certainly tests a cadet's courage.

      Okay, so maybe they couldn't do that, but the next best thing is right here - the Airborne Tower.  The cadets learned some of the fundamentals of airborne troopers as they put on and checked their harness, practiced going out of the door of an airplane, and then put it all together on the airborne tower. Cadets didn't have to worry about falling. The cable attached to them caught them and gave them a fast, exciting ride.

      Rappelling: Cadets learned how to properly rig themselves to come down from a tower or a helicopter quickly by sliding down a rope. 

      They started out  with an easy height, just 12 feet, and then worked up to the 34-foot tower, or for the truly daring, the 50-foot tower. Of course, the trainers for this event have gotten out and carefully checked the ropes. They also do everything they can to make this a very safe event.

      Survival and Water Survival: Personnel training outdoors never  know when they're going to end up lost in the woods, or perhaps fall into a lake. Just in case, it would be good to know what to do to keep yourself alive and healthy. There's more to eat than just berries, and there are some ways to give yourself a better chance in the water. These classes showed cadets how it's done.

      Marching and Drill:  As cadets found out, there was some marching and drilling during the camp.

      Cadets  took advantage of the training and learned some new cadence calls. Cadets can show off their knowledge to the other cadets when they go back to their  high schools.

      Math and Science:  The United States always needs people with sharp technical skills, and especially those in math and science. No big surprise - those things are important in school too.

      So, part of the training at Fort McCoy included math and science. The cadets received basic instruction and then worked on some projects that take advantage of the principles they learned.

(Submitted by JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge Camp).