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Cadre member serves as Cadet advocate in new role

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By Thomas Gounley
Staff writer

Lt. Col. Richard Ruffin might be best viewed as proof that Cadets at the Leader’s Training Course have a little more power over things than they might originally think.

“It went up the chain, they told us to give them their cell phones back and so they got their cell phones back” said Sgt. 1st Class George Reitz, a drill sergeant with Charlie Company.

Although Cadets in Charlie and Delta companies were originally just allowed to use their cell phones at night on certain days, a recent decision by course commanders made it so they had access to them each night, as Alpha and Bravo Cadets originally did. Ruffin, a quality assurance officer at LTC who serves as the go-between Cadets and course leadership when it comes to their requests, relayed the cell phone complaints.

“That’s a typical example of the process,” Ruffin said of the decision.

Lt. Col. Richard Ruffin talks to Pfc. Andrew Gowen, a medic, about Cadet injuries out at the squad tactical exercise. It is Ruffin's first year at LTC, where he is serving as the quality assurance officer. Photo by Bobby Ellis/LTC PAO

As part of his role, Ruffin meets with Cadets from all companies several times to solicit feedback, and goes to training sites to observe them in action. As the final companies enter the graduation stage, he is trying to determine what could be improved about the course in upcoming years.

“We just collect feedback through a formal process,” he said.

On Tuesday, Ruffin met in small groups with Charlie Cadets as they prepared for their out-briefing that afternoon. Cadets completed a survey on their training, and then Ruffin talked to them about common complaints, from the number of washers and dryers in the barracks (too few) to the intensity of physical training (not hard enough) to frustrating equipment failures.

While he collects the data, Ruffin emphasizes that he doesn’t make the final call.

“Once the command gets the feedback, they make the decision,” he said.

This is his first year working as part of LTC after spending six consecutive summers at the Leader Development and Assessment Course at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., the latest step in a long Army career. Ruffin completed ROTC at Alabama A&M University and joined the Army after graduating in 1979. He served on active duty as an ordnance logistics officer for 21 years, then returned to his alma mater to work with the ROTC program as a contractor.

By surveying all the LTC companies both at the beginning and at the end, Ruffin is in a unique position to see how their perspectives change.

“We’re the ones who find out what’s really happening,” he said.

Notably, Ruffin said many Cadets already planned on contracting when they came to Fort Knox, unlike past years, when many decided to contract midway through the course. It’s a change he attributed to the smaller field of attendees at LTC this year.

“When they came here, they were dead set on contracting,” he said. “The schools are sending people that want to do this.”

Ruffin, who refers to himself as a “regular guy,” has racked up 30 years of service with the Army, as well as 30 years with his wife at Huntsville.

“My claim to fame is simple consistency,” he said.

 

Like them or not, MREs provide much-needed fuel

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By Caitlin VanOverberghe
Staff writer 

Being of Italian and Mexican heritage, Charlie Cadet Michael LaPorta grew up with a love of good food.

“It’s like the best of both worlds,” he said. “I’m spoiled when it comes to food.”
Every morning, he wakes up to breakfast prepared by his grandmother. For lunch, it’s his mother’s leftovers – usually a pasta dish of some sort. Sometimes, he gets lucky after a family party and finds bevy of enchiladas and tamales.

But since coming to the Leader’s Training Course, the Cadet from King’s College in Pennsylvania has had to say good-bye, at least briefly, to his grandma’s pancakes and hello to MREs.

Alpha Company Cadet Brian McKenna eats an MRE during a break at squad tactics training. Photo by Bobby Ellis/LTC PAO

Meals ready-to-eat, or MREs, are packaged meals consisting of an entrée, snack foods, deserts and a beverage mix. The meals contain close to 2,000 calories and are lovingly called “bags of fake food” by Cadets.
“I came across a spaghetti and a wanna-be Mexican food,” LaPorta said. “It was pretty bad. If my grandmother would have seen it, she would have been like, ‘Michael, what are you doing eating this?’ ”
Maj. Mark Reed, LTC’s chief planner, said MREs are convenient meals in a training environment.
“You can put one in your rucksack and whether you start early or you start late, or you’re out in the middle of the woods or you’re back in the barracks, your lunch is in your pocket,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s 40 degrees or 100 degrees outside, they aren’t going to spoil.”
Along with their convenience, Reed said MREs are designed to provide a Soldier with the right calories, vitamins and nutrients that they need for a day. Many will snack on the MRE through out the day, rather than sitting down and eating it all at one time.
Charlie Company Cadet Grey Passmore of New Mexico Military Institute said MREs could be a Cadets’ best friend or worst enemy. Over time, Cadets have learned which items are delictable and which are not.
“Don’t drink the milkshake, the gum is laxatives, the cheese spread will give you constipation and the spicy cheese bread is absolutely disgusting,” Passmore rattled off.
The snack items that accompany the meals are favorites among Cadets. LaPorta admitted that sometimes he doesn’t even eat the entrée.
By the time training reaches its peak, Reed said Cadets consume MREs for at least one of their three meals during the day.
“They are given a hot meal for breakfast and dinner,” he said. “They have more calories, so they won’t eat more than one (MRE) a day.”
Dining on MREs so often, Cadets quickly develop preferences.
“You can get something really bad and get a ton of deserts, or you can get something really good and no candy,” Passmore said.
He said the best meal he has received was chicken and dumplings. Describing it as “heaven on the tongue,” Passmore said it’s the perfect combination of entrée and snack ideas.
For Delta Cadet Stacy Fuller, from Central Washington University, the cheese ravioli has been her favorite. She’s had it twice, and also noted that it came with snack items including M&M’s, a chocolate power bar, chunky peanut butter and crackers.
While they may not contain the best food, the MREs can be of fun. When Cadets receive their meal packages the evening before, Passmore said he and his buddies sometimes open their meals the night before just to find out what they receive.
“We get in trouble for it the next day,” he said. “But it’s like Christmas morning for the military.”
Once they know what their meal contains, the trading begins.
“People trade MREs like it’s a Pokémon game,” Passmore said. “Peanut butter is probably the crack of LTC. People want peanut butter. If you have peanut butter, you have the power.”
Fuller shared that sentiment.
“Everyone likes a certain thing,” she said. “If you don’t like something or you’re not going to eat something, you can just give it to someone else.”
By the end of the course, Cadets are ready to head home for a real meal. LaPorta said he’s not only ready for his mother’s cooking again, he can’t wait to get back to his grandmother’s breakfasts.
“I told my mom that the first thing I want when I get back is a home-cooked meal,” Passmore said. “I miss my mom’s cooking so much.”

 

At land nav, officer shows creative flair

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Second Lt. Ian Kirst, who commissioned from Xavier University in Ohio, spent his first several weeks at LTC perfecting the land navigation sand table to be a mini-version of the land navigation course. To produce the mock-up, he even ventured onto the course to clip samples from trees to use as replicas of the real thing. Photo by Heather Cortright/ LTC PAO.

By Caitlin VanOverberghe
Staff writer

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Northern Kentucky University and commissioning from Xavier University, 2nd Lt. Ian Kirst never thought his first assignment as an Army officer would be more or less an “art project.”

When he came to the Leader’s Training Course to work as a cadre member, he figured to be a squad tactical officer or work one of the situational training exercise lanes. He was placed with the land navigation committee, and his first task was to create a sand table — a mock-up of the terrain at the site.

“Putting together the sand table was basically like a fifth-grade art project where you take a picture and lay a grid over it,  and do one grid at a time,” Kirst said. “Every day, I did something a little different.”

He spent one day laying out the grid he would follow. Another, he painted all the colors and laid out the roads. He built up mounds of sand to represent hills and created dips in the earth. He even lined its edge with Popsicle sticks to signify engineer tape cadre use to show to border the actual course.

In total, the sand table measures 18 feet by 18 feet and was built atop a flat surface at the land navigation site. Usually, it is destroyed after each LTC ends and a new one created at the start of each year. But this year, Kirst’s creation will live an extended life so Reserve unit that will use the site for their training in the next few months.

For years, sand tables have been used to assist in military planning. By duplicating a map or area, Soldiers are given the ability to see a terrain up close before encountering it.

The sand table at the LTC land navigation site helps Cadets do much the same thing. Rather than pointing to every individual’s map, Kirst could show Cadets certain points using the miniature version.

“It was great so the Cadets could really relate to what they were getting into,” said Lt. Col. Michael Wise, the land navigation chief who gave Kirst the model assignment. “They could see the severity of some of the inclines and hills and water areas.”

Kirst worked nearly 14 hours total on the project, changing things almost every day to the point that the model looked completely different at the end from when he was first given the assignment.

He has been told by those who have worked at LTC before that the sand table he produced is the most detailed the course has seen.

“I look at it and know that I could do better,” Kirst said. “But all it is is attention to detail. You just look at things on the map and copy them. It’s not hard to do, it’s just tedious.”

While he’s always been artistic, he had never pursued the skill in any way. Kirst had done similar models before, but nothing of this scale.

“At LDAC (Leader Development and Assessment Course), I did terrain kits for the STX (squad tactical exercise) lanes and I tried to replicate the terrain out there as best I could,” he said. “Those were much smaller and much more simplistic. This was much more in-depth.”

Working at the site has help Kirst hone his own land navigation skills.

“When you teach something, you learn it better yourself,” he said. “Working at a land nav course always improves your abilities. It just reinforces what you already know.”

Communication with family in Germany difficult

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By Sara Nahrwold
Staff writer 

By the light of his red flashlight, Charlie Company Cadet Trenton Floyd uses the hour he has in the evening at the Leader’s Training Course to write a letter to his parents.

“I haven’t gotten to talk to them on the phone since I’ve been here,” the Georgia Military College student said. “I’ve written two letters and gotten one letter back. That’s been my communication.”

Floyd’s parents live in Germany, which is six hours ahead of Fort Knox, making communication difficult for the LTC Cadet. His father recently retired from the Army and is there as a contractor. Floyd was born in Virginia, moved to Germany for three years, moved back to the United States for about six years and then moved back to Germany for the last nine years.

As he nears the end of LTC, he looks forward to reuniting with his family.

Charlie Company Cadet Trenton Floyd maneuvers the over-under objective on the obstacle course with last week. Photo by Heather Cortright/LTC PAO

“I just think about going back to see them again, and I just know there’s an end point to this,” said Floyd, whose company graduates Saturday. “It sort of feels like I’m distant because I don’t really know that many people, except for the people I met here.”

During in-processing, Floyd tried to set up a phone number and a phone but was not successful.

When mail is passed out, Floyd watches as his fellow Cadets receive mail, but not him. The last letter he sent was July 4, and he still hasn’t gotten one back.

“It makes me a little sad and that’s usually the time I take to think about what I’m going to write, asking people for stamps so I can send more letters out,” he said.

Another Cadet in his platoon is quite the opposite when it comes to communication.

“I get a lot of letters because my mom sends letters all the time,” said Charlie Company Cadet Aaron Gunn, of Wentworth Military College. “My girlfriend and her family, we are very close so they send letters. It’s the type of situation that even if I don’t write because I’m busy around here, I still get letters from them. They just want to make sure I’m still doing well and that I have something to look forward to.”

Gunn, who has gotten more than 20 letters, said that when the Cadets get mail, it’s a big deal to them, especially because they didn’t have access to phones for a portion of LTC.

“We all look forward to that time when we can call whoever we want, or just send a text,” he said. “For me, it is very helpful to communicate like that.”

Any communication at all is key for these Cadets to stay motivated throughout their time at LTC.

“You don’t have a lot of time here, but when you get the chance write a letter,” Gunn said. “Even if you don’t get one back, it’ll help you think that one of these days you’re going to get a letter back. You’re going to get that reply.”

Although his communication isn’t as much as he would like, Floyd said his family motivates him to finish LTC strong.
At the end of the summer, he will be going back to Germany for about a month before attending college — Georgia Military is a military junior college.

Not being able to call his family has been more difficult than Floyd expected.

“I thought I’d be able to contact my parents maybe once a week and get caught up on things, but it didn’t work out that way,” he said. “As long as I stay motivated and keep a good spirit about everything, I think that I can get through it.”

Floyd said being away from his family will help prepare him for a military career.

“I miss them, but I’m pushing through and I’m going to get some good training out of this,” he said. “I need to get ready for my life for when I am away from my family so it’s good practice.”

Cadets combine skills learned for final training

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Charlie Cadet LeQuell Allen, of Mississippi State University, takes cover and aims during his squad's successful assault of a bunker during the squad tactical exercise. Photo by Heather Cortright/LTC PAO

By Sara Nahrwold
Staff writer

Low-crawling through the woods with his paintball gun in hand and a fogged-up paintball mask covering his face, Charlie Company Cadet Ian Allard fired rounds at the enemy before quickly seeking cover behind a tree in the woods.

“I guess I went a little too far out, and they saw me and all of the sudden I hear ‘pop, pop, pop’ and hear the paintballs hit the tree behind me and I’m like, ‘I’m getting shot at,’ ” he said. “I hit the deck pretty quick.”

The squad tactical exercise is the capstone training event for the Leader’s Training Course. It combines skills they have used throughout their time at LTC, focusing on teamwork within squads.

“The mission of STX is to focus on the development of leadership in realistic scenarios,” said 2nd Lt. Andrew Martin who works in the exercises’ tactical operations center at the site near West Point, Ky. “It is to cultivate and bring out the leadership potential and evaluate and be able to foster and mentor the leadership of the Cadets.”

Moving through the woods and using the terrain as concealment, Charlie Company Cadet Patrick Brooks of Georgia Military College had a scare early on in the three days of training.

“There was a moment when I was kind of out in the open, and I was trying to get behind some cover and we started shooting and I thought, ‘If they were going to aim over here, I was pretty much an open target,’ ” Brooks said. “I got behind a tree, and I was good to go.”

There are 20 lanes total in the mock exercise, with each approximately 200 to 400 meters long. The mission for each is broken into three areas: planning, practicing and executing.

Bravo Cadets experienced a day of heat category 5 — when heat and humidity can be most damaging to the body — during their exercise, making fast friends with the countless mosquitoes in the woods. On one of the lanes, the scenario was to attack the enemy. What they didn’t know was that they would walk into an ambush.

The tactical lanes are meant to provide real-life scenarios for Cadets of experiences they could have in their future military careers.

“Our last mission was an attack from behind, and we weren’t expecting that at all,” said Rachel Blackmon, of North Carolina State University. “A couple people died in our security, and I was following one person around and I turn around and my whole team is dead.”

One of the major aspects of STX is teamwork with fellow squad members to execute the plan.

“Throughout LTC, we put them in a situation where they have to work together to achieve something,” Martin said. “We put them in these situations where they have to do problem-solving and not only does the leader have to be able to develop a plan, but also cultivate ideas from his peers to put in the plan.”

Each Cadet is put into a leadership role while at STX to give them experience at executing a mission under pressure — and in situations where lives can be at stake.

“In the beginning, when I was squad leader, I didn’t really know much about the process,” said Bravo Company Cadet Kevin Booker, of Wright State University. “The first sergeant helped me with that, and it kind of helped me figure out what I should do with planning out the mission and executing the mission and working well with my team members according to what we should do.”

The leadership roles at STX are opportunities for Cadets to realize their own leadership abilities. Cadets are put into the squad leader and team leader positions while at the lanes. The squad leader receives the mission and plans it according to what he or she thinks will work the best for the squad.

Each squad is broken into Alpha and Bravo teams. The team leader focuses on giving instructions to his or her team for carrying out the overall mission.

“It’s definitely a great opportunity for men and women to stand up and see what their potential really is and see that if they push themselves, they can go as far as they want to go,” Martin said. “What are we doing out here? We’re being leaders.”

The non-commissioned officers who helped the Cadets throughout their three days at STX had a strong influence on them with their previous combat experience playing a role. Many have been deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan and have experience dealing with similar attacks and ambushes.

“It was definitely a challenge because I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning, but with the first sergeant we definitely learned how to do it,” Booker said. “He has so much knowledge. Pretty much after the second or third one, we just learned and just kept progressing until we almost perfected it.”

STX is intense training for all three days in the woods. It’s meant to prepare Cadets for the Leader Development and Assessment Course, which they will participate in next summer at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.

“In a lot of ways, STX is more advanced than a lot of the people who have done the two years of ROTC,” Martin said. “These guys are getting three, solid hardcore days of STX lanes. We’ve taken two years and crunched it down to an intensive environment where we are demanding learning and giving as much information to these guys and putting a lot out there for them to grab up.”

After each lane is complete, a non-commissioned officer will conduct an after action review to discuss what happened with the execution of the mission. They pinpoint the positives, negatives and offer advice for future missions.

The skills Cadets learn at STX will prepare them for ROTC at school, they said.

“I feel like I can actually lead STX lanes now, and having the experience also helps me to know how to better do things when we are in certain battle drills because everybody has their own opinion on how to do it,” Blackmon said. “It will definitely help me lead one and be a good follower.”

Although at the end of the day, it’s just paint on their uniforms, STX is meant to get Cadets in the combat mindset. In the future, they could find themselves in similar situations across the world.

“It’s something that will definitely put everything you’ve learned into perspective,” Allard said. “Already, it’s developing our sense of professionalism in combat.”


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