Spring Break
ROTC bring home another win from Ranger Challenge
Natalie Jurgen
Issue date: 11/6/08 Section: News
| |
| |
| |
|
Held the weekend of October 24-26 at Fort Pickett, V.A., the Ranger Challenge is a two-day competition between 22 schools from North Carolina and Virginia.
According to team captain Matthew Kane, the team was chosen from the 118 cadets in the ROTC program at ECU. Cadets are able to tryout for the team, and must train five days a week starting in August. After a month and a half of tryouts, the selection is dwindled down to about 15 people, and the final cut is made two weeks before the challenge. Each team consists of nine males and one female along with two alternates.
"Everyone involved sacrificed a lot of time," Kane said. "It's all you do for the first two and a half months of school."
The teams were divided into the Black and Gold divisions based on school size. ECU was a part of the Black Division, which is comprised of larger schools, and took first place in its division and overall.
The first day of the challenge consisted of the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), the written land navigation test and the night land navigation test.
The APFT is comprised of two minutes of pushups, two minutes of sit-ups and a two-mile run. ECU took second place in this event.
The navigation tests require the teams to navigate themselves to a number of different points. Using only a compass, they must find these points using eight digit coordinates that they plot on a map. ECU took first place in the written land navigation test.
On the second day of the challenge the teams competed in the one rope bridge challenge, the basic rifle marksmanship challenge, the grenade assault course, the squad tactical exercise, the day land navigation test and the 10K ruck march.
"The competition is definitely physical, and in preparation we ran about four miles a day," Kane said.
The Ranger Challenge is a great way for cadets to build leadership skills and improve their commission status, according to members of the team.
"Kane provided us with really good training," said Ranger Challenge team member, Ted Brennis. "It was hard, and we got frustrated sometimes, but he definitely prepared us for the competition."
ECU's ROTC cadets went into the challenge in hopes of dominating the competition.
"I had absolutely no doubt that we wouldn't take anything less than first place regardless of the rhetoric that we received from other universities," said Eric Fitzgerald, Ranger Challenge co-captain.
ECU's Army ROTC Pirate Battalion will also be participating in the First Annual Wounded Warrior 10K and 1 Mile Road Race "Warriors Supporting Warriors" to benefit the Fort Bragg Wounded Warrior Program.
The races will be held Saturday, Nov. 8 at 8:30 a.m. and start behind the Food Lion off of Red Banks Road.
Registration is $25 and awards will be given out to various age groups.
Questions can be directed to Kip Sloan at kip.sloan @ ecrun.org, 252-355-3180.
This writer can be contacted at news@theeastcarolinian.com.
Be the first to comment on this story