AU’s senior cadets in the Reserve Officer Training Corps will find out Oct. 20 what section of the Army they will join after graduation, after undergoing the Leadership Development Assessment Course this summer.
ROTC sends rising college seniors to the LDAC at Fort Lewis, Wash., every year to be evaluated in the physical and leadership skills they will need in their service to the Army.
The LDAC puts juniors in different stressful leadership and fitness situations, and cadets are assigned to leadership positions within a platoon. From there, army officers evaluate the cadets in their performance.
The ranking system consists of excellent, satisfactory and not satisfactory. These rankings will ultimately contribute to deciding where the cadets will be stationed after they graduate.
AU students’ performance at the LDAC stood out this year, according to Battalion Commander Andrew Kim, a senior in the School of Public Affairs. He is responsible for coordinating and leading the training of the 155 people in the Georgetown battalion.
AU, George Washington University, Catholic University of America and Georgetown University comprise the Georgetown battalion. Ten juniors, who are now seniors, from each school attended the LDAC, according to Kim.
“For the AU ROTC seniors, we rocked it,” Kim said. “The seniors from AU definitely did the best.”
The AU seniors received the most excellent rankings out of the whole battalion.
”About 25 percent of the AU seniors got E’s, which is great compared to the national average of 15 percent,” said Chelsea Spiehs, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Kogod School of Business who completed the LDAC this summer.
LDACs are the equivalent of a placement exam in a subject in school, according to Spiehs.
“How you do [in LDACs] affects what you’ll be able to do afterwards,” she said. “Every single junior in ROTC in every state has to go to [LDAC]. We don’t go through basic training like everyone else does when they enlist in the Army. It’s the experience together that ties all the officers together.”
There are 16 branches of the Army in which the ROTC cadets can potentially be stationed. From Medical Services to Infantry, each cadet has a branch they would prefer to be assigned to. How a cadet performs affects if they get into the section of the Army they prefer.
Each cadet ranks in order what branch they would like to serve in for the four to seven years they will be in the Army. However, GPA and performance in the LDACs are what ultimately determines whether they are awarded their top choice.
Kim dreams of going into Aviation and becoming a pilot. He and his fellow ROTC seniors must wait until next month to find out where they have been placed. After graduation, they will be placed into their station and any additional schooling and training they will need.
“My opportunity came about with ROTC,” Kim said. “I could make a difference, I could help my parents financially and I could achieve my dreams of flying. Luckily, I did well in school and that will probably allow me to become a pilot.”
amooney@theeagleonline.com
