Pressure.
Army ROTC leaders designed the whole weekend as a way to stress the cadets.
Their ruck sacks placed pressure on their shoulders and backs, their heavy kevlar helmets weighed down their heads and the stare of fourth year ROTC cadet Ryan Canady provided the finishing touch.
Canady isn’t exactly a huge man, but his presence demands respect. He talks with authority and his general lack of emotion imparts that he means business.
He watched as the other cadets crawled in the mud, sat in cactus and rambled across the foothills as they tracked down their al Kadena terrorist enemies. He didn’t just watch, he evaluated. He observed how well they communicated, how well they executed a plan, and how well the squad leaders performed their duties, then he, in his matter-of-fact voice, told them where they succeeded and where they screwed up.
Even though he didn’t show much emotion as he hiked hour after hour through the mountainsides near Camp Williams, Canady enjoyed the war games.
“Humans hunting humans?it’s a beautiful thing,” he said only half mockingly before the start of the training exercises.
The Soldier
Canady has always valued the role the military plays in our society, and wanted to join when he was very young.
“Maybe I played a little too much G.I. Joe when I was a kid,” he said. “I think I had and still do have a romantic view of what the military is.”
Canady spent two years at the renowned military academy Westpoint before transferring to the U. He started as an Arabic major but changed to political science. He planned his college education to better his abilities on the battlefield.
“I know I am going to get sent somewhere. If I understood why, I thought it would make me more comfortable,” Canady said.
Recently, he received his first assignment from the U.S. Army. Canady will join the infantry after he completes officer and airborne training, which will take about 32 months.
He hopes the Army will then send him to Korea. The border between North Korea and South Korea is one of the most dangerous places in the world, which entices Canady.
Each enlisted man must complete a “hardship tour,” where he is not allowed to take a family. Canady doesn’t have a family now, so he would like to get the hardship tour out of the way. Also, the “real world mission” experience he would get in Korea would help him further his military career.
The Strategic Training Exercises that the junior cadets survived March 22 through 24 were not exactly a “hardship tour,” but they were more intense than any training they previously received, especially in light of the war the United States now finds itself in.
Wasatch Thunder
Canady got a little annoyed as his squad was late to leave the staging area. The nine-man squad planned the reconnaissance mission in a sand pit with colored pipe cleaners before it headed out into the wilderness in search of a small group of terrorists with surface-to-air missiles, played by Utah National Guardsmen. During a military mission, the beaten path is not the place to be. Most of the hiking involved ducking tree branches, pushing through brush and maneuvering around large rocks and mud.
The situation did not improve when Weber State University cadet Shawna Phillips took a tumble and sprained her ankle only minutes into the eight hour hike.
After the fall, which aggravated an old injury, Phillips could not call it quits. She could not go back to the barracks or go see a medic. And in all actuality, she didn’t want to.
“It was something that I needed to be here for, even if I couldn’t keep up,” she said.
Each ROTC program in the state gathered together at Camp Williams, outside of Lehi, for this massive training exercise. In ROTC lingo, a student’s standing is designated by a number?1s are freshmen and 4s are seniors. During Wasatch Thunder, the 1s and 2s took a flight in a Blackhawk helicopter, shot an M16, repelled from a landing, climbed a building and fought in a paintball war.
The 3s, like Phillips, didn’t get any helicopter joy rides. Their Wasatch Thunder experience was much more intense.
Similar to a college entrance exam, ROTC cadets must participate in a nationwide training camp during the summer of their third year. Army officers observe the training, evaluate the cadets and, from this information, place them within the mammoth military organization. This is how the Army selected Canady for the infantry.
Wasatch Thunder is a mini camp designed to provide Utah cadets with a little practice before the big show this summer.
So if Phillips wanted to sit it out, she would be at a disadvantage in June.
The Squad
Canady’s squad included one student from the U, three from Weber, two from Brigham Young University, two from Utah State University and one from Officer Candidate School. Seven cadets took turns leading the squad in the simulated missions.
On the first of the two-day exercises, the cadets were quiet, cautious and prone to making mistakes.
Utah State cadet Carly Felice led the squad on the second Strategic Training Exercise lane.
Her mission was to lead the squad on an attack of a small group of al Kadena terrorist to prevent them from attacking friendly forces. The terrain was a hilltop with no trees and few rocks around to get shelter behind. Since Felice took too long to plan, Canady asked Capt. Tyler Smith to throw a fake hand grenade, which was really a large firework, “basically, just to stress her, which it did,” Canady said.
The small explosion scared the squad and flushed them into the field. Felice split the squad into two teams, alpha and bravo. She then went on a reconnaissance with one team when one of the enemy came over the ridge and started shooting. The M16s were loaded with blanks, and all of the soldiers, both the cadets, and the al Kadena were equipped with laser sensors that would ring loudly when set off.
Felice retreated to regroup. She once again split them in two and sent one in one direction and one in the other. In the confusion, she ended up shooting her own soldiers as they came over the ridge from a different angle. Then one of the al Kadena jumped up from the ground where he was playing dead and shot two more.
Canady promptly halted the exercise.
“If someone is shooting at you, you need to act like someone is shooting at you,” Canady yelled.
The squad completed three more lanes the first day, none of which went completely according to plan.
“They were nervous and did everything wrong that they possibly could do wrong,” Canady said. “But the second day was much more indicative of the way lanes are run.”
Day Two
James Merlette was the lone U student under Canady. He led the sixth lane, and his mission was to attack an outpost, which turned out to be two guys standing under a tree.
Merlette’s “birth control glasses” were almost always dotted with mud throughout the exercises. His voice got progressively higher as he finished his sentences, and he had a hard time keeping the laser stuck to the end of his weapon and his ruck on his back.
Merlette is fond of the phrase “make it happen,” and he used it liberally during his attack.
Merlette and his troops moved with urgency. They seemed to get sucked into the training exercise, like an avid reader gets sucked into a novel. They moved with decisiveness, they worked as a team and they crushed the opposition quickly.
Merlette split the squad into alpha and bravo team again, but he learned from Felice and didn’t set the two teams on a collision course. One took the hillside and the other swooped in from the bottom and quickly killed the al Kadena enemy.
Everything went according to plan, except Merlette forgot to put a clip into his M16 until after the enemy opened fire.
“The team helped out so I didn’t look like a complete goof,” he said. “We were able to quickly secure the objective, everything went efficiently.”
Canady noticed.
“There was a huge difference when Merlette led his attack and when Felice did hers. Maybe they were more comfortable with each other or their evaluators,” he said.
If the lanes were designed to stress those trying to lead the missions, Merlette said it worked.
“It is all of the details. You can’t forget contingency plans,” he said. “For me, the stressful part was the planning.”
Not the Average Students
While Canady saw all of the frustrating mistakes, he viewed the overall experience as incredibly positive for his squad.
“In general, you have to respect them. This is not something the average college student tries to do on the weekends,” he said. “There is a sort of nobility in even attempting.”
He said no one expected the squad to run completely successful lanes?it was more for the experience than anything.
Phillips, who limped her way through the missions, said fighting the al Kadena, which every cadet quickly changed to al Qaeda when they talked to each other, helped them focus.
“Your career has moved from a possibility of going to combat to an almost guarantee that you are going to combat,” Canady said. “This gives us better training because people took it more seriously.”