Spring FTX

This past weekend, our student warrior and his battalion went back to good ol' Ft Jackson for Spring Field Training Exercises.

Friday night and early Saturday morning brought severe storm and tornado warnings to the SC/NC area.
This somewhat cramped their style, but they soldiered on.

He was acting platoon leader for Bravo Platoon, and as such had to brief his troops on the mission ops, and then implement them.
Their Cadre threw him a curve with a mid-course operational change.
They were to attack and capture a bunker.
"I didn't screw it up too bad Dad. Some of the other guys got yelled at by the Cadre. (their officers and NCO instructors)

The weather curtailed a lot of the planned activities.
The battalion was heartbroken to be moved indoors on Saturday night, instead of making camp and sleeping outside all night.

They were forced to eat pizza, and watch the Final Four semifinal games instead, inside a nice warm dry gym.
When the going gets tough......

Hard to believe he will only have two more FTX before graduation and commissioning next Spring.

As you can see, these young men have formed some lifelong friendships over the last three years.
They will all attend a month long evalution and training process along with all of the other rising Senior ROTC cadets in the U.S. this summer at Ft Lewis Washington.
Their performance, coupled with their G.P.A and PT fitness scores will determine whether they get the job they want when they enter the full time Army.

The Battalion at ASU is highly regarded within the ROTC program.
This is always apparent at FTX, where there are several other programs involved.
The Cadre always includes several Special Forces veterans, and service at App is regarded as a good slot to fulfill your training obligation.

Time is slipping by us, all too rapidly.