By James Kewish
BYU Army ROTC cadets learned about some significant changes in their training camp Thursday.
'We are asking cadets to show personal courage,' said Brigade Commander Col. Patrick Plourd. 'Very soon some of you will be asked to do things much more difficult.'
The training program formerly called the National Advanced Leadership Camp will now be called Warrior Forge and will be much more intense than NALC.
The cadets who have already passed the previous standards at NALC won''t have to re-certify, but those who plan to attend Warrior Forge at Fort Lewis in Washington this summer will have a tougher time than the cadets before them.
The 32-day camp will place cadets in leadership positions to see how they perform when thrown into a stressful combat situation. In addition to proving their leadership skills, cadets will also be expected to meet standards in physical fitness, weapons training, communication, combat patrols and other military skills.
'If you can''t lead from the front and you aren''t able to overcome fear, then you probably don''t need to be a lieutenant in the Army,' Plourd warned.
Merrill Walker, battalion commander for the Army ROTC program, expressed relief that he won''t have to return to camp under the new and more difficult standards.
'I''m ready to graduate,' Walker said. 'I''ll be heading to OBC after graduation, where they''ll teach me to fly helicopters.'
Walker thinks the training has been adjusted because the country is at war.
'They''re changing a lot of the things this year specifically because of Iraq,' Walker said.
According to Lt. Col. Reid E. Grawe, this is the first time Plourd has been able to address all the cadets together. Plourd comes to BYU three times a year, but he usually only has time to oversee training and meet with a few of the cadets. Thursday he participated in a question and answer session with cadets.
Plourd, an aviation officer, serves as the Brigade Commander of the Golden Bear Brigade. The brigade encompasses schools in California, Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and includes 19 primary, or college level programs and 129 junior, or high school level programs.
The Golden Bear Brigade is one of the best in the country. This past year 48 percent of the brigade was in the top third of the cadets in camp and a very small percentage was in the bottom third.
Plourd said BYU is one of the top programs in the brigade as well as in the United States. He attributes this success to the service-oriented attitude and academic superiority of the average BYU cadets.
'Three years ago this was the number one program in the nation,' Plourd said. 'There''s a sense of service here in the cadets that I don''t see in other cadets or programs.'