Home » Archives » "Forging future officers"

Forging future officers

Aug- 8-2004 » Filed Under: General Military

The following is an interesting article about the "Warrior Forge" program at Ft. Lewis for future Army officers.

[Link to Full Article]
KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; The News Tribune

Three-fourths of the officers who will be commissioned in the U.S. Army next year spent a month at Fort Lewis this summer.

And virtually no one outside the fort noticed.

The 5,000 college juniors graduated Saturday after surviving a month of training, testing, heat and fatigue at Warrior Forge, the only program of its kind in the nation.

Since 1997, every Reserve Officers' Training Corps cadet working toward a commission in the U.S. Army has gone through summer training at Fort Lewis.

"We're told 70 to 75 percent of the officers commissioned in any given year come through ROTC, and all of them come through Fort Lewis," said Maj. John Terrizzi. An assistant professor of military science at Fresno State University in California, Terrizzi is one of 1,500 officers and enlisted personnel who make up the Warrior Forge teaching and support staff.

This year, the Army changed the program's name from "National Advanced Leadership Camp" to "Warrior Forge." The name is snappier, to be sure, but also more accurate. The month at Fort Lewis not only trains, it molds and shapes.

The cadets face trials of skill, leadership and endurance. They shoot rifles, automatic weapons and howitzers. They throw grenades, scale walls, navigate by compass, sample tear gas and spend a week on patrol, defending themselves against ambushes and Fort Lewis' legendary ants. They discover their strengths, work on their weaknesses and develop their leadership skills.

Of the roughly 400 members of each group, 95 percent will succeed, Terrizzi said. Those who don't fall out early, usually because of medical conditions detected at the beginning of camp.

Lt. John Pfender conquered the course last year and is back as a newly commissioned member of the training cadre. "Everything you do in ROTC is geared to a month in Fort Lewis, Washington," he said.

The article goes on to chronicle a few of the training exercises.


Advertisements