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NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY,MAY 1,2008
Shane Thomas (far right), a junior who attends the University of Saint Mary, directs his platoon during line ups on April 24.
Lisa Lipovac/KANSAN
Kansas City, Mo., senior Ryan Rowan (right) stabilizes a stretcher with Leavenworth freshman Daniel McEnoy. The two were practicing for the ROYT 6's annual Ranger Buddy Competition, which took place Saturday and involved contests in weapon assembly and knot tying.
Weston White/KANSAN
Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Masarik (left) gives instructions to Kansas City, Mo., freshman Chase Olson on tying a knot. Weston White/KANSA
Weston White/KANSAN
Leavenworth freshman Michael Inch (left) covers the target for freshman Matt Nikiel (right) during the grenade toss exercise on April 24.
Above: Kieran Chapman, Leavenworth sophomore, outlines the team mission to Jacob Thomson, Broomfield, Colo., freshman, on March 13. ROTC cadets train in simulated combat missions to prepare for real situations
Upper left: Troops march into the woods on West Campus for weekly ROTC lab exercises. The labs take place each Thursday and involve combat and leadership training.
KU ARMY ROTC FACTS
— The KU chapter of Army ROTC was established in 1918 after World War I. It was the first ROTC program on campus.
in World War II the ROTC provided military leadership and helped mobilize the Army.
- More than 2,000 Army officers have been commissioned through KU ROTC.
The University is one of 50 in the nation with all branches of the military represented in its ROTC
Source, KU Army ROTC Web site
Nik Krstic, a Manhattan sophomore who attends Washburn University, keeps watch while his team is assigned a mission during their Thursday ROTC.
CADETS (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
from involvement in the Army Reserve and National Guard. Basso said every cadet had the opportunity to receive a scholarship.
Paying for college was one of the reasons John Meier, a Leavenworth senior who will be commissioned this July, chose ROTC.
Meier, who said he turned down an opportunity to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to come to the University for a regular college experience, has a father who is retired from the Army. Meier said he knew from his childhood that the military always takes care of its own.
"I knew in high school that I really wanted to be in the Army," Meier said. "A huge part of it was paying for college."
Even with monetary benefits, Culbertson said recruiting during wartime has challenges, especially when talking with the worried parents of potential cadets.
"That's the big elephant in the closet," Culbertson said. "I tell them I don't know what we're going to be doing in four years."
'THE ONLY LIFE I KNOW'
Tyler Abel didn't have to persuade a worried father to allow him to join Army ROTC. Service in the Army and involvement in the KU Army ROTC is a family tradition.
Tyler was born two weeks after his father, Wade Abel, was commissioned as an Army officer. As an Army brat. Tyler struggles to name a hometown, but identifies Billings, Mont., as home because it's where his grandparents live.
Tyler also lived in Georgia, Germany, Alaska, Louisiana, New York and Oklahoma, before the Abel family moved to Kansas in 2004.
His decision to follow in his father's bootsteps wasn't immediate. He spent a semester on the Washburn campus, unsure of what he wanted to do, before a routine trip to Fort Leavenworth with his
Tyler will graduate in December from Washburn University, but he participates in the KU Army ROTC program, where his father is an instructor and the battalion executive officer.
"It's actually a lot of fun," Basso said. "My hunch is that Major Abel is tougher on Tyler."
Basso, who teaches the senior-level military science course that Tyler is in, said it was common for cadets to come from military families, and the father-son relationship between the Abels wasn't an issue at school.
Wade Abel said having his son in the military during wartime would be a different experience from being in the military himself
Wade Abel said he wanted to be sure not to interfere with other faculty members who taught his son.
Tyler, who lives with his parents in Lawrence, said that when he and his father were at home, they sometimes discussed ROTC, but they usually didn't talk about his ROTC classes.
"As a parent, you're always going to be worried," he said. "You always know in the back of your head that when you sign up, odds are you're going."
'EVERYONE THINKS THEY'RE SUPERMAN'
Some cadets have already gone. One-third of the current Army ROTC cadets already serve in the National Guard or Reserves, Basso said. As part of a Guard or Reserve unit, these cadets could be asked to deploy at any time, but as full-time students and officers-in-training, they can choose to defer deployment to continue school.
When Specialist Virgil Barnard learned his National Guard unit would deploy to Iraq, he knew he wanted to go even though he could get out of it.
"He just did it," Wade Abel said.
"When he's here, it's 'sir' or 'Major Abel.'
mother to renew his Army ID card made him feel like the Army culture was right for him.
Not Dad.
Wade Abel said the transition from having a father-son relationship to having an officer-subordinate relationship wasn't difficult.
"I realized this is where I needed to be," Tyler said. "Army life is the only life I know. It just feels right to me to do it."
Barnard, Topeka senior, is in an infantry unit of the National Guard
- based in Lawrence - and will be commissioned as an officer in July.
He served overseas for 18 months, 13 of which were spent in Iraq, but one day in particular stands out for him - May 20, 2006.
Barnard and 18 other U.S. soldiers exchanged heavy gunfire with insurgents for 33 minutes.
Barnard said it was the largest firefight he participated in. He and his fellow soldiers shot off 1,800 rounds, and Barnard, team leader and sawgunner that day, personally fired 200. Barnard said that nobody in his platoon was hurt, but that afterwards, they had to walk through fields looking for opposition forces who died in the firefight.
He said that, on this day, they didn't find any.
Barnard said family history in the military was one reason he enlisted, but he ended one family tradition when he came back alive
from Iraq.
"I was the first person from my family ever to come back from war" he said.
His paternal grandmother's brother and his maternal grandfather's brother were members of the 101st Airborne Division and died on D-Day in France during World War II.
Barnard said he didn't give much thought to the possibility of dying when he was in Iraq.
"I was in an infantry unit, and we all joke around about it, but everyone thinks they're Superman," Barnard said.
Barnard said being shot at in Iraq made him realize the value of the training he did in the Army. He said that leading his squad in the ROTC training at Fort Riley provided good practice giving orders and making life-saving decisions.
"When you get to the real situation, you start to realize that there was a reason for everything you were doing and it wasn't as stupid as it seemed at the time," Barnard said. "ROTC doesn't train people to be in the Army. They're not going to teach you to clear a room in a building or anything like that. What ROTC does is it makes you make decisions, stand by your decisions and train to be a leader."
Barnard, 25, will graduate from Washburn in May with a 4.0 GPA and is one of four candidates for the Sibberson award, a large monetary gift given to the top student in Washburn's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
It's a feat for anyone, but Barnard in particular has reason to be proud. He graduated from high school with a cumulative GPA of 2.25.
"I was an idiot in high school," Barnard said.
He also knows his future will involve another deployment to Iraq.
Barnard said that the structure and discipline he had received from his involvement in the military made him grow up and set him up for success in college. He said he knew he would spend his whole career in the military and hoped to earn a graduate degree along the way.
'UNIMAGINABLE UNTIL YOU SEE IT UP CLOSE'
Once cadets graduate, they can no longer defer deployment.
Nicholas Potter, who graduated from the KU ROTC program in May 2006 and was commissioned the day after graduation, just returned from serving six months in Iraq.
He enrolled as a freshman in 2002, before the United States entered Iraq, but Potter, now a First Lieutenant in the Armor Branch, said he knew going to war was a possibility the whole way through his ROTC experience.
That possibility came to fruition in September 2007 when he was sent to Iraq. Because he served on a base, Potter said he experienced little violence, but the experience impacted him.
"Going out and seeing the absolute poverty that the people live with every day made one of the biggest impressions on me while I was there." Potter said. "They live such an impoverished existence
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