Return
to the "POINTER VIEW"May 10, 2002
Return
to the "POINTER VIEW"
May
10, 2002
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| Cadet 3rd Class Paul Rogers climbs the rope at "The Tough One," one of two mandatory sites at the Camp Buckner Confidence Course. Rogers and 104 other cadets went through Air Assault Military Individual Advanced Development assessment training Saturday. |
No matter where you went Saturday morning, whether it was Target Hill Athletic Field or the Confidence Course at Camp Buckner, you could hear cadets bellowing one of two things as they were put through their paces: "Airborne" or "Air Assault."
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| Cadet 3rd Class Skip Riddle works his way out from under the low-wire crawl site as part of Air Assault assessment training. |
Airborne- and Air Assault-qualified personnel from the academy’s Departments of Military Instruction and Physical Education put cadets through Military Individual Advanced Development assessment training Saturday to see where they stood in relation to their school dates this summer.
"It provides the cadets an opportunity to conduct skill training for regular Army schools such as Airborne, Air Assault, Sapper and also the Combat Diver qualification course," said Capt. Chris Hubbard, the U.S. Corps of Cadets Assistant Operations Officer. "We assessed these cadets for the Airborne and Air Assault Schools primarily because those two schools hold the highest populations.
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| Cadet 3rd Class Dave Andros makes his way down the "Confidence Climb." |
"We provide the cadets a one day snapshot of the physical training aspects of the courses they are considering or have been selected to attend," he said.
DMI’s Maj. Dave Bair, the event officer-in-charge of Airborne training at Target Hill Field, addressed the 129 cadets in attendance before the day’s training began. He told them that the cadre assembled before them had more than 100 years of airborne experience.
"Less than 15 percent of soldiers can do what you are about to attempt," he said.
The U.S. Army’s airborne forces have engaged in combat jumps since first entering combat in Sicily in 1943, right up to jumps into Kandahar this year, he explained.
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| Cadet 3rd Class Ian Folau finishes the two-mile run. |
During Saturday’s training, cadets were assessed on how many chin-ups they could do, as well as observing their completion of a four-mile run in and around the roads by Target Hill Field and the Shea Stadium/Gillis Field House area.
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| Cadet 3rd Class Holly Mitchell works her way down the "Weaver" as part of Air Assault MIAD assessment training. |
"The purpose of the day’s events is to assess their aerobic and upper body fitness," DMI director Col. Drew Stanley said.
The goal is 10 chin-ups, he said, but for the assessment training, males need to do six and females three.
They all had 35 minutes to complete the 4-mile run, he said.
The cadets, who were mostly 3rd class with some 2nd class mixed in, will attend Airborne school at Fort Benning, Ga., for three weeks during the summer.
For the Air Assault evaluation, 105 prospective Air Assault cadets had to negotiate the Confidence Course at Camp Buckner, before running two-miles in less than 18 minutes.
Of the nine sites they traversed on the course, only two were mandatory passes,
according to DPE Maj. William Taylor, the Air Assault OIC at the Confidence Course.
"They have to complete ‘The Tough One’ and the ‘Confidence Climb,’" he explained. "They are the only two mandatory sites. They can fail up to two of the others."
The different sites tested the future Air Assault soldier’s endurance and motivation on a variety of levels.
Cadets will either attend Air Assault school at Camp Smith, N.Y., located across the river from West Point, or will go to Fort Campbell, Ky.
