The J-TAC

Issue date: 9/6/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Johnathon Parker Cadet John Black leads his squad during an LDAC training exercise.

Summer activities are what many students still have on their minds as they reminisce with their friends. Things like going to the lake, hanging out at the local hot spot and hand-to-hand combat before garrison duty...wait, that's only junior and senior
cadets from the Tarleton State University Texan Battalion, who participated in several ROTC and Army camps over the summer.

Along with more than 4,000 cadets from all across the country, ROTC battalions from small state colleges to major universities like Texas A&M, 36 of TSU's finest participated in what the Professor of Military Science, Lt. Col. Robert Levis,
has described as "the final grade" of ROTC.

According to cadet Chris Condy, a cadet will spend their first three years training for the Leadership Development Assessment Course, then they "have only one shot to be evaluated…everybody who wants to get
commissioned to complete LDAC."

LDAC is an intense five week course at Fort Lewis,Wash. where cadets are ordered to perform in many roles of leadership and tactics for a grade.

The 36 Texans were split into different platoons, and were tested on their own
strength, not the practiced cooperation they had learned here at TSU. Through rigorous challenges of field tactics, garrison routines, weapons training, rappelling, obstacle courses, day and night land navigation and hand-to-hand combat, the members of the Texan Battalion did, in Levis' words, "phenomenal."

The highest grade a cadet can receive at LDAC is an 'E' for "exceeds" and the lowest is 'N' for "needs improvement."

Of the 36 TSU ROTC cadets, 35 percent received an overall 'E;' this is 12 percent above the national average. Levis notes
that LDAC is important-it reinforces what has been taught on campus, introduces other information and compares the cadets to their peers.

Cadet Barrett Munson found the evaluations helpful. Each cadet is "graded by an actual
Non-Commissioned Officer" who prepared cadets for combat zones, gave instrumental
tips and told cadets where they excelled in their leadership skills, said Munson.

Cadet Michael Bruce and Terry Mercier of the Tarleton-Central Texas campus in
Killeen were rated "perfect" in all three land navigation courses, and Cadet William

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