The ROTC Cyclone Battalion at Iowa

State has been a key component dating back to the university’s

installation as a land grant school. In the past couple months the

Cyclone Battalion has been recognized as one of the best in the

United States, garnering two awards thus far.

One of the awards the Cyclone

Battalion won was the prestigious MacArthur Award, which honors the

top eight ROTC programs in the country.

The MacArthur Award consists of

about 260 programs competing for the eight awards. The awards are

based off of a program’s effort in the Leadership Development

Assessment Course. The MacArthur is considered the pinnacle for

college brigades across the nation.

“This is a really high honor for our

program to have,” said Ryan Lynch, member of ROTC and senior in

kinesiology and health. “It shows cadet command that we have a very

good program with a lot of distinguished military

graduates.”

The Brigade Award for Leadership

Excellence has 40 different ROTC programs throughout the Midwest

competing for this award. More specifically, the programs are vying

for the 3rd Brigade which spans ten different states in the

Midwest.

The award is based on overall

leadership and training skills of the cadets, who attend the

assessment course during the summer at the Great Lakes Naval

Station in Illinois and were placed into random

platoons.

Iowa State sent 21 cadets who were

part of the grading for the Brigade Award this year to participate

in the Leadership Development and Assessment Course. Of the 21

cadets, 10 of them placed in the top 20 percent in the

nation.

To prepare for these competitions,

ROTC holds battle drills every Wednesday that are intended to teach

leadership skills to the cadets. Along with battle drills, members

participate in physical training four days a week.

According to Lynch this is rare for

many schools across the nation to have that many days of physical

training. Included with these on campus training exercises, ROTC

participates in field training exercises at Camp Dodge where they

hone their leadership and land navigation skills during four days

spent there.

“These are great accomplishments for

our students; they have put in a lot of hard work,” said Major Adam

Giroux, enrollment operations for ROTC. “It’s nice to receive

recognition for the students for all the work they have

done.”

Next up for Cyclone Battalion is the

Ranger Challenge at the University of Kansas during spring break,

which is meant to better land navigating skills.

The ROTC program here consists of

145 members from Iowa State, Drake University and Buena Vista

University.