This summer, the Army ROTC will be offering a four-week-long Leader’s Training Course (LTC) in Ft. Knox, Kentucky for anyone interested in pursuing a future in the ROTC program.

“The Leader’s Training Course is designed as a catch up course,” said Bill Terry, the Recruiting Operations Officer for the Army ROTC. “It gives you credit for the first two years of ROTC and it makes you eligible for the advanced courses.”

Terry said the main reason for the creation of the LTC is to give students who began the program late a chance to still commission as officers in their fourth year.

“What it’s really called is an alternate-entry option,” he said. “To give college students who didn’t take ROTC courses as a freshman or sophomore an opportunity to get involved with ROTC and still complete the commissioning requirements.”

The LTC will be focused on students who have two more years left of college, Terry said, and after completing the course there is no obligation to join the ROTC program. Terry has contracted every Kent State student whose attended LTC.

Senior biology major and Army ROTC cadet DeNae Leach, who participated in the LTC two summers ago, said she learned a lot from her experience with the course.

“It gave me a lot of confidence,” Leach said. “They put you in uncomfortable situations and you have to just get through it. And if I could get through that month, I could get through anything.”

While at the LTC, Leach said that cadets participated in many physical activities that were similar to basic training for officers.

“We learned land navigation, squad tactical exercises and we did a lot of physical fitness courses,” she said. “But sometimes we did classroom lessons on weapons and things like that.”

Caitlin Ciralsky, senior psychology major and Army ROTC cadet, also participated in the LTC two summers ago. She said one of the biggest benefits of the course is that you don’t have to contract with the Army.

“It’s for people who want to see if ROTC is for them,” Ciralsky said. “Some people that went with me had no ROTC experience whatsoever. So they will go to see how they like it or how they adapt to it.”

Ciralsky said the LTC prepared her for the Leader Development and Assessment Course (LDAC) that all cadets must participate in the summer before their senior year.

“A lot of cadets who go through the ROTC program don’t go to a summer training until LDAC,” she said. “And LDAC was a breeze compared to LTC. So it definitely helped prepare me for it.”

Ciralsky said that the LTC was a rough month but she got a lot out of the experience.

“After LTC I learned that I could do whatever I put my mind to,” she said. “I should never doubt myself because I got through things that I never thought I could.”

For more information about LTC, visit http://www.goarmy.com/rotc/courses-and-colleges/curriculum/leaders-training-course.html.

Contact Mary Booth at [email protected].