A *little* info from Fort Knox....

k2rider

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So my son has been at Fort Knox for the last (3) days for his CULP orientation. There are 42 cadets heading out to Guyana tomorrow.

Disclaimer: My son isn't big on details and getting information out of the kids is liking pulling teeth sometimes, especially when you're 2000 miles away on a cell phone and have (5) minutes to talk.

Anyway, he said they had a meeting today with a (female) "one star general from cadet command" who re-confirmed that there will be no LDAC next year. Instead, she said all cadets will be going to CTLT and they will focus the training for MS-IV's more on "leadership" and giving them more responsibilities. They will be getting away from the training of "tactics". He didn't mention Land Nav at all.

When I mentioned that I read on this board that accessions in the future were going to place more importance on GPA, he said the general said that it will be just the opposite. GPA will matter less *but* there will be (3) tests that they will be taking. He said (1) of them will be based on what was taught/learned at CTLT but that was all he told me.
 
Hey, that was a lot of information from a 5 minute call! I think I'm gonna find my Magic 8 ball that came in so handy during scholarship boards back in 2011 so I can figure out what CC is doing:rolleyes:

Honestly, planning to watch the live streams of the upcoming REG family day programs to see if any details are revealed about scoring LDAC for upcoming branching this year. DS is hoping they have something by January 1 2015....
 
Great info, I think a lot of the reference has been that Academics as a whole will play a larger role, GPA less, Testing More.

Did your son mean CTLT or CLT.
 
DS just got home last night from Knox. (end of CULP mission). He said that the female general said the same thing. There will be no LDAC anymore. CLC will be the way they are going. He didn't say much about testing, however, he was extremely not happy with the way things were going at knox. He said chaos is everywhere. He can't believe that the Army is lowering their standards (and becoming soft) for the cadets by not scoring land nav, pft. Said they are going by peer evals and leader evals.


When asked about environmental conditions, he stated that the reason he feels cadets are having problems is because of lack of hydration. We live in Louisiana, so the conditions did not affect him. He is used to humidity, but he said it was not bad at all.

So much different info floating around. AND it seems to be constantly changing. Next years will definitely be interesting.
 
This thread references some things I am not familar with, can someone please educate me?

What is CTLT, CLC and CLT?

Thanks.
 
This thread references some things I am not familar with, can someone please educate me?

What is CTLT, CLC and CLT?

Thanks.

I mistyped, I meant CLC not CLT.

Short answers;

CTLT is when a cadet goes to a unit to shadow a LT for 3 weeks, they work with the unit during that time, sort of an internship.

CLC will be the new Cadet Leadership Course that will replace LDAC.
 
Great info, I think a lot of the reference has been that Academics as a whole will play a larger role, GPA less, Testing More.

Did your son mean CTLT or CLT.

He could have said CLC or CLT vs CTLT and I misunderstood. I personally don't know the difference between them. My daughter was a nursing major so never did either.
 
He could have said CLC or CLT vs CTLT and I misunderstood.

No worries, I misunderstand half of what my son says when he's on the phone....3 min. call, a flood of info at 90 mph.

I bet he was referring to CLC which is what will replace LDAC.

Congratulations to your daughter.
 
I watched/listened to the 3/4 family day feed yesterday. One of the male speakers did refer to the MSIV's spending their time this year focusing on leadership qualities like recognizing PTSD and working to prevent sexual assault/harrassment situations. I laughed when he said they are working hard to increase communication with the soldiers and their families. (Start by improving quality of video feed!). Mostly he just talked about himself. So far they are still not addressing significant changes.

The Q and A was taken up with parents of non-traditional cadets wondering how everything affects their less than 1% of cadets. He did give the same timeline as last year...Paperwork in 9/14, Release Component and branch 11/14, BOLC dates 2/15. He also did say that some will not go to BOLC until Spring '16. (Branch dependent). I think this timeline was all set before LDAC began and has not been re-evaluated yet. Also that some Branches are asking for a better fit of incoming officers, ie the major/branch matching thing.
Just my interpretation of a very bad video/audio. Sorry did not catch the speaker's name...
Julie
 
, however, he was extremely not happy with the way things were going at knox. He said chaos is everywhere. He can't believe that the Army is lowering their standards (and becoming soft) for the cadets by not scoring land nav, pft. Said they are going by peer evals and leader evals.


When asked about environmental conditions, he stated that the reason he feels cadets are having problems is because of lack of hydration. We live in Louisiana, so the conditions did not affect him. He is used to humidity, but he said it was not bad at all.

So much different info floating around. AND it seems to be constantly changing. Next years will definitely be interesting.

The female cadet that required CPR and was in a coma at the hospital due to being a heat casualty among others, was the biggest reason for the changes. I have a feeling they did not want a repeat and have leaned hard toward caution for the rest of camp.

One of the big issues with LDAC being at Ft. Knox is that the base is mainly a training center and headquarters for CC now. In contrast Ft. Lewis has a very large population of Army personal. Ft. Knox has had to bring soldiers from other bases around the country to fill training positions, Ft. Lewis could do this in house. Ft. Knox was not ready, not all of the training sections were complete in time for LDAC. All of this led to a real mess. It seems that they didn't even have enough space for all the cadets in either the tents or the barracks. Cadets in transition to other training after they graduate have been left to find a place to crash for the night on their own because they had no place to put them.

They have been planning the change from LDAC to other training for a while, what surprises me is that they decided to move the entire LDAC that has been running fine for over 40 years at Ft. Lewis, to Ft. Knox for it's last year. Sounds like it would have been much better to leave it at Ft. Lewis for it's last year then move to Ft. Knox to start the new program. I'm sure there are a lot of leadership at Ft. Knox that are thinking the same thing right about now.

The whole thing is a mess, one that is not a surprise to most logical thinking people. This will have a big effect on these cadets that are going through this last LDAC, Branching, Active Duty will all be a real mess to figure out. While they have come up with new scoring for this year's LDAC as it progresses, it's not over yet and things could easily change again.

These cadets would normally be putting the final touches on their accession packets as soon as they get back to school. With this LDAC mess the whole process will be fluid for a while until they sort it all out. Meaning it could take a long time before these cadets know whats in their future.

Lack of hydration is only one of the issues, from what's coming out of LDAC hydration is a big priority, even those that hydrate properly are falling from the heat. Being from the PNW, that humidity can be a killer for someone not used to it. Granted, this will not be the last time they will have to be in this type of heat for training, Benning in the summer is no picnic.

It seems they could do the APFT very early to mitigate the heat, though humidity doesn't have a clock. Word is the track they had for the run was so quickly and poorly constructed that it became so bad that cadets were getting injured, a few broken ankles, they had no resources to make another course, I'm sure this added to the decision to scrap the APFT. These cadets are not off the hook, sounds like they may have to take the APFT when they return to their battalions.

I really hope they do not remove Land Nav from ROTC training. Some cadets go to summer training where knowledge of Land Nav is a requirement of the school. If not for the Land Nav training my son had he would have never passed Mountain Warfare School.

I don't fully understand getting away from tactical training, it sounds like they want to cover this at the extra summer training for cadets the summer after their freshman year. The thing that doesn't make sense is it sounds like the MS3's will be doing most of the training, how will they do this if tactics are not taught at the battalion level.

The cadets following this class of 2015 will be in for a lot of changes, some will stick and some will change again. I do not envy these young people, be patient and try and just go with the flow I guess.
 
Wildcat,

Thanks for the info, what do you mean by non-traditional cadets.
 
I'm sure there are a lot of leadership at Ft. Knox that are thinking the same thing right about now.

I think some ofthose people have some more personal career worries right now.

Showed DS(He's been home for the last week, yeah) some of these and the Reddit threads. His favorite on Reddit is how we are now preparing to fight the Taliban in an Airconditioned stadium.

Years ago he did LTC there(He transferred sophomore year to Norwich). Having been through LDAC and spent LTC at Knox he could not understand how they had so many heat casulaties. His LTC company at Knox had none and those kids were so much less prepared than these rising MSIVs. At IBOLC the heat casualties were much higher. It was scary what a lot of the 2Lts went through.

On the thread involving ticks, he said dont forget the recluse and black widow spiders along with the many snakes. He would take 100 ticks over one of those bites. Also he discussed the night in the pitch black woods at Benning listening to a group of coyotes attacking a mother wild pig and her piglets. Freddy Kruger could not produce those types of screams.

Military training(All branches of the Armed Forces) is inherently dangerous. At LTC, one girl killed by lightening. Airborne School one landed on car and broke back. Many at IBOLC and Ranger School sent to the hospital with serious injuries. You also had the stupid DUIs and drug offenses of various friends and acquantences along the way which ended their Army dreams. Then deployment which is even tougher.

You put it in God's and especially their(your DS or DD) hands. You hold them tight when your with them. Or go out for a beer with them which I will now do.
 
I agree, I don't understand why the weather is such a huge deal. It's normal and the thing is it happens every year, just like tics and bugs, so how will they deal with it next year.

DS went to LDAC with 2 days off after coming from Air Assault in Benning. When he looked at the weather at knox he shook his head and said if they can't handle that weather they need to rethink their career choice.

I feel for those that have gotten ill from the heat and for their families, but like stated above, it is an inherent danger.

If your lost in the woods, hot, confused then you forget to hydrate for 4 hrs, it will happen.

I think by the 1% of non-traditional cadets they may be referring to cadets in the Early Commission Program, that receive a branch and commission next year but won't access for 2 more years when they obtain their 4 yr degree. DS falls into that category.
 
LTC has been at Ft. Knox for a while, they are experienced with the training and the process. LDAC is new to Ft. Knox, they are most likely not used to the sheer mass of cadets that attend. Things probably went fine for the first few regiments, then they realized they had 10 regiments at the same time, that's when things seemed to really start breaking down.

I wonder if the heat is not the main issue but the fact that they were not ready for such a large cadet training program and they were losing control of everything. Considering a lot of the training staff come from other locations and the leadership seemed to be behind the curve. My son is in the 7th, they did their APFT, things started going down hill with the arrival of the 9th and 10th. When that many cadets are there at the same time, the warts on the program really begin to show up. I would love to see the OER's for some of the leadership next year.

Maybe having a training session at Ft. Knox the summer after the freshman year will be a good thing, cadets that can't handle the heat and training will have second thoughts on their choice of careers before the Army invests more time and money into their training. ROTC Recruiting and Retention could be a challenge for the ROO's.

My son was lucky, he spent 3 weeks at Ft. Bliss with the 417th Stryker Bde. before leaving for LDAC, no break in between. Average temp there was 103 degrees. They never missed PT and spend 5 days in the field sleeping on top of the Strykers. No Heat casualties. At least he had time to acclimate to the heat....maybe not the humidity but I'm sure it helped, although I have not heard from him at all, guess no news is good news.
 
Could be. I guess I had no idea they were putting cadets in tents. When he called after he got to knox he was talking about his room.

DS was there last year for LTC and they had no problems. Did nightime land nav and pt test.

I agree, it could just be and "OH CR**, what do we do now" situation.
Yes the second summer of required training might change some peoples minds from joining to begin with.

He did say at Benning they had 3 people get hauled off in ambulances during their final 12 mile ruckrun. That was at 4 in the morning and it was already mid 80's with humidity to match. So heat exhaustion is not limited to cadets and Kentucky.
 
Anyway, he said they had a meeting today with a (female) "one star general from cadet command"

That is BG Peggy Combs, the commanding general of USACC and Ft Knox. She just replaced MG Smith earlier this year.
 
Jcleppe,
Sorry, I took so long to check back in. QA1517, you might be right. My comment was only that they took a long time during a very short Q and A, trying to address the accensions process and affect of LDAC changes for the parent's cadet who doesn't graduate for more than a year. Honestly, I doubt CC can even answer that question for the class of '15 right now. Upon reflection, I'm sure those parents only care about the process that affects their family.
BG Combs was not at the 3/4 family day meeting. At least not as a speaker. I'm sure she was at the graduation this morning.
Julie
 
Wildcat,

I understood your comment :wink:. At LTC last year on parents day most of the questions were asked by ECP parents. I think part of that is because even at the Military Junior Colleges most of the questions asked to the cadre cannot be answered with any degree certainty. So the parents move up the ladder.

We were given the ROTC history and cadet numbers, but answers to questions were vague and followed by "of course this can all change based upon the needs of the army".
 
Wildcat,

I understood your comment :wink:. At LTC last year on parents day most of the questions were asked by ECP parents. I think part of that is because even at the Military Junior Colleges most of the questions asked to the cadre cannot be answered with any degree certainty. So the parents move up the ladder.

We were given the ROTC history and cadet numbers, but answers to questions were vague and followed by "of course this can all change based upon the needs of the army".

Really good point about the junior military colleges and that uncertainty. They have to go through an additional application process for the final two years of college. We have one young man from our town who has done pretty well with that path. Now an Armor officer.

Also one note on the lack of heat casulaties at LTC, these kids were really learning the basics of ROTC. They were just college students with little practical ROTC or military training. It is an intro course to the Army. Good but not too demanding. DS really loved it. On the other hand the LDAC cadets are fighting for OML rank and an active duty spot. I can understand why they would over exert themselves more than a LTC cadet. Cadets are pretty wound up about LDAC in the years and months before they go. It was always on my DS's mind leading up to it. It will be interesting to see the new process unfold. Keep in mind the Army also does many things right.

Really feel sorry for those injured. As Jcleppe mentioned it was a new environment which may not have been ready for the cadets.
 
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