New U. S. Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) midshipman from across the United States graduated from a pilot program designed to better prepare them for their upcoming NROTC training and set them on a successful path to become Navy and Marine Corps Officers.

More than 65 midshipman candidates, incoming freshmen from eight universities, as well as their instructors, second and first class midshipmen and active duty staff members, participated in the first NROTC Indoctrination Program held on the grounds of the Navy’s only boot camp, Recruit Training Command (RTC), on Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois, July 23 – August 4.

The pilot program is designed “to provide standardized entry-level militarization and prepare midshipmen with a common training orientation. The Indoctrination Program will serve as the launch point for the training of future naval officers and the development of their character and professional competence,” said Rear Adm. Mike Bernacchi, commander, Naval Service Training Command.

NROTC is the only officer accession program in the Department of the Navy that has not required an established, standardized, entry-level militarization and indoctrination phase to commence training. The Navy’s two other line-officer accession programs, the United States Naval Academy (USNA) and Officer Candidate School (OCS), have a six week “Plebe Summer” and a three week “Indoctrination Phase,” respectively.

Throughout the 13 days, midshipmen underwent initial militarization while training in basic firefighting, watch standing, seamanship, navigation, force protection, drill, and swimming along with physical fitness training and military inspections by NROTC staff. They also received military education including customs and courtesies, and military history. At the culmination of the program, midshipmen had to pass a final knowledge exam to advance in training, mirroring requirements at USNA and OCS.

“At the beginning we were told we were the lucky ones [to be a part of the pilot],” said Midshipman 4th Class Camille Lanese, an incoming freshman at the University of California Los Angeles from Grove City, Ohio. “But I thought we were not the lucky ones. We woke up at five in the morning every single day, were not getting a lot of sleep at night and we had to do all these difficult and challenging things. It wasn’t until later in the training I realized just how rewarding this experience was and how really and truly lucky we were getting to do some amazing things.”

Lanese highlighted some of the amazing things, like getting swim qualified in RTC’s USS Indianapolis Combat Training Pool and feeling a sense of accomplishment going through the USS Chief Fire Fighter Recruit Trainer Confidence Chamber and taking off their M50 Gas Masks in the CS tear gas-filled enclosed room. The midshipman candidates also learned line handling on board the USS Marlinspike Seamanship Trainer, an indoor replica of a small ship.

Midshipman 4th Class Zach Hammack, an incoming freshman at Princeton University from Memphis, Tennessee, said keeping a level head was his most challenging experience.

“There were a lot of stresses, such as being yelled at and having every single mistake you make displayed where everyone knows about it. You have to think about not just yourself but everyone in your platoon. You had to help everyone around you,” Hammack said. “Keeping a level head and focusing on, not myself, but on others, was a key for me.”

Indoctrination participants were evaluated on individual and team skills which were required to complete training, including a Crucible, where the midshipman candidates had to complete several tasks in a timely manner, working as a team. During the Crucible, the midshipman candidates had to put out a fire working as a hose team in a simulated shipboard compartment at the USS Chief. They then ran to the USS Indianapolis building and jumped off a 10-foot platform and simulated abandoning ship into the combat training pool and then swam to a life raft, again working as a team. The final evaluation was getting USS Marlinspike “underway” and properly handling the mooring lines and passing proper directions, implementing orders and once again working together as a team.  

Midshipmen 4th Class Sarah Persons, an incoming freshman at the University of Minnesota from Rochester, Minnesota, said the Crucible was definitely a challenge for her and a lot of the midshipmen candidates.

“It was really neat to see all the work we had put in be pulled together in one day,” said Persons. “We ran through every training exercise we had been through and it was super cool to see where we were at in the beginning and where we ended up. You focused on getting your gear on the fastest in the beginning, but in the end everyone was working together as a team. Everyone pushed each other and eventually we all made it through together.”    

University of Illinois Professor of Naval Science (PNS) and the NROTC unit’s commanding officer, U. S. Navy Capt. Anthony Corapi, said he was asked by Bernacchi to run the pilot program along with his staff and many of the unit’s first class midshipmen. They also pulled in several other NROTC units’ senior midshipmen and staff members to train the incoming midshipmen.

As the midshipman candidates navigated through the different scenarios and evolutions, Corapi and his staff of Navy and Marine Corps officers, senior enlisted Marine Corps active duty members, and senior midshipmen could see that the candidates “started to understand what they were doing and you started to see the confidence, and you even saw leaders emerge from the training,” he said.  “Little by little we started to see the confidence build as they started to learn the tasks.”

Corapi said the two weeks of training, curriculum and basic militarization was as intense as he had ever seen and on par with the other NSTC accessions training, such as RTC and OCS.

The program also offered upper-class NROTC midshipmen the opportunity to gain leadership experience on a large scale for the first time. Under the guidance of staff instructors, they were responsible for the training of the midshipmen candidates from across the country, very similar to how “Detailers” are responsible for training the “Plebes” at the United States Naval Academy during their summer program.

“It has been a real opportunity and leadership challenge of working with active duty military officers,” said Midshipman 1st Class Paul Delutio, a rising senior at the University of Illinois from Elk Grove, Illinois. “Being able to communicate between the midshipman staff and active duty staff, to develop an idea and plan for the midshipman staff to follow that is in line with what the active staff is looking for and also bringing the midshipmen concerns to the table have all been challenging. But, I think, bridging the gap between these two groups has probably been the biggest challenge but also the most rewarding. We were able to see the finished product -- the improvement and development of new fourth class midshipmen.”

Fellow University of Illinois rising senior Midshipman 1st Class Audrey Duncan from Monticello, Illinois, agreed with Delutio.

“I think a major benefit as a midshipman first class and having a billet here [on the Indoctrination Program staff] is you are really starting to step into that role where you are planning things and getting used to taking on a leadership position and communicating as an officer would in the Navy or Marine Corps.”  

Corapi said he and his staff and even more first class midshipmen are planning to be back on Naval Station Great Lakes and RTC to run an even larger Indoctrination Program next year.

“We’ve already starting to plan what the staff size will look like,” Corapi said. “We’ve started to sketch out numbers and what will be the appropriate ratio between drill instructors and RDCs [Recruit Division Commanders] to midshipmen instructors to how many candidates. So that is my focus first. The future training should be pretty much the same as this year.”

After they received their midshipmen anchors from Bernacchi in a graduation ceremony, he told them “nobody in the history of the ROTC program has earned the title of Midshipman 4th Class more than you. You have the best head start of any other NROTC midshipman. You’re about to join our tribe. You’re about to join the tribe of warriors -- the profession of arms.”

The NROTC program is supported by Bernacchi and his staffs at Great Lakes, Illinois, and Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. NROTC was established to develop midshipmen mentally, morally and physically. The program also imbues in them the highest ideals of duty, loyalty and Navy core values in order to commission college graduates as Naval officers who possess a basic professional background, are motivated toward careers in the Naval service and have a potential for future development in mind and character so as to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.

NSTC supports 98 percent of initial officer and enlisted accessions training for the Navy, as well as the Navy's Citizenship Development program. NSTC's support also includes RTC, the Navy's only boot camp also at Naval Station Great Lakes, the NROTC program at more than 160 colleges and universities, OTC at Newport, Rhode Island and Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) and Navy National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC) citizenship development programs at more than 600 high schools worldwide.

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