USD Magazine, Winter 2001

TRAINING THE TROOPS OF TOMORROW

IT'S NOT BOOT CAMP, BUT IT'S NOT QUITE ORDINARY

COLLEGE LIFE, EITHER. STUDENTS IN THE NROTC

PROGRAM GIVE UP A FEW INDULGENCES, BUT THEY

ly Michael R. HaJkinJ

VIEW THEIR HARD WORK AS PRIVILEGE, NOT SACRIFICE.

4:30 a.m., Tuesday. Pam Marshall struggles awake and fumbles blearily for the alarm clock. Dressing quickly in the semi-darkness, she tries not to disturb her slumbering room– mate, who has a good five hours to snooze before getting up for class. By 5:45 a.m, Marshall has double-checked every button and clasp of her uniform and falls into tight formation with the students who compose the San Diego battalion of the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, all of whom will someday be Navy or Marine officers. When all battalion mem– bers are accounted for, the troops break for their weekly exercise, usually a training lab

or lecture on military issues, while the rest of the campus sleeps. The once-a-week muster ends at 7:15 a.m., but Marshal l doesn't change clothes before heading to class. Like all NROTC officer candidates-or midshipmen, as they are known-Marshall wears her uni– form every Tuesday. She's a college student, but also a representative of the United Scares Navy. On Tuesdays, the uniforms make NROTC students stand out in a sea of jeans and sneakers. The rest of the week there are some subtle differences, but for the most part these students act a lot like their peers:

make grades, have some fun, maybe meet someone special, and, of course, figure out what they want to do with their lives. And like many of their fellow students, they've taken on something extra. In this case, it's the commitment to prepare physi– cally, mentally and morally to earn an offi– cer's commission in the Navy or Marine Corps. Just like college athletes or student government leaders, they do ir not because they have to, bur because to chem, it's meaningful. "Ask the NROTC students why they do it and you'll gee a couple dozen different answers," says Capt. Michael Simpson, the

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