What is ROTC? Part II: Where do they go?

In last week's column I talked about the basics of Reserve Officers Training Corps. This week, I am going to talk about what happens to those cadets who graduate from the program.

Cadets are commissioned as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army when they complete the ROTC program around the time of graduation. Cadets find out their branch, or position, in the Army during the fall of their senior year. During the spring they are told at which base they will be stationed. There is a lot of waiting involved in the process.

Cadet and senior Jeremiah Hencke will be an Ordinance Officer, which means he will be in charge of a platoon that deals with Improvised Explosive Devices. If Hencke is deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he and his unit will detonate or defuse IEDs. Hencke said he had wanted to do something instead of manage something, which was why chose to deal with IEDs.

"I want to be doing something that requires a large amount of mental and physical energy," Hencke said.

If you want to see video of soldiers doing IED detonations, you can check out Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes on cbsnews.com. The segment is called "The Deadliest Weapon."

Cadet and senior Fred Bryant will be working with weapons arsenals, and cadet and senior Justin Sandy will be working as a field artillery officer. As Sandy described it, he will be working with the big guns.

Lt. Col. Jason Garkey, the officer in charge of ROTC, said cadets were being prepared to go into combat through various training exercises that took away the ambiguity and doubt that create fear in combat situations. Garkey served in several countries, including Iraq, before coming to Richmond.

The cadets get to suggest their branch and post preferences, but the Army makes the final decision. Cadets are matched with their choices based on their position on a national order of merit list. The cadets' ranking depends on a few factors - such as their GPA, which counts for 40 percent, and how well they perform at a leadership training exercise the summer between their junior and senior years.

After a cadet graduates, he or she is required to serve for either four years of active duty followed by four years of inactive reserve, or eight years of active reserve. Inactive reserve means soldiers essentially live as civilians unless they are deployed, which can happen at almost anytime.

The summer after graduation, cadets have a few months off until they go to officers' training school, unless they request otherwise. During the current wars, cadets are usually sent to Iraq or Afghanistan 18 to 24 months after graduation, Bryant said. Cadets can request to have their dates for Officer Candidate School pushed back, but the military may approve those requests or not. Bryant requested to go to OCS in 2011 because he and a friend are starting a business.

The process of getting newly commissioned officers to training, and then to their posts, is being restructured in order to make the process faster. Garkey said they were changing the process back to what it was when he graduated college.

Cadets usually make about $45,000 per year with 30 days paid leave per year, health benefits, tuition assistance to pursue further degrees, and basic services such as legal support. Garkey said cadets would be in charge of 30 to 40 soldiers, as well as their equipment, on their first day of work.

Sandy has job security, he said, but at the same time things are still unknown until the Army tells him where he will be going and when. Until then, he and the other cadets will continue to train and wait for their orders.

Contact staff writer Stephanie Rice at stephanie.rice@richmond.edu