Colorado State University ROTC Students Arrive on Campus for Zero Week

Note to Reporters: Colorado State University’s Army ROTC program has a time-honored tradition to fire their cannon during home football games. The cannon is fired to celebrate any score on the Ram’s scoreboard, to mark the beginning of halftime and the conclusion of the game.

This year, the ROTC cadets will test fire the cannon between 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 20 at the Hughes Stadium parking lot. Media are invited to cover the test firing. If interested, contact Dell Rae Moellenberg at 970-491-6009 or dellrae.moellenberg@colostate.edu.

Colorado State University welcomes the Army’s newest cadets, who arrived on campus on Aug. 18 to participate in Zero Week.

Zero Week consists of four-days during which new cadets are introduced to Army culture, tradition and basic skills training. During the four days, new cadets will learn what it means to volunteer to serve as a leader in the United States Army while being challenged physically and mentally through a series of athletic and team building events. The week includes a physical fitness test, a combat water survival test, a confidence course, a team-oriented critical thinking course, rock climbing and rappelling.

Throughout the training, the new cadets also will get to know the upper classmen in the university’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps – or ROTC — program and build the camaraderie.

Cadets will gain exposure to the many traditions particular to CSU’s Army ROTC program to include the cannon crew that supports every home football game for the Rams.

Since its inception as a land grant institution, Colorado State University has maintained its long tradition and privilege of hosting a Military Science and Leadership Department. Tthe Military Science building located on University Ave is the only building on the CSU campus still being used for its originally intended purpose.

The military cadet program as it exists today dates back nearly 90 years, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Defense Act of 1916 and officially renamed these university programs the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Since then, Army ROTC has provided leadership and military training at schools and universities across the country and has commissioned more than a half million Officers.

 CSU Army ROTC commissionees have served as officers in every American conflict since WWI.

Army ROTC is the largest commissioning source in the American military. It is a diverse group of men and women with more than 20,000 cadets currently enrolled. Women have been an integral part of Army ROTC since the first group of women was commissioned in 1976. Today, women constitute 20 percent of the cadets.

Army ROTC has a total of 273 host programs with more than 1,100 partnership and affiliate schools across the country. It produces about 60 percent of the Second Lieutenants who join the active Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. Just this year alone, Army ROTC will commission more than 5,500 Second Lieutenants into the United States Army. More than 40 percent of current active duty army general officers were commissioned through ROTC. And Army ROTC has produced some notable leaders in American history to include former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell and former WWII Chief of Staff of the Army George C. Marshall. Army ROTC provides cadets with the character-building aspects of a diverse, self-disciplined civilian education with tough, centralized leadership development training.
 

-30-