Cadets trickled into the check-in table at the Land Navigation Course during Cadet Summer Training. Some finished the course within an hour and a half, including Cadet Alec Brinkman, a prior service Infantryman that has walked more than a mile on a few Land Navigation courses himself.  Brinkman, a Green-to-Gold Cadet, served as a Non-Commissioned Officer and contracted with Texas A&M University-Central Texas. After serving 12 years active duty, he has been stationed around the world to include Germany, Washington, Texas, and also found himself in Afghanistan nine months after graduating Basic Training in 2011.  Now in 10th Regiment, Advanced Camp, [...]

Land navigation is one of the skills taught at Cadet Summer Training (CST) at Fort Knox, Ky., but DePaul University Army ROTC Green to Gold Cadet Ryan Russett, 4th Regiment, Advanced Camp, had prior experience that made this challenging event easier. “I applied my points really quickly” he said, and then, “I just picked the shortest path which was — to the south first.”  Russett is from Chicago, where his program honed his navigation skills further as a Green to Gold Cadet. To his advantage, the ROTC program at his university comes to Fort Knox to do their Field Training Exercises [...]