Members of the Fighting Saints Battalion participate in a Patriot Day ceremony at St. Cloud State.
Today’s program serves about 120 students including about 45 from St. Cloud State — 11 of whom are women.
In October the battalion earned the Best ROTC Company Award for outstanding performance in two of three award categories for the 2013-2014 academic year at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual national meeting and exposition.
The battalion also earned the Most Active Company Award, which recognizes participation in ROTC program-sponsored activities, and the Largest ROTC sub-chapter award.
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Captain Brian Riverman, ROTC operations officer and St. Cloud State military history instructor, estimates the battalion is the No. 2 battalion in the company in the nation based on physical fitness test scores, GPA and cadet rankings on the National Order of Merit List, although the U.S. Army does not publically rank ROTC programs.
The Fighting Saints Battalion Army ROTC program is designed to train cadets to be leaders within the Army — either as active duty officers or as officers in the National Guard or Army Reserve. ROTC offers scholarships to assist students in the program.
The St. Cloud State cadets can be seen around campus doing physical training routines from 6-7 a.m. Monday through Thursday. In winter they take their training inside the Huskies dome.
They present the color guard at hockey games and participate in the Patriot Day (9-11) ceremony at St. Cloud State.
Student cadets are active in the local community participating in Memorial Day events, parades and collecting for Toys for Tots.
Each October the Fighting Saints Battalion hosts a 5K run/walk through the St. John’s Abbey Arboretum Trails.
Freshmen start off in the program learning about the Army organization and terms used in the Army. Leadership lessons take over in the sophomore and junior year culminating with a four-week summer field exercise to learn how to be a platoon leader at Fort Knox.
Senior year cadets mentor the younger students and work one-on-one with a professor of military science. At the end of the year they are commissioned as second lieutenants.
“We want them to think critically, be adaptive and thrive in chaos,” Riverman said.
The leadership skills translate to corporate America as well as they do to leading a platoon in the Army, he said.
Fighting Saints Battalion 2014-2015
- St. Cloud State cadet Alexander McDonough traveled to Romania while participating in the Cadet Command’s Cultural Understanding and Language Proficiency program during the summer of 2014.
- Cadets participate in field training exercises at Camp Ripley in September.
- The fighting Saints Battalion’s Eagle Rising team took first place in Army Ten-Miler in October in Washington D.C. — the fourth year in a row the team has taken first place in the event. Another Fighting Saints Battalion team took third place overall in the Women’s Open. Team members also toured the National Mall and attended the AUSA meeting and exposition.
- Won the Task Force Ripley Ranger Challenge competition at Camp Ripley and went on to the brigade-level competition at Fort McCoy, Wis., where the Battalion’s nine-man team and the All-Female Team won — the nine-man team for the second year in a row.
- Marched in the veteran’s day parade in St. Cloud.
- Supported Toys for Military Families from the 367th Engineer Battalion from St. Joseph.
- The co-ed team and a female team each scored first place and the Fighting Saints Battalion took first place overall at the University of Kansas ROTC 21st annual Ranger Buddy Competition. The competition consists of two-cadet teams testing their physical and mental toughness with a 15-kilometer (9.2 mi) road march, an unknown distance buddy run, target shooting, weapons assembly and an array of basic soldiering tasks. This is the premier training event for ROTC Cadet two-man teams.
