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All for 1

Jillian Engel

While most Miami University students are deep in a REM cycle at 5 a.m., junior T.J. Ware is waking up and getting dressed in his Army uniform.

Ware is one of 16 Army ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) cadets at Miami, and at least once a week the cadets have to wake up at 5 a.m. to carpool for a 45-minute drive to Xavier University where they take two classes with Xavier cadets - one from 6:45 to 8:15 a.m. and one from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m.

"It gets lost in translation with the Xavier cadets," Ware said. "They don't really think, 'Hmm, Miami students have to drive down here.' If it's 8:30 or 9 (p.m.) at night and we get a call saying, 'Hey you have get here at 6 a.m., well now we won't get any sleep that night."

Miami's traveling soldiers

To provide proper instruction and field training for Army cadets, Miami collaborates with Xavier University's Army ROTC program as an affiliate university.

Miami University currently hosts Naval and Marine Corps ROTC and Air Force ROTC programs. Army ROTC has always had a presence at the university, but Miami's Navy ROTC sponsors the Army ROTC. This means all Army classes are temporarily designated in the course catalogue as Naval science, although they are technically Army courses. Xavier cadre (military officers trained to instruct cadets) are working to change this with

Miami administration by obtaining a permanent status in Oxford.

"Miami has always had Army ROTC, it's just always been associated with another university," Army Lt. Col. Shane Ousey said. "It's always kind of been under Xavier's umbrella."

Xavier also hosts Army cadets from Northern Kentucky University, Thomas Moore College in Crestview Hills, Ky., and the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati.

According to Ousey, the professor and chair of the military science department at Xavier, the four affiliate schools' and Xavier's cadets work together as one battalion.

"I don't call myself (the commander of) the Xavier Battalion," Ousey said. "I call us the 'All for One' Battalion. I have four affiliate schools that I take care of. It's important I don't focus on Xavier."

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Ousey said of the approximately 100 cadets in the All for One Battalion, the 16 Miami students make up almost 20 percent of the batallion's strength.

However, 16 cadets is the largest number Army ROTC at Xavier has seen from Miami in several years. And since the majority of the battalion

attends Xavier, all 16 Miami cadets wake up around 5 a.m. every Tuesday and only sophomores and seniors every Thursday to drive the 35.13 miles to Xavier University in Cincinnati.

At Xavier, they take military science classes to learn tactics and leadership and participate in a lab to learn practical exercises in the field.

"(We learn about) leadership - how to be an officer and how to be a leader in a tactical environment," Miami senior and Cadet Katie Wagoner said.

But with seven Miami juniors in the program this year, Army Maj. Steve Harmon, recruiting operations officer at Xavier, said a member of the Xavier cadre travels to Oxford Thursdays to teach them a class designed for junior cadets.

"Since there are so many of us (juniors) now, our instructor decided it was easier for him to come up (to Oxford) instead of make us all drive there twice in a week," Ware said.

The class, which Ousey said Army ROTC didn't even have in the catalog at Miami two years ago, is not listed in the course catalog as a military science class, it appears as "Tactical Problems Seminar" NSC (Naval Science) 321.

"It's so complicated because we're not at Miami full time yet," Harmon said. "All our classes fall under the Navy there."

Cadets, sir

For the past two years, Harmon and Ousey have been actively working to expand the Army ROTC program at Miami and their first step is to add the military science listing to the course catalog.

"I've been working with the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and working through the curriculum committee to get classes established in the catalog," Ousey said. "Those are the administrative parts of working with Miami. What will drive whether or not we put full-time cadre out there is the numbers."

Wagoner, who has participated in Army ROTC since her sophomore year, said only six cadets participated from Miami when she first joined Army ROTC in 2006. Wagoner has seen the Army's presence triple in size first-hand and said this growth is all the more reason to work toward creating a more permanent program at Miami.

"It's funny because we have every kind (of military branch) here except the Army and the Army is a good combination of everything," Wagoner said.

Ousey said he wants to increase the size of Miami's Army ROTC program from 16 to 30 or 40 cadets and become its own self-sustaining program.

"We have a saying in the Army - 'hope is not a course of action,'" Ousey said. "We are trying to look at next year's first-year class coming to Miami and the numbers are promising."

Harmon said they are looking for a "magic number" of 30 to 40 cadets to grow the program large enough to make it a partner of Xavier and have full-time faculty at Miami rather than keep it as an affiliate.

"There's a lot of dedication from cadets who want to be an officer, so we're trying to make Army ROTC more permanent," Harmon said. "We want to grow the program big enough so we can teach all our classes at Miami. We're hoping to make final changes before the curriculum board this fall so (military science classes) can be just like any other class you sign up for."

In the Army ... soon

Wagoner said in fall 2008, Army ROTC cadets at Miami were able to receive a grade for their classes they take at Xavier for the first time. She also said cadets used to be required to use "cross-town enrollment" because Miami didn't recognize the class.

And now that she's taking 19 credit hours, including her senior capstone, plus driving to Xavier University twice a week for four hours of class and labs, Wagoner said she sees the need for the a more permanent Army program at Miami more than ever.

"We don't even have access to Miami's (military) facilities and (Maj. Harmon) is in the office only one day a week at Millett," Wagoner said. "The other programs here have supply room and all the facilities to use for training materials."

Ware said if the Army's military science courses were registered at Miami, the Army ROTC students could use those classes as their thematic sequence.

"If we did have it registered here at Miami it would make it easier for us to use it as a thematic sequence," Ware said. "NROTC (Naval ROTC) can get it (the Naval science classes) as a thematic

sequence and we have to force add into it. That would make a lot of scheduling problems less hectic."

With Miami's budget cuts in mind, Ousey said he's not trying to create an entirely new military science department by adding these classes for his cadets, he just wants to make sure his Army cadre is recognized as faculty.

"It makes it easier so that my faculty that teaches there can enter grades," Ousey said. "The budget part, we're not really worried about that."

Harmon and Ousey both said Miami would not lose money by adding military science classes because the Army brings in revenue for the university.

The Army provides many Army ROTC Scholarships to students to meet their needs no matter where they are in the college careers, in addition to special scholarships designed for nurses and graduate students. All Army ROTC scholarships cover 100 percent of a student's tuition and fees, allots $1,200 a year for books and pays stipends ranging from $300 a month to $500 a month depending on their class year.

"We're not a drain on the university as far as monetary resources," Harmon said. "The university doesn't pay for our salary, Uncle Sam pays our salary ... it's a good deal for Miami and i t's a good deal for us."

Until the number of Army ROTC cadets at Miami reaches Harmon's "magic number," students will continue to trek to Cincinnati twice a week.

"I never get up later than 5:30 (a.m.) on weekdays," Wagoner said. "I can't sleep in. I can sleep in until maybe 9 or 10 a.m., but when my body's used to it, it's hard to sleep in."


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