On Friday, Jan. 18, Sergeant Lionel Brown, Colonel Robert Foutz and 17 JROTC cadets went to Camp Bullis, a boot camp/base in San Antonio that gives base operations and training support to all those who want to join the army, around 9 a.m and came back around 6 p.m. On Saturday, Jan. 19, 16 cadets, Sergeant Brown and Colonel Foutz left to Camp Bullis again around 6:30 a.m. They left from there around 7 p.m.
“This is our second year competing at Camp Bullis, for the Radar challenge,” Col. Foutz said.
The Radar Challenge is a two day period of competitions that consists of five military-like events. All events are timed to see which school is the fastest in each event. There is an award ceremony at the end of it for the schools who placed between first and third in each events.
“There’s just a bunch of obstacles and challenges thrown at you and your team. It’s all just a physical fitness team effort against other schools,” ETA senior Rey Zamora said.
The five events are the Gauntlet; a 3 mile race of regard to rein with a 35 pound army style rucksack that is to be carried the entire way, the 3.2 mile cross country race; the rope bridge that a team must work together to make a bridge using only one rope so they all can get across it, the cross country rescue; a team of four all carrying a military style backpack of 35 pounds plus a military medical evacuation letter with a 100 pound dummy. They must carry all this across a quarter of a mile and go through an 80 foot obstacle course. The last event is another military obstacle course called a team conference where a team must move across the entire course.
“I lead my team into battle and we fought the best we could. We pushed all the way to the limit, with all the strength each and every one of us had,” senior Jesse Reyna said.
A total of 21 schools across Texas attended this event with a total of 24 teams, 16 teams for Master’s level and Challenge level and 10 teams for Explorer level.
