New NROTC Midshipmen Participate in New Student Indoctrination at Navy’s Only Boot Camp

Photo By Chief Petty Officer Amanda Kitchner | GREAT LAKES, Ill. (July 2, 2019) -- Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) midshipman candidates and midshipmen instructors stand in formation in Midway Ceremonial Drill Hall at Recruit Training Command (RTC) where the candidates take their Ceremonial Oath as part of New Student Indoctrination. The young men and women from across the country, who are entering their freshman year of the NROTC program, will undergo the three-week indoctrination program hosted at RTC, which provides standardized entry-level militarization and prepares midshipmen with a common training orientation. They are led by Navy-option 1st class and, Marine-option 2nd class midshipmen, instructors and staff from NROTC units across the country. The staff is overseeing and instructing the midshipmen candidates with assistance from the Recruit Division Commanders and instructors assigned to RTC as well as Marine Corps Drill Instructors. New Student Indoctrination provides basic training in five warfighting fundamentals – Fire Fighting, Damage Control, Seamanship, Watchstanding and Small Arms Handling and Marksmanship - to begin creating basically trained, smartly disciplined, tough and courageous future Navy and Marine Corps Officers. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Amanda S. Kitchner/Released)  

GREAT LAKES, IL, UNITED STATES

07.02.2019

Story by Scott Thornbloom 

Naval Service Training Command     

GREAT LAKES, Ill. (July 2, 2019) -- Naval Service Training Command (NSTC) began the first New Student Indoctrination (NSI) for Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) midshipmen candidates from across the United States July 2, at the Navy’s only boot camp, Recruit Training Command (RTC).

Following a successful pilot program last year, the incoming college freshmen students are participating in a program designed to standardize basic militarization and provide uniform training not available at individual host universities. The training is being accomplished on the same base and in the same facilities that train every enlisted Sailor.

New Student Indoctrination provides basic training in five warfighting competencies – Fire Fighting, Damage Control, Seamanship, Watchstanding and Small Arms Handling and Marksmanship - to begin creating basically trained, smartly disciplined, tough and courageous future Navy and Marine Corps Officers.

The candidates are being led by Navy-option 1st class and Marine-option 2nd class midshipmen, instructors and staff from NROTC units across the country. The staff is overseeing and instructing the midshipmen candidates with assistance from the Recruit Division Commanders and instructors assigned to RTC as well as Marine Corps Drill Instructors.

Leading the staff of the first of two NSI sessions this year is U. S. Navy Capt. Anthony Corapi, Professor of Naval Science and commanding officer of the NROTC unit at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, who also led the pilot last year.

“I’m excited seeing how we will be increasing our numbers to a full rate production,” Corapi said. “The concepts will be the same. The challenge will be the volume and handling that volume. But I’m excited, as I was last year, to watch the transformation from high school senior to midshipmen.”

NROTC was the only officer accession program in the Department of the Navy that did not require a standardized entry-level militarization and indoctrination phase to commence training. The Navy’s two other line-officer accession programs, the United States Naval Academy (USNA) and Officer Candidate School (OCS), have a six week “Plebe Summer” and a three week “Indoctrination Phase,” respectively.

Throughout the three weeks at RTC midshipmen candidates will undergo initial militarization while training in basic firefighting, watch standing, seamanship, navigation, force protection, drill, and swimming along with physical fitness training and military inspections by the NROTC staff members. They will also receive military education including customs and courtesies, and military history.

To view updates from NROTC Indoctrination, follow us at: https://www.facebook.com/NavalReserveOfficersTrainingCorps/ or at https://www.facebook.com/NavalServiceTraining/

The NROTC program is supported by Rear Adm. Jamie Sands, NSTC commander, and his headquarters staff at Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois. NROTC was established to develop midshipmen mentally, morally and physically. The program also imbues in them the highest ideals of duty, loyalty and Navy core values in order to commission college graduates as Naval and Marine Corps officers who possess a basic professional background, are motivated toward careers in the Naval service and have a potential for future development in mind and character so as to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.

NSTC supports 98 percent of initial officer and enlisted accessions training for the Navy, as well as the Navy’s Citizenship Development program. NSTC’s support also includes RTC, the Navy’s only boot camp, also at Naval Station Great Lakes; the NROTC program at more than 160 colleges and universities; OTC at Newport, Rhode Island; and the Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) and Navy National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC) citizenship development programs at more than 600 high schools worldwide.

For more information on NROTC visit: www.nrotc.navy.mil/

For more news from Naval Service Training Command, visit: www.navy.mil/local/greatlakes/.

For more information, visit www.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/usnavy, or www.twitter.com/usnavy.

For more news from Naval Service Training Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/greatlakes/.

• Date Taken: 07.02.2019
• Date Posted: 07.03.2019 11:32
• Story ID: 330236
• Location: GREAT LAKES, IL, US