By Roseline Twagiramariya
Staff writer
Junkyard wars, a portion of Call of the Wild training at Tobacco Leaf Lake, is designed to test Cadets on their ability to use their imagination and their initiative.
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| Alpha Co. (Co. 6) Cadets race their crafted boats to shore at Call of the Wild. Photo by Michael Rivera |
Broken into squads, Cadets are expected to use all the materials to build a raft strong enough to hold all their members as they race against other squads. They have 30 minutes to come up with an idea, execute it and stop arguing long enough to put it all together.
“The emphasis is on the team-building,” said 2nd Lt. Andrew Campbell, a member of the Call of the Wild committee. “You got a lot of chiefs, because that’s what everyone wants to be, and not enough Indians.”
Once the clock starts, the first thing one notices is the frustration on some of the Cadets’ faces.
Like Campbell said, there are often too many ideas being suggested and no one listening long enough to consider them.
“They have to learn to offer suggestions in a way that’s not putting anyone down,” Campbell said, “not just in building the raft but also in the water.”
For Co. A 1/46th Inf. (Co.6) Cadet Jonathan Darnes, a student at Marion Military Institute, the junkyard wars taught him something new about his squad members.
“Different people have different contributions, and we’ve learned that about each other,” Darnes said.
He also said they all know what they are capable of doing individually, and as a team, it all flows together perfectly.
Darnes, a squad leader during the event, and his teammates, had no idea what to expect when they were told about junkyard wars. Knowing they didn’t have a lot of time to figure it all out, they went with the idea that made the most sense.
They had no idea what to expect when it was time to race.
During the race, all squads have to make sure all the members have at least half their bodies on the raft. They cannot race with any standing members or anyone in front of the raft pulling on it.
“The ideal raft is to have the 2 x 4s on the side because then they can sit on those or push on them,” Campbell said. “But in the end, the coolest boats are the ones that stay together.”
One squad member, Campbell University student Alexa Walrond, said the biggest surprise came right before the race.
“As we started to carry it (the raft) to the starting line, it started falling apart,” Walrond said.
Walrond added that the barrels were hanging off the side, the ropes were coming undone and they had to make a decision before it was too late.
“We took the tarp that we saved for the top and wrapped it all around,” Walrond said, “and we all decided to hang on for dear life and we would make it.”
In the end, Darnes and Walrond’s squad came in first.
“We had made up our mind that we weren’t going to win but were still going to give 100 percent,” Walrond said.
“I think that’s why we came out on top, because we put our teamwork together and our ingenuity.”
For Cadet Nick Vince, a student at the University of Toledo and member of the winning squad, being able to accomplish something with so few resources was the biggest lesson of all.
“It helped us work well together as a team and do it with minimum resources,” Vince said.
Darnes said he learned things about himself as a leader he never knew.
“This is new me to me because I didn’t know I had leadership qualities,” Darnes said.
“LTC has really bought the qualities out of me, and it’s really changed me for the better.”