Defence

Personnel

Chief of Army Cadet Team Challenge 2006

Tomorrow’s military and community leaders from around the nation recently got an up close and personal look at the Army Recruit Training Centre at Blamey Barracks, Kapooka when they pitted their skills against one another during the third annual Chief of Army (CA) Cadet Team Challenge. Major (AAC) Julie Hope reports on the 2006 event.

A cadet works his way through a tough obstacle course designed to challenge physical and mental determination.
Photo by Major (AAC) Julie Hope.

In keeping with its local Aboriginal name meaning ‘place of wind’, Kapooka lived up to its reputation during the course of the day’s vigorous competition. Strengthening winds fanned a bushfire on a nearby range, sweeping grit and smoke over 80
wide-eyed cadets who came from as far north as Darwin and as far south as Hobart and all points in between. But they couldn’t have cared less about the conditions.

They were here to represent their state and work together for the honour of being named the champion Australian Army Cadet (AAC) region.

The CA Challenge was originally designed to assess the fitness, teamwork, leadership, initiative and general military knowledge of selected cadets with the aim of identifying a champion state. And while this remains so, the competition has become much more than that.

The challenge puts virtual strangers (and remember they are teenagers) together in unfamiliar surroundings far from home and tests their physical, mental and emotional ability. Some develop blisters so painful and so deep it takes every ounce of their will to put their boots back on each day, while others pine for the comforts of home and the familiar faces of mum and dad. But the friendships forged, the general camaraderie and the realisation that the body is capable of far more than their minds would believe, makes this cadet competition something special and something to behold.

Regimental Sergeant Major Warrant Officer Class 1 Jon Morgan, from Headquarters AAC, said although the teams come together from the same region, it doesn’t necessarily mean they know one another.

“As strangers, they’ve had to work out each others skills, weaknesses and strengths, and how best they can work as a team to win the challenge. This is not unlike the Kapooka recruits in their platoons,” he said.

WO1 Morgan said the challenge is an ideal opportunity for participating cadets to further develop their military-like skills, boost their self-confidence and to challenge themselves both physically and mentally.

It also allows HQ AAC to run a more diverse range of activities to be assessed in order to analyse current cadet standards of training. And it gives cadets the chance to be exposed to the Australian Defence Force (ADF) at the grass roots level.

The competition day tested a range of abilities including navigation, fitness via a shuttle run (beep test to ADF entry standard 7.5); agility on the run, dodge jump course; the Weapons Training Simulation System – an indoor range using computer simulation allowing practice of marksmanship without the need for ammunition; general military knowledge; and, radio operation with a 77set.

Throughout the challenge period, each state was also assessed on drill, dress and bearing for the prestigious Regimental Sergeant Major-Army trophy.

CA Lt-Gen Peter Leahy attended the challenge and when addressing the cadets he said he was very impressed by the effort shown by all during the final event on the flying fox and obstacle course.

Dog tired after a day of gruelling challenges.
Photo by Major (AAC) Julie Hope.

Despite being at the end of a very long and arduous day that had started at 4.30am, it was these two activities alone – where the cadets flew at high speed over a dam on the flying fox and belly crawled through the dirt while soaking wet – that generated the most emotion and the biggest, widest smiles.

Integral to the overall success of the challenge was the support for the cadet competition by Kapooka’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Bailey, and the training given to cadets from Kapooka’s instructors.

According to Commanding Officer of the 2006 event, Deputy Commander of HQ AAC, Lieutenant Colonel John Chapuis, the overall support and training given to the cadets by soldiers enables them to develop a range of skills while providing them with an insight into life in the Army.

“Having the skills and encouragement of Kapooka’s PT instructors is a practical way to highlight the military as a potential career to those cadets,” he said.

Over the course of the week’s activity the cadets were exposed to platoons of recruits not much older than themselves training and marching on every corner of the barracks. For many of the cadets, the sights and sounds at Kapooka confirmed to them that a career in the ADF was indeed for them.

During a separate activity at this year’s challenge, the cadets took part in a solemn ceremony at Kapooka’s Soldier’s Chapel to retire the Corps original banner. This had been presented by its Colonel-in-Chief, the Duke of Edinburgh in 1970, but was replaced during a ceremony in Sydney last year.

Today there are some 15,000 Army Cadets based in 237 community and school-based units in eight regions: North Queensland, South Queensland, New South Wales/Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

The winning team of the 2006 CA Cadet Team Challenge was South Queensland, which also took out the RSM-A trophy for drill. This is the first time the same region has won both trophies.

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