ROTC cadets learned tactics to use in battle yesterday afternoon in Mattoon’s Lytle Pool.

Cadets – Eastern students enrolled in the ROTC program – practiced swimming with equipment, swimming while blindfolded and other basic swimming skills.

Eastern’s ROTC program holds the Combat Water Survival Test each year as a pretest and skills builder for its students.

The atmosphere was relaxed, and students joked with each other the whole afternoon, but they were learning skills that could keep them alive in water battles.

“It gives them basic soldier’s skills,” said Capt. Chris Burkhart, who teaches sophomore ROTC classes at Eastern.

There were three tests needed to complete yesterday’s activities. The students first completed the swimming diagnostic test.

For the diagnostic test, the cadets swam in groups of five for 10 minutes, using the backstroke, crawl stroke, sidestroke, or breaststroke, or a mixture. After resting for 10 minutes, they tread water for five minutes.

The cadets had to wear a waterborne uniform, which created a lot of drag when in the water.

Next, the cadets also had to successfully swim 15 meters wearing their weapons and equipment.

Once they completed that, they practiced removing their equipment underwater.

The event was done by jumping to the bottom of the pool’s deep end, removing the weapon and swimming back up to the side of the pool.

John Kennedy, a junior history major, said the training prepared him and the other students for any water battle situation in which they might find themselves.

“Everywhere you go, there is water,” he said.

The final event was the 3-meter drop.

The cadets were blindfolded and pushed off the diving board backwards and told to find the side of the pool. They can remove the blindfold to swim to the side of the pool.

Sgt. Bret Rogowitz cheered on cadets who were scared of the water and were jumping off the board backwards. He said the program gives cadets a “sense of belonging.”