Leader Development and Assessment Course

The Leadership Development and Assessment Course (LDAC) is the centerpiece of the US Army's ROTC program. Over the last 40 years the Army has called it "Advanced Camp", "Camp Adventure", and it is currently known as "Warrior Forge". Within ROTC, it is often referred to simply as "Camp", or by a number of other creative nicknames.

Conducted only during the summer months (June, July, and August) at Fort Lewis, WA, it is normally attended by cadets between their junior and senior years of college. The course totals 33 consecutive days of both training and testing in common soldier skills like physical fitness, land navigation, rifle marksmanship, grenades, first aid, radio procedures, field craft, and tactics. Typically, the training is only a refresher of what the cadets should have already learned at their individual schools, and is meant to act as a leveler as all the cadets come from different backgrounds.

Although the formal training is conducted by the active duty officers and NCO's, day-to-day things are mostly run by the cadets who rotate through leadership positions (Squad Leader through Company Commander). These leaders are responsible for making sure barracks are clean and everyone underneath them is present, on time, and has all the equipment required for the scheduled training. The cadets may call for formations as necessary, march the formations, perform inspections, and conduct extra training to better prepare everyone for upcoming events.

All the training of soldiering skills leads up to a simulated deployment to the fictional nation of Palomas said to be located in the Balkans, where the inhabitants currently speak Spanish but have culture and customs decidedly similar those of Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a ten day field training exercise during which the cadets run numerous combat missions each day, first with their squad and then as a small platoon, and spend the nights hidden in tactical patrol bases. They only have the clothes and equipment that they can carry on their backs, and receive resupply of only water and MRE's each day.

For the cadets, the entire experience revolves around the evaluations that they receive in positions of leadership. They receive a minimum of six evaluations, half of them in garrison and the other half during the field training exercise. A grade of E (Exceeds the Standard), S (Satisfies the Standard), or N (Needs Improvement) is given for 16 "Dimensions of Leadership" which makes up an overall grade for the position. At the end of LDAC the cadets receive another grade of E, S, or N for their entire 33 days. This final grade is determined primarily by their leadership evaluations, but also by peer evaluations and their performance on their tests of soldiering skills.

It is said that roughly 20% of cadets receive an overall E at LDAC, while 70% receive an S, and 10% receive an N, although the grading is not supposed to be on a curve. The cadets receive additional credit for being ranked in the top 5 cadets in their platoon (usually consisting of 40 to 50 cadets) and for achieving a high score on all of their skills tests, an honor called "Recondo". The credit that the cadets receive at LDAC affects the rank that they hold during their senior year as well as the likelihood of getting their branch or contract of choice when they graduate and become officers.