The alarm rings. It’s 5:30 a.m. You get up, brush your teeth and reach for your uniform, clean-pressed and weighted with badges and a name plate. You lace up your boots and head outside into the daybreak, heading to an hour and a half of physical training. This is your morning three days a week, now that you’re in the ROTC.

“That 5:30 alarm clock is not fun,” says Tim Swenson (COL ’10), a member of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Swenson is up early for physical training, which rotates between the participating schools, three days a week with the other 34 Georgetown students in the 140-strong Hoya Battalion, which is made up of ROTC students from Georgetown, American University, Catholic University of America and the George Washington University.

“You see kind of a microcosm of college students in ROTC,” says Corey Thomas (SFS ’10), another member of the Hoya Battalion, “but we’re all kind of bound together by a desire to serve.”

Waking up with the sun is not the only thing ROTC-ers take on when they don their uniforms. Members take military science classes once a week, in which they learn about military fundamentals, history and current events. These classes start out as 50-minute courses for freshmen and reach three hours for juniors and seniors. This is also on top of monthly field training exercises (FTXs) where they practice skills like basic rifle marksmanship, orienteering and rappelling.

Many ROTC-ers also participate in a number of optional programs like the 10-Miler, an October nationally attended race with the Army. There’s also the Ranger Challenge, in which the Hoya Battalion takes on neighboring ROTC programs like that of the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University in a multi-round competition including a contest that measures accuracy with a grenade — Thomas assures that they are “not live grenades” — and a 12-mile hike with 50 pounds of gear. “So it’s a long competition,” Thomas says with a smile.

But at the end of the day, no matter how long, these individuals dressed in uniforms and boots are still walking down the hallways of the ICC, still sitting — one of many — in a lecture course and still cracking open the books late at night.

Swenson and Thomas insist that they are still very much college students. They watch “Man vs. Wild” and go out to parties on weekends. Many other ROTC members work jobs in the evenings and on weekends, when not training, and a number of them balance ROTC work with varsity sports.

ROTC-ers are also keeping track of their GPAs, extracurricular activities and leadership positions within ROTC with particular concern, as all of these things are added up in a point system, which determines what kind of military jobs they can obtain after graduation. There are several options for careers including those the technology field and various officer positions within the military and many of them are extremely competitive.

“Your GPA is the biggest factor,” Thomas explains. “If you really want to fly helicopters or be a lawyer in the army, it’s really tough. You’re up against thousands of kids.”

“It’s basically like applying to college,” Swenson says.

In the job search, unlike other college grads, Thomas and Swenson aren’t choosing based on location. “There’s sacrifice,” Thomas says. “More than likely we’ll all be sent overseas for a few tours of duty.”

The possibility of the Iraq war continuing past their graduation dates has serious implications for the battalion, but says Swenson: “We’re not allowed to talk about the war.”

When they graduate from the ROTC program, these students will become members of the military (active or reserve), bypassing basic training and moving straight to the lowest officer status as second lieutenants. Swenson will likely defer active service after he graduates in order to attend law school, while Thomas will probably go into four years of active service directly after graduation, followed by four years in the reserves, during which time he hopes to attend graduate school (if the Army will pay for it) or find a federal job.

Either way, while the rest of us will be deciding on graduate programs or fetching coffee for our superiors, Swenson, Thomas and their ROTC graduating class will be entrusted with millions of dollars worth of government equipment as well as be responsible for the lives of anywhere from 20 to 40 soldiers. They’ll be put in charge of people who have been in the army for years.

“Someone could have 15 years experience over you and still have to respect you and your decisions,” Swenson says. Those who graduate from the program, Thomas adds, “have to be competent enough.”

“Cadets that graduate from the Hoya [Battalion] leave their universities with skills unlike any other college course,” says Jessica Rogers, public affairs officer for the Hoya Battalion and a senior psychology major at American University. “They have learned, developed and sharpened their leadership skills, and are prepared to enter both the military and civilian worlds as well-rounded, well-educated and well-prepared leaders.”

When asked if they thought they were ready for that responsibility, Swenson and Thomas gave small slightly nervous laughs and said that this will prepare them, they hope, for the world outside the army. “There’s a reason that many of the world’s leaders have some sort of military background,” Swenson says.

Clearly, joining something like ROTC is a big decision, and both Thomas and Swenson say that they’ve wanted to be in the army their whole lives.

“You can obviously join as a sophomore or junior in college, but a lot of us decided to join in high school. You’re making a decision at 18 that’s going to affect you until you’re 30,” Thomas says.

Swenson didn’t join until his sophomore year of college, not because of a lack of conviction but because he wanted to make sure he would have the time to devote to the Army. “My plan was just to look at it as an outside observer,” he said. “This is something that I thought about seriously for a year.”

And there are some perks; ROTC students get a free college education in exchanage for their service and recieve class credit for ROTC classes (though for underclassmen, it’s only half a credit). Swenson says, “When I tell people I only get half a credit, you know, looking for sympathy, they usually say, like, ‘You’re also getting $50,000 a year!’”

Swenson said it was awkward for him the first time he put on his uniform and wore it to class. And though he has gotten used to it, balancing his life as an average student with his life as a soon-to-be Army lieutenant is tough. “We’re not just a bunch of like kids who are gung-ho and ready to kill,” Swenson says. “We’re with the army, but when you see us on campus, just know that we’re students first.”

A Little Bit of History

The minimal credit applied to the program is the result of a delicate relationship between ROTC at Georgetown and the university’s Jesuit mission.

During the Vietnam War, student protests against a military presence on campus led Georgetown to remove all academic credit for ROTC courses in 1970. Three years later, ROTC was given its own academic department and limited credits for its courses at the suggestion of the School of Foreign Service. According to the battalion’s Web site, ROTC was returned to campus “because [Georgetown] feared losing an estimated $500,000 in federal scholarships and grants” and would have to keep the program to maintain them.