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Tag: Army ROTC

Behind the Balance: Drew Menges ’25 — Keydet Soccer

Virginia Military Institute’s cadet-athletes have to juggle cadet life, heavy academic course loads, and their NCAA Division I sport. Committed to both academic and athletic pursuits, balancing their rigorous schedule in both sports and school requires a certain level of commitment and discipline. Behind the Balance is a series that focuses on those cadet-athletes and how they handle the hurdles of the day-to-day. 

Drew Menges ’25 had dreamed of attending the United States Merchant Marine Academy, but those dreams were halted when he was not admitted due to colorblindness. That didn’t slash his desire to go to military college, though.  

“I always wanted to go to a military school … So at the last minute we were looking at other options,” he said.

Menges has a strong desire to serve his country because of  his own family’s service. Both his grandfathers served, one in the Navy and one in the Air Force.  

“When I found out about military schools, I didn’t really know what they did,” he said. “I thought it’s pretty cool that you could come here to get a degree and commission.” 

When he found Virginia Military Institute, it was nearly kismet. By attending VMI, he’d also be able to play soccer for the school.  

“Everything worked out with the coach and then I just applied here and got in,” he said.  

When Menges talks about soccer his entire face lights up. You can tell it’s one of his passions. But, he’s serious about it. Starting at the age of 3, he took the field. By the time he entered middle school, he was playing on a club soccer team. There came a time when he had to choose between two sports, though. He was playing both soccer and lacrosse, but they were both during the same season. 

Ultimately, soccer scored higher for him.  

“I decided to stick with soccer because I liked it more. I think I was a little bit better at it too,” he said.  

Drew Menges on the soccer field playing for Virginia Military Institute's men's soccer team.

Scoring goals on and off the field 

The mechanical engineering major has a full course load of 18 credits this semester. He’ll also be commissioning into the Army upon graduation. So, his days are tightly packed. 

Getting up at 6:30 a.m. daily, he heads to morning training with the soccer team. Morning practices consist of mostly running or stretching. Then, he’s off to formation at 7 a.m. By 7:05 a.m. he’s back to his room to put his hay up, do a little bit of school work, then he attempts to go to Crozet for breakfast before his first class at 9 a.m. 

On his long days, he has classes from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. On good days, he’s out of class by 1 p.m. Practice is at 4:30 p.m. so after class, he’s either rushing to practices or doing work or sleeping.  

After practice, he hits up the mess hall, then it’s back to work for the remainder of the night. Sometimes he’s working on class work until midnight. On especially hard nights, he could be up until the wee hours of 4 a.m. completing assignments.  

“It’s pretty difficult. I’m not going to lie,” he said. “And this year it’s definitely ramped up because the mechanical engineering classes have got a lot harder and there’s a lot more work. I just try to knock one thing out at a time.” 

He suggests doing as much as you can with the time you’re given.  

Cadet-athletes at VMI not only have their responsibilities with their selected sport but cadet duties on top of that. There are specific times they can eat, go to class, study, and sleep. They are also required to take physical fitness classes twice a week, participate in ROTC all four years, be prepared for room and uniform inspections, parade preparation, guard duty, and more.  

“Before I came here I was not very good with time management. And everything kind of came easy to me, especially with school,” he said. “So coming here, I’ve definitely learned a lot about what I need to do every day to get stuff done, especially when it’s a heavy workload.”

He also discovered what he’s capable of.  

“You’re able to find out a lot about what you actually can do,” he said. “Like a regular college or if you didn’t come here, you probably would have never found that out by yourselves.” 

One tip he does have is to find time for yourself, even if it’s something small. He says he likes to spend some weekends with friends, just hanging out. 

“I’m also a very big believer in when I’m doing an assignment and it’s not clicking, just taking a break and stepping away from it,” he said. “It really, really helps me. And that’s why on the weekends, I always try to find time to do something for myself, instead of just worrying about school and stuff.” 

The Extra Mile: Ranger Challenge

Have you ever wondered what a mix of Army ROTC and a varsity sport would be? You’d get the Army ROTC Ranger Challenge team, which is a club at Virginia Military Institute.  

A cadet has two chances to make it into the Ranger Challenge team at VMI — once in the spring and another in the fall each year. The week-long tryout results in only 50% of those attempting landing a spot. 

What do tryouts entail? Two words — grueling effort. 

The club tests several skills, from written land navigation tests and day orienteering, to basic rifle marksmanship and a grenade assault course. There’s also the M-16 assembly/disassembly test, a mystery challenge that changes every year, and night orienteering. 

According to the Army, the Ranger Challenge team is described as an Army ROTC varsity sport, where teams form early in the semester and train nearly every morning of the week all the way up until the Sandhurst Military Skills Competition at the U.S. Military Academy (USMA) at West Point in mid-spring. 

But that’s not all, the club is also required to complete the Army Physical Fitness Test, which consists of two minutes of push-ups, two minutes of sit-ups, and a two-mile run — all to be completed when participating cadets are operating on less than six hours of sleep. 

Fun, right?  

It is for those who participate. More so, the experience helps prepare them for their future military careers.  

“You’re training for, essentially, what your job is going to be,” Collin Fitzpatrick ’23 said. “It’s a really good stepping stone.” 

The club is associated with Army ROTC, so those who are lucky enough to make the ranks are participating in activities that they will most likely be doing in their careers after VMI. Think of it as the best of the best. The cadets on the Ranger Challenge team often rank the highest in Cadet Summer Training (CST) and VMI’s Army ROTC.  

“It’s definitely a leg up for training for the standard Army ROTC,” Fitzpatrick said.  

The club is more rigorous than other clubs at the Institute. They practice as if they were an NCAA team. They complete physical training each morning that lasts for an hour beginning at 5:45 a.m. Then, every afternoon, they have skills practice for two hours.  

“We don’t have NCAA status, but I think the training time is similar to NCAA teams,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’re definitely one of the more active clubs. The thing is, it’s not really seen as a club because it’s associated with Army ROTC. We do fall in club status, but it’s kind of like limbo.” 

The majority of the team’s career goals are to be entry-level officers in the military.  

“It’s just a group of individuals that all are going toward the same goal. At the end of the day, we’re training for our jobs in the military,” Fitzpatrick said. 

Janine “J.J.” Colantonio ’23 said Ranger Challenge allows her to surround herself with others who are looking to better and challenge themselves.  

“It sounds kind of selfish, but we are preparing ourselves for careers at the end of the day,” she said.

Training for the Ranger Challenge team extends well beyond the academic year. The 2nd Class cadets on the Ranger Challenge team also participate in CST at Fort Knox, which involves platoon-level tactics and 10-level tasks, like individual soldier tests. Others throughout the summer maintain a regime with specified workouts to keep them in shape for the following year’s tryouts. 

The majority of cadets who participate in the Ranger Challenge either continue in schools like the Sapper Leader Course with the Army or Cadet Troop Leader Training (CTLT). 

VMI cadets participate in Ranger Challenge, an elite Army ROTC program.

“It’s basically just like the military version of an internship,” Colantonio said. “You’re going to shadow like a [platoon leader] in a certain unit … so a certain job type or description that appeals to you that you’d be interested in. And you’re just seeing what the unit does, what you would do in the future in that specific job.” 

Most recently, the team placed fifth, winning a Sandhurst Medallion for the top five overall teams out of 48 teams in the annual Sandhurst Military Skills Competition April 28 and 29.   

VMI competed against teams from USMA, the Air Force Academy, and the Coast Guard Academy, as well as Army ROTC units across the United States including Texas A&M, Notre Dame University, North Carolina State University, Liberty University, and the University of Central Florida. In addition, 14 international teams competed including the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) in Great Britain, as well as teams from Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Korea, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Poland, Thailand, and Sweden. 

Those competing spent two days running a myriad of obstacles including weapons disassembly/assembly, grenade assault, gas mask function, rifle and pistol shooting, programming a radio, carrying a casualty, land navigation, and lugging their minimum 35-pound rucks for approximately 30 miles. The winner of the competition is chosen based on performance at each of the obstacles as well as the speed with which they complete them.    

The takeaway, despite the arduous efforts in this club, is the relationships made with those who are part of it. 

“It’s people,” Thomas Marlow ’23 said. “The caliber of people that we wake up every single morning with is pretty substantial. That reflects in so many different aspects here at VMI, not just Army.” 

“I’d say a big thing even from the relationships that I formed as a freshman, even the seniors on the team at the time, they’ll reach out to me, or I’ll reach out to them and  that mentorship continues,” Fitzpatrick said. “And as they move forward in life, I kind of move in their footsteps.”