Cadets from around the upper Susquehanna Valley completed their final field training exercise of 2013 at Bloomsburg University this past weekend. Penn College and Lycoming College students, as well as their Bison Battalion colleagues from Bloomsburg, Bucknell and Susquehanna universities, received military skills training in correlation to their class year and time in the program. Skills taught to sophomores and freshmen included basic detainee operations and assessment of injured personnel by aid and litter teams. Among other classes were instruction on arm and hand signals in the field and sessions on the Army operations process and troop-leading procedures. All cadets were assessed on day and night land navigation, which require cadets to find certain numbers of points within a given time period (four hours for day and two and a half for night). The capstone occurred Sunday morning, when junior and sophomore cadets broke into separate squads for a series of situational training exercise (STX) lanes. Such exercises are conducted as an assessment of the leadership and tactical knowledge of the junior cadets heading to the Leadership Development Assessment Course. The STX lanes are often greeted by many of the juniors with a mix of excitement and worry, as it is their first time leading cadets in a tactical situation. The weekend was seen a learning experience for all of the cadets and should set them up for success throughout the rest of the academic and training year. “I was finally able to put into practice all of the skills and training that I have learned over the past two and half years,” Susquehanna Cadet Blaine L. Hutchison said.Photos provided by Cadet Michael Embs, public affairs officer, Bison Battalion