控制一艘航空母舰。 一场暴风雨般的训练演习。 即将毕业的参加后备役军官训练军团学生回顾过去四年
他们说，训练让他们为未来做好了准备
Francis McCabe（25届毕业生）（左起），Peter Barto（25届毕业生）和Kyron Kern（25届毕业生）说参加后备役军官训练军团给了他们BU同龄人未知的经历。
控制一艘航空母舰。 一场暴风雨般的训练演习。 即将毕业的参加后备役军官训练军团学生回顾过去四年
他们说，训练让他们为未来做好了准备
开车兜风是大多数年轻人的必经之路。 去年夏天，彼得•巴托（Peter Barto）驾驶一艘核动力航空母舰在菲律宾海进行了一次航行。
That serious responsibility was part of his training in BU’s 预备役军官训练团 (参加后备役军官训练军团). Barto (Pardee’25), who will be commissioned as an ensign in the US Navy the day after BU’s 毕业典礼 May 18, took the conn of the carrier while a supply ship sailed alongside to refuel it. 这位国际关系专业的学生回忆说：“就在我检查仪器的一瞬间，航母开始向补给舰漂移，我笨拙地下达了一个重要命令，纠正它的航向。” “船长在我身后，副驾驶在我身后，我需要忘记我的错误，保持镇静，集中精力避免与船上几千名水手相撞。”
审判是参加后备役军官训练军团的仪式。 Kyron Kern （CAS 25届）回忆起一段大多数政治学专业学生都不熟悉的经历：在倾盆大雨中，背着45磅重的帆布背包，慢跑/徒步12英里。 科恩毕业后将被任命为陆军少尉，他随身带着一件纪念品，提醒自己记得在科德角联合基地进行的那次训练。他解开衬衫，露出湿腰带划伤他的一块褪色的伤疤。 However, that day with other cadets also triggers fond memories: “When things suck like that, you really rely on each other to lift each other’s spirits. 这最终成为我们班最亲密、最难忘的经历之一。”
Clearly, the 16 参加后备役军官训练军团 students graduating from BU this month go through a program that’s not for everyone: 醒着的 日出前几小时 for training, learning proficiency with firearms, keeping calm at critical moments—like steering a carrier. They’re also graduating with solemn duties into a troubled world: wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the threat of a potential invasion of Taiwan by China, 紧张局势 between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan, and US allies recalculating America’s commitment to them.
科恩将前往阿拉巴马州的诺沃塞尔堡参加直升机飞行训练； 巴托将在圣地亚哥的一艘驱逐舰上担任水面作战军官； 弗朗西斯·麦凯布（Francis McCabe， 25届毕业生）将成为空军少尉，帮助招募和指导参加后备军官训练队的高中生。 这三个人反思了参加后备役军官训练军团教给他们如何面对未来.
为了清晰和简短，这些采访经过了编辑。
Q&A
与Kyron Kern， Peter Barto和Francis McCabe一起
今天部: What did you learn in your four years with 参加后备役军官训练军团 that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise?
Barto: 我很惊讶也很高兴通过参加后备役军官训练军团学习到更多关于人际关系的知识。 You think about learning these tangible [military] skills, but you don’t realize just the situations that you face and people that you meet that you wouldn’t have met in a regular class—having difficult conversations with people. 一个很好的例子发生在两周前：我担任一个营的领导职务，负责（来自地区大学的）75名左右的海军军官候补生。 There was a fierce divide between the river—MIT and Harvard midshipmen a certain way, and the BU, BC midshipmen treating the program a certain way—not respecting each other’s differences, in race, politics, issues of believing that certain schools are better or worse than others.
我召集了75名大学生，站在他们面前，就这些问题和我们如何补救进行了一个小时的演讲。 You’re thrust into an executive-level position dealing with command, climate, and culture as a 22-year-old. It’s a microcosm of the United States: the military is striving to be exceptional, but you’re going to face the same problems that broader society faces. 当涉及到这些问题时，军事组织的风险更高。 所以，一旦有任何不同的迹象，你必须把它扼杀在萌芽状态。 当我谈到勇气的时候，你必须是那个和75个人进行极其艰难的对话的人，向他们宣讲团结的重要性和我们整个营的成功。
It’s like the aircraft carrier. I’d never been on an aircraft carrier, much less driven an aircraft carrier. So I didn’t know any of the skills when I got up there, but what I knew was how to be calm under pressure, how to be confident, decisive. 后备军官训练队适合这种后续训练。
Kern说: 我有机会参加美国陆军空中突击学校。 I learned “sling load operations”: you see giant water buffaloes or artillery cannons and how you’re able to sling them onto a helicopter. 训练的高潮是从直升机上绳降下来，这是一次非常独特的经历。 I’m a political science major, and I’m able to do this crazy stuff.
另一个很好的机会——彼得也有同样的机会——我们有机会在加州蒙特利海军新濠影汇线上赌场研究生院的国防威胁减少机构实习，从事核安全工作。 但是我们也有机会打沙滩排球和高尔夫球。 We’re developing war games that operational leaders could play to learn about nuclear weapons. 我们和西点军校的学员、海军学院的学员，以及来自全国各地大学的学员和学员一起出席了典礼。 非常令人兴奋的。 You’re able to put together a comprehensive war game to train senior officers. 我们有国务院的人在海军新濠影汇线上赌场研究生院教书。 中央情报局的一位代表过来和我们谈了一会儿。
参加后备役军官训练军团 didn’t teach me an ounce about flying a helicopter, but it taught me the foundations of how to be a soldier, how to be a follower, how to be a leader.
麦凯布: 我在领导力、公共演讲、时间管理和建立同伴关系方面得到了很多练习，这些都是我作为普通学生无法得到的。 通过这个项目，我还认识了一些我最好的朋友和导师。 他们绝对把我的生活推向了一个更好的方向。
今天部: 即将入学的学生如何决定参加后备役军官训练军团是否适合他们？
麦凯布: 你付出什么，就会得到什么。 You’ll stay up late, wake up early for PT [physical training], and do things that your classmates are not doing. 如果你想有机会过一种不同的生活方式，并有机会从事有意义的工作，那么军队可能是适合你的。
Air Force 参加后备役军官训练军团 doesn’t do as specific training because jobs at your technical school after you commission teach you the required knowledge. There is a general focus on leadership and self-development, from your peers up to the detachment level, whether it’s drill, leadership problem-solving, planning training for younger cadets, or physical fitness. 有兴趣的学员有机会接受额外的培训。 I was fortunate to go to Air Assault School, where they teach you how to rappel out of helicopters, which was pretty fun—that’s an Army school, and not required for Air Force cadets.
Barto: For the Navy, if you’re in high school and you’re thinking of 参加后备役军官训练军团, they give you a taste the summer before [freshman year of college]. 我是在COVID期间。 在训练开始之前，我们有两周的隔离期； 你住在军营里，不见天日，只吃送过来的饭。 由于心理因素，我们失去了很多人。
To show up on those early mornings, and then still go to that 8 am [class] after you’ve already worked out for an hour, is going to take a concerted effort to buy into [the idea] that you can make it through your day. We lost at least five [BU 参加后备役军官训练军团 students] after our freshman year, either for medical reasons or because the program wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.
另一件事是辨别，如果你想参加后备军官训练队，为什么要来波士顿大学？ 我们得到的支持在波士顿大学是独一无二的。 波士顿大学是一个托管校区，来自其他大波士顿大学的参加后备役军官训练军团学生在这里训练和学习。例如，我们通过波士顿大学获得食宿津贴。
Melissa Gilliam总裁要来参加我们的试运行。
Kern说: 很多机构在某一方面都做得很好。 也许他们有很强的学术严谨性，但军事方面是缺乏的。 波士顿大学融合了一切，创造出最好的警官。 If you’re serious about 参加后备役军官训练军团 and being a military officer, you should be very serious about BU.
If you’re thinking about joining 参加后备役军官训练军团, you’re already on the right track. 任务的一部分吸引了你。 Then you [must] have the discipline and the work ethic, because that’s really all it takes—the commitment to show up as the best person that you can be for the battalion.
If you’re serious about 参加后备役军官训练军团 and being a military officer, you should be very serious about BU.
今天部: 你为了参加后备军官训练队放弃了什么？
Barto: 比如周三晚上和朋友出去玩，而周四早上5点你就得起床。
Kern说: There’ve been a couple Halloween weekends missed. [But] we’ve done everything that a normal college student could do. 我参加过一个兄弟会； I’ve participated in clubs.
There’s a gravity to what showing up means, and the gravity is that I am undergoing this training to be a better leader when I commission. 作为一个更好的领导者，这可能意味着未来某人的生与死，对于你所领导的人来说。 If you look at it from that lens, it doesn’t seem like that big a sacrifice.
今天部: 你对你的军事生涯最大的希望是什么？你最大的担忧是什么？
Kern说: 现在的世界是一个非常复杂的环境。 我发现自己在早上查看新闻，并对所看到的感到惊讶。 Obviously, it’s in the back of my mind.
You’ll hear this phrase a lot with the army: the army is a people business, and my immediate focus is just being the best leader I can be for the soldiers that I interact with. 这看起来像是在战斗环境中做出正确的决定。 It could be checking in on them and their personal lives and if there’s anything that they need. At the end of the day, we won’t have too much to do with the grand decisions. We’ll have a lot to do, however, with the people that we lead and keeping them safe.
Barto: An important point about officership is that you’re the one that can bridge the stratification between your soldiers and sailors. So while they may not have to worry about the news, it’s your job to worry about it and then let them know the relevant, mission-specific things that affect them. 这就是为什么我们学习政治学和国际关系之类的东西。
接受委托的一部分就是要接受所有这些不确定性。 My concern—it doesn’t keep me up at night, but is something to think about—is how am I going to balance that obligation to my sailors and obligation to the Navy with my own interests when I go home at night? 我怎么能腾出时间去做我喜欢的事情，比如跑步或健身？ How am I going to make sure that when I’m deployed for six months to an unknown location, how am I going to manage a relationship with my girlfriend or my family? Working those things out is important, so you’re not left like a chicken with its head cut off.
麦凯布: 我想做一些有意义的工作，对当地人或国外的人产生影响。 I’ve made some lifelong friends, have no college debt, and some skills that will serve me well after the military.
我担心的一个问题是，我们将继续与世界各地的盟友建立战略伙伴关系。 It’s disheartening to see America’s place eroded somewhat in the world order. 我希望接下来的几年能像过去几年在波士顿大学一样美好。
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