By: Cadet Austin Bristow
From the 7th through the 9th of November 2019, the Eastern Washington University (EWU) Reserve Officer Training Program (ROTC) “Fighting Eagles” battalion executed its annual Expert Fighting Eagle Battalion (EFEB) test. The EFEB is an event based competition where every Cadet in the program who does not already has an EFEB, participates in a variety of individual skill events that tests their mental and physical attributes. Everyone who passes the test is awarded an EFEB to where on their Cadet uniforms. The EFEB test historically only has a pass rate of 15% which ensures that only the most prepared Cadets pass. In order to receive the EFEB, a participating Cadet must pass every event labeled as, “must pass” as well as only being allowed to fail two of the remaining 11 other events.
Must Pass Events
There are five must pass events the Cadets must pass. The events are:
- Score at least 70 points in each event of the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) and an overall score of 240 or higher.
- For day land navigation the Cadets must find 3 of 4 points
- For night land navigation they must find 2 of 3 points
- Complete a 6-mile ruck march in under 90 minutes followed by an equipment layout to ensure all gear was correctly packed.
- Complete the obstacle course in front of Cadet Hall which includes climbing over a 6 foot wall and a rope climb.
Additional Events
The other 11 events where Cadets can only fail two of are:
- a hand grenade course
- an ASIPS radio test
- assembly and disassembly of of the following weapons systems
- M4 rifle
- M240
- M249
- hand and arm signals
- creating a range card
- performing tactical combat casualty care
- conducting a SALUTE report
- written land navigation test
- individual movement techniques.
EFEB Day 1 and Day 2
The first day of testing is when the APFT occurs. Any of the Cadets that were eliminated from the competition because of the APFT still continued on in the competition to build experience to be ready for next year’s EFEB test. The second day of testing had many Cadets going from event to event with little to no breaks. The events started with the hand grenade assault course and ASIPS radio test and ran until almost 9 pm where cadets finished with assembly and disassembly of three different weapon systems.
EFEB Day 3
On November 9th, at 3 am, the competitors gathered around to hear about the land navigation course that would be held in the wooded terrain at the Cheney Water Works property. The course was designed to be tough enough where Cadets would have to walk from corner to corner on the course in order to find their points. Points were also almost invisible due to the darkness caused by the heavy cloud cover. This forced Cadets to be precise with their use of plotting points, establishing a route plan, and movement to their plotted points. Even with the darkness and removal of any sort of help from an outside source, most of the Cadets that were still in the competition passed the necessary event.
After a written land navigation test and short Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) breakfast, the Cadets were immediately given new points for the day land navigation test. This event proved much easier to all the Cadets that were still competitive for the EFEB. After land navigation, the Cadets then went through an individual movement techniques lane and finally the ruck march.
The ruck march is 6 miles long and had Cadets hold a minimum weight of 35 pounds, all while being expected to complete the ruck in 90 minutes or less. The course took the Cadets from the Cheney Water Works property, through downtown Cheney, and ended at Cadet Hall on the Eastern Washington University campus.
When the Cadets finally made the march back to Cadet Hall, there was still more must pass events. The obstacle course tested the physical and mental strength of the participants after completing the ruck. After the climbing wall, the Cadets then had to climb a rope to have their bodies reach a certain point before they can slide down and conduct a gear layout to ensure there were no light rucks over the competition.
Final EFEB statistics
After all these events, only 7 Cadets passed the necessary requirements to earn the coveted Expert Fighting Eagles Badge:
The 7 of 51 who earned the EFEB meant the test had a pass rate of 14% once again demonstrating how challenging receiving the badge is. Of the seven EFEB recipients only one Cadet earned “True Red” status. To earn “True Red” status, the Cadet must pass every single course with no fail. This proves very difficult, considering that many Cadets who earn the EFEB fail at least one event, this does not mean they are not still competitive for the badge though.
Cadet Drohman, the only Cadet this year to not fail a single event, said he prepared for the competition with frequent exercise in his own time, as well as studying all the performance measures to be absolutely sure there were no misunderstandings about the rules. Congratulations to Cadet Drohman and our six other recipients of the 2019 Expert Fighting Eagles Badge.
Go Fighting Eags!
Note: More pictures from the 2019 Expert Fighting Eagles Badge test can be seen below.
Cadet Crystal Cruz successfully climbs up the rope obstacle.
Cadet Kaitlynn Taylor climbs up the rope obstacle.
