Cadet from Saipan facing different LTC fear

Most every cadet comes to the Leader’s Training Course with a fear. A fear of heights, a fear of water or a fear of having no control.

Matthew Cabrera’s biggest fear is letting down his fellow cadets.

If the first few days of the course are any indication, that fear will be short-lived.

“Whenever I needed help with something, this was the first guy who was there to help me,” said Wendell Grouby Jr., Cabrera’s battle buddy in Alpha Company.

Cabrera, 22, endured a 17-hour flight Sunday from Guam—the longest trip made by any Alpha Company cadet. He is the only cadet in his company from the island.

Saipan, with a population of 70,000, is Cabrera’s home island. It is in the Northern Mariana Islands, a string of 15 islands that are a three-hour flight from major Asian cities such as Tokyo and Hong Kong.

One hurdle some cadets attending the course from outside the mainland U.S. encounter is a language barrier. But Cabrera conquered that issue long ago when he attended a private high school that forbade students from speaking any language other than English.

“You would pretty much get punished,” he said. “They’d give you cleaning detail and all that.”

Last year, Cabrera moved to nearby Guam to attend the University of Guam, where he is majoring in marketing in hopes of going into public affairs after graduation.
In 1994, the University of Guam’s ROTC program was named the Triton Warrior Battalion to more appropriately convey the strength of these cadets and cadre. That program is the main reason Cabrera chose to attend.

While Cabrera wishes there was a course like LTC closer to home, he is still optimistic about being a part of the training at Knox.

“I was looking at enlisting, and I wanted to give this thing a shot because I also wanted to finish my degree,” he said. “So I kind of wanted to kill two birds with one stone.”

He was encouraged to attend LTC by cadets who attended in the past. His family influenced his decision as well.

“My dad’s brother, he’s a captain in Hawaii,” Cabrera said. “He’s been giving me a heads up on what to expect in the program.”

He also has cousins who are enlisted soldiers, some of whom are stationed in Afghanistan. Most of Cabrera’s family is home waiting for him to return to Saipan, including his 3-year-old daughter, Miana.

“I’ve caught her sometimes saluting her mother,” he said, “or I’ll catch her saying ‘Hooah’ just out of nowhere.”

Cabrera is proud, yet surprised his little girl has picked up his habits by watching him. The admiration is obvious, but Cabrera can’t ignore that his little girl will be without her father while he is away.

“She is not liking the whole thing that I live on a different island,” he said.

Miana is home with her mother on Saipan. Cabrera is assured that their daughter won’t have to share another parent with the Army, however. On Saipan, Miana’s mother works part-time for the ROTC program at Northern Marianas College, but has no interest to serve in uniform.

“She feels my pain, so to speak,” he said.

Of course, Cabrera faced more pressing issues than leaving his daughter and her mother behind. Fort Knox is 14 hours behind the time in Guam.

“The drill sergeants do a good job of taking my mind off of the time difference and jet leg,” he said.

There is no specific method for getting used to the time change so quickly, said Sgt. Daniel Sisto, an Alpha Company drill sergeant.

“Truthfully, until its lights out, we are just constantly doing training,” he said. “They are basically moving at all times.”

The main advice he gives is for schools to help cadets adjust even before they arrive at LTC.

“Their school needs to say, ‘Hey, maybe don’t sleep at all until that night you get there and then sleep a full night,” Sisto said.

Restlessness cannot be an issue at the course, Sisto said, because “when they get here, everyone has to train the same.”

When Cabrera finishes the course, he will return to his university for another two years before he graduates.

“I’m trying to get this whole thing done so we can get our lives jump-started,” he said.