by Mike Weber
Daily Lobo
When Capt. Adam Loomis is a young lieutenant in Afghanistan or Iraq, he will need close air support.
If that time comes, he said he will be much more comfortable with his military counterparts.
Loomis is the first student leader of the Scabbard and Blade National Honor Society. He is also the top UNM Army ROTC cadet.
The military branch honor society is giving UNM's top recruits interaction across military branches.
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Loomis said the honor society offers cadets additional training at a more serious level with high-caliber people.
This interaction is the major goal of the society, said Army Maj. Hans Hunt, the group's faculty adviser.
"We're trying to get a comfort zone established here so cadets can go to any branch and feel comfortable, not odd, not like they're on somebody else's turf," he said. "With more rapport, with all the branches working together, we'll produce better leaders."
Faculty and cadet officers say this will give them a career edge.
These 17 cadets - all in the top 10 percent of their ROTC programs - are the first members of UNM's society, one of the few in the country to bring together cadets from Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine branches of ROTC.
"The Army doesn't take a hill by itself," Loomis said. "The military is moving to joint operations, and most operations in Afghanistan and Iraq involve all four branches."
This wasn't reflected in the behavior of future military officers on campus in previous years, cadet officers said.
"When we'd see cadets from other branches around campus, we used to walk right past each other," Loomis said.
Scabbard and Blade 1st Lt. Joe Aubert said there is a lot of tension between the ROTC units.
Loomis and Aubert said they see real-life applications in their future careers by working more comfortably with cadet officers in the other branches.
"It's been a challenge to come together," Aubert said. "But now I understand naval standard operating procedures. I can go into the naval unit and throw around Marine language and get business done with them."
Top cadets are chosen based on grades, physical fitness, hard work and performance.
The honor members will have a land-navigation training exercise, a shooting event and a weekend event to mentor Junior ROTC cadets from high schools.
In December, it will hold the first Joint Service Ball in UNM history.
"I'd also like to do one Scabbard and Blade event opened up to the University to present a military subject to the University as a whole," Loomis said.
He said that event will be a panel of military officers and cadets dealing with a military subject.
Scabbard and Blade was founded 100 academic years ago at the University of Wisconsin.
