Tennessee Tech Army ROTC: Moldova CULP: A Humbling Experience

Cadet Schultz's CULP Experience

Each summer, Cadet Command selects hundreds of cadets to participate in the Cultural Language Proficiency Program (CULP). For up to three weeks, cadets travel the world and are assigned to different countries, exposing them to a new cultural perspective, how other militaries operate, and gaining a sense of how others view the United States.

U.S. Army ROTC CULP Logo

This summer, the Golden Eagle Battalion was fortunate enough to send four of our own cadets on enlightening trips across the globe. Sophomore cadet Ellen Schultz recently returned from the European country of Moldova and wanted to share how her experiences broadened her horizon:

"This summer, I was lucky enough to participate in Moldova CULP. My team arrived in Ft. Knox on June 18^th. After several agonizing days of processing and travel, we landed in the most beautiful country I have ever seen--and the most impoverished in Europe. For the first several days, we were shocked repeatedly by all manner of tiny cultural and lifestyle differences that left us constantly spinning. Around every corner there were people to meet, a new faux pas to learn, and everyday things to struggle with. It was a long time before I was able to settle into my surroundings and begin to take everything in. It wasn’t until the second or third week that many of us realized how truly lucky we were to have been selected for this trip.

Initial Formation after arrival to Moldova

Other CULP groups had service missions like we did, but the majority of them lived in hotels or were assigned to wealthier nations. They were not given the perspective that we had from the barracks of the Moldovan Military Academy.

Cadet Schultz's CULP group

This really sank in for me during a demonstration by the students of the Moldovan Airborne School. We were bussed an hour out of the capital city to a military airbase that looked like a rundown civilian airport. The hangars were small and seemed to be dug out of hills and many of their vehicles were, by our rather high standards, outdated. The weeds growing up between the cracks in the concrete were being hewn down by men with scythes and the pilot and instructors rode around the airfield on bicycles. The small plane that flew six jumpers to their designated altitudes looked like a 1950’s An-2 and was certainly older than anyone present. The jumpers trusted their lives to the mechanics on the airfield and gave the most impressive demonstration of precision parachuting I have ever seen.

Despite suffocating clouds and ceaseless wind, five out of six parachutists landed on their feet within 50 meters of our gaggle of onlookers. For the rest of our three and a half weeks in country, we observed countless examples of how much the Moldovan people were capable of with the resources they had and the realization shocked us out of our pride and into admiration for their strength and camaraderie."

Below are more photo's from Schultz's trip: