{"id":320321,"date":"2026-11-03T15:56:44","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/320321\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T15:56:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:56:44","slug":"steel-battalion-among-nations-top-rotc-programs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/320321\/","title":{"rendered":"Steel Battalion among nation’s top ROTC programs"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the Steel Battalion Army ROTC, located at Lehigh\u2019s Mountaintop Campus, winning matters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Steel Battalion received the 2025 MacArthur Award<\/a> on Oct. 14, recognizing it as one of the top eight ROTC programs in the country.<\/p>\n

This is the second time the Steel Battalion has won the MacArthur Award, following their first win in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The MacArthur Award, presented to the Steel Battalion on Oct. 14, recognizes outstanding cadet performance and achievement in academics, training and their standing on the National Order of Merit list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Army doesn\u2019t go to war to lose them; we go to win,\u201d said Lt. Col. Christopher Curran, professor of military science at Lehigh and leader of the Steel Battalion. \u201cSo we might as well practice that in what we do here. Whether it\u2019s playing frisbee in the morning or winning the MacArthur Award, those are all events that train us to do our best so that we can win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curran also said it\u2019s somewhat rare to win the MacArthur Award repeatedly. He said the fact that the Steel Battalion is able to do that goes to show the ROTC is doing the right things in order to put the best soldiers and lieutenants into the army.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The award\u2019s winner is selected based on six categories: achievement of the program\u2019s mission, order of merit score (a national ranking system for cadets), average grade point average, first-year-to-sophomore retention rate, the program\u2019s overall performance at Advance Camp and the percentage of STEM majors in the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Steel Battalion includes students from 11 colleges and universities.<\/p>\n

Curran said while many factors contribute to the battalion\u2019s success, its longstanding culture and expectation of excellence has been crucial to its performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program doesn\u2019t succeed just based on the people that are here doing it now,\u201d Curran said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that continues to perpetuate itself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Cadets in Lehigh\u2019s Steel Battalion practice field exercises at Mountaintop Campus on Oct. 23. The Battalion received the 2025 MacArthur Award on Oct. 14, recognizing it as one of the top eight ROTC programs in the country. (Cassie Bowman\/B&W Staff)<\/p>\n

Daniel Neubecker, \u201827, is the command sergeant major of the Steel Battalion.<\/p>\n

He was selected by cadets graduating in 2026 to help lead the battalion, a responsibility he said he doesn\u2019t take lightly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a level of responsibility I feel to help lead the battalion in the right direction,\u201d Neubecker said. \u201cTo make sure that they know what good leadership looks like, planning the right events for them so that they can grow and develop.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Neubecker said the Steel Battalion\u2019s lasting commitment to high performance, reinforced by each graduating class of cadets, is one factor behind its success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said the MacArthur Award is representative of the entire program and the work that everyone has put into the program. Alumni and past cadre, the student leaders and instructors of the cadets training to become commissioned officers in the military, have instilled traditions and standards within the battalion to ensure the next generation is ready to face challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another display of\u00a0 the Steel Battalion\u2019s recent success is its performance in the Ranger Challenge<\/a>, a varsity-style competition often called the sport of ROTC.<\/p>\n

Curran said the battalion\u2019s success in the Ranger Challenge and MacArthur award was driven by its cadets rather than the professor of military science.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kyle Vanden Heuvel, \u201827, is a member of the Steel Battalion\u2019s Ranger Challenge team, the team has earned first place in the 2nd Brigade\u2019s Ranger Challenge three times in recent years.<\/p>\n

Vanden Heuvel said the team\u2019s success has allowed them to compete in an international competition at West Point against military academies and international programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really value high performance, physically, mentally and academically,\u201d Vanden Heuvel said. \u201cI think that\u2019s \u00a0reflected in the awards we\u2019ve gotten over the past few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curran said the rigorous nature of the ROTC program combined with Lehigh\u2019s academic expectations contributed to the Steel Battalion\u2019s success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cadets participate in morning workouts on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, training labs Thursdays through Sunday and take military science classes while completing their regular coursework.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program is a lot tougher than some other programs are,\u201d Curran said. \u201cWe demand a lot of our cadets, but because we\u2019re very demanding here, that prepares them to go off into the army world and do hard things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curran pointed to Lehigh\u2019s commitment to Future Makers as a guiding principle that sets the Steel Battalion apart from other ROTC programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Caedmon Holland, \u201828, said seeing the success of his fellow cadets pushes him to be a better leader and member of the ROTC community.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people in ROTC are just impressive in their own right, in ways that you don\u2019t really get to see in people around the university,\u201d Holland said.<\/p>\n

Cadets have the opportunity to attend summer programs such as Air Assault School, where they learn skills including rappelling out of helicopters and parachuting from planes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think all of those experiences are really unique and it\u2019s sort of inspiring to see fellow students do those kinds of things,\u201d Holland said.<\/p>\n

Vanden Heuvel said the ROTC community is tight-knit<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s small, but the ties run strong,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re with each other every step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the Steel Battalion Army ROTC, located at Lehigh\u2019s Mountaintop Campus, winning matters.\u00a0 The Steel Battalion received the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5877,119,121,120,1197,1198],"class_list":["post-320321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-4-minute-read","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-feature","tag-student-and-campus-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}