The “Pride of PA” battalion of the U.S. Army ROTC – a unit that includes students from Penn State Behrend – has won a General Douglas MacArthur Award for excellence. The unit outperformed 40 others to earn the honor.
The U.S. Army’s Cadet Command and the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Foundation present the awards, choosing ROTC units that best represent the ideals of “duty, honor and country,” as advocated by MacArthur, who ran the U.S. Military Academy at West Point before leading U.S. forces in the Far East during World War II. The “Pride of PA” battalion, a part of the Army ROTC’s 2nd Brigade, won one of eight MacArthur awards.
“The 2nd Brigade has the most member institutions of the eight brigades nationwide, and also is the most academically competitive,” said Lt. Col. Bradley D. Nadig, commander of the battalion and lecturer in military science at Penn State Behrend.
Units based at Texas A&M University, the University of Colorado and the University of Notre Dame also won MacArthur awards.
Units are selected based on the performance of cadets, the number of Second Lieutenants who earn commissions and rankings on the command’s National Order of Merit List, which assesses cadets’ athletic participation, grade-point averages and other demonstrated abilities.