NSCC International Exchange Program Provides World of Cultural Experience

BY PETER ATKINSON, Deputy Editor

The U.S. Naval Sea Cadet Corps (NSCC) program promises “the adventure of a lifetime.” For some cadets, that adventure can take them to the far corners of the globe.

Each year, the NSCC Inter-national Exchange Program (IEP) sends select cadets to England, Sweden, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Australia and, last year, Russia, among other countries to experience that nation’s maritime traditions and training as well as the native culture. In exchange, young people from Sea Cadet programs in those countries travel to the United States for much the same experience.

The two NSCC cadets — PO1 Jessica Vance from the Spruance Division in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Erik Lin-Greenberg from the Van Voorhis Memorial Squadron in Las Vegas — among a group of about 30 international cadets that took part in the Russian exchange in 2005 learned just how authentic the experience is.

From Spartan conditions aboard a 50-year-old training ship to shortages of such basic items as toilet paper and clean drinking water, the cadets — along with NSCC escort Lt. Cmdr. Keith A. Larson from the Twin Cities Squadron in Fort Snelling, Minn. —saw how the country is still struggling to shake the vestiges of the former Soviet system.

But by the same token, the NSCC cadets bunked with cadets from Sweden and South Korea, trained with the Russian Young Sailors Club, cruised aboard Lord Novgorod the Great for 11 days along the Volkov and Svir rivers and visited a number of Russian villages along the way. They also were able to observe the national Navy Day celebration July 31 and tour Russian Federation Navy ships that were in port for the event.

“It’s about a common love of the sea and naval experience,” said Lt. Cmdr. Michael L. Campbell, NSCC, director of the U.S. IEP. “Because the kids interact and work with their counterparts from other countries, and see and absorb the local culture, they come away with a new understanding of the world.”

The same can hold true for the NSCC escorts who accompany each group of cadets on their exchange trip. For Larson, a retired Navy submariner, touring the Russian ships proved rather moving, and somewhat ironic.

“It was an amazing experience … To set foot on a Grisha-V antisubmarine ship, to touch the depth charges and rocket launchers, to stand alongside the sailors on the ship,” Larson wrote in his report on the trip. “This was the same class of ship (perhaps the very same ship) whose mission was to seek and destroy the submarine that I served aboard during the Cold War only 15 years ago.”

Campbell, a Navy League national director and president of the Hartford, Conn., Council, has been involved with NSCC foreign exchanges since 1976, when he traveled to Canada as a Sea Cadet. The program was much different at that time, he said, as it had little central structure and participants had to pay their own way.

In 1999, Campbell was among a group that helped transform the program into the NSCC IEP, which provides a cohesive organization to help monitor exchanges and prepare cadets for training abroad. It also raises funds for the program and, with the help of some additional funding from the Department of Defense, the IEP now is a self-sufficient operation.

The biggest change, however, was the implementation of a merit-based scholarship program where cadets compete to participate, Campbell said. Cadets who are selected have nearly all of their expenses — including travel — covered by the IEP.

“The merit-based system opened up the chance to participate in a foreign exchange to many more Sea Cadets,” Campbell said. “Prior to that, participation really had to do with the ability to pay.”

Cadets must be at least 16 years old to compete for an exchange slot and submit, among other things, an application, report cards, essays, recommendations and achievement lists to a committee that makes the final selections. The committee includes Campbell, who is chairman, vice chairman Duncan M. Rowles and Paul Willis, vice president of the Hartford Council, which provides technical help to the selection committee and support services to the IEP, including coordinating travel to and from the exchanges.

About 50 Sea Cadets are chosen to participate in foreign exchanges each year.

“We’d take more if we could, but with the resources and manpower we have available, that’s about as many as we can handle,” Campbell said.

The move to create the NSCC IEP coincided with a veritable explosion in international interest and participation in Sea Cadet programs, which has helped greatly expand the potential for foreign exchanges, Campbell said. Nations as far-flung as Lithuania, Zimbabwe and New Zealand now have Sea Cadet Corps or related organizations and participation in some countries dwarfs that of the U.S. total of about 12,000 cadets. South Korea boasts about 100,000 Sea Cadets and there are 3,000 cadets in one unit alone in Bombay, India, he said.

The volunteer International Sea Cadet Association gives oversight for the various organizations, providing common concepts, goals and mutual support to promote the benefits of Sea Cadet training worldwide, as well as facilitating cadet exchanges.

Cadet exchanges take place during the summer, except for the one with Australia, which occurs in April as summer ends in the Southern Hemisphere. Nations exchange an equal number of cadets, so when two cadets from the United States travel to, say, Sweden, two Swedish cadets travel here. Cadets from the various foreign nations gather as a group in the host country and conduct all of their training and other program activities together.

The NSCC IEP had been hosting foreign contingents in Norfolk, Va., with international cadets able to tour U.S. sea service facilities in the region and travel to Washington, D.C. In 2005, Campbell moved the U.S.-sponsored exchange to Camp Varnum in Narragansett Bay, R.I. Cadets from six nations — Sweden, Canada, Australia, Korea, Singapore and the United Kingdom — spent two weeks training and touring U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and National Guard activities from New York to Boston. Camp Varnum also will host the 2006 exchange.

Information on the NSCC IEP is available on the web at http://iep.seacadets.org/.