Cadets honor 155-mile march in Texas

ROTC cadet Erik McCaffrey, one of the nearly 40 cadets who began the march Saturday, said he wanted to test himself by marching from Arlington to Fort Hood, Texas, just as another group of Army ROTC cadets did back in 1960, the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram reported.

"I'm definitely here to honor them," McCaffrey, 22, said of the cadets who made "The Long March" years ago. "If they were able to do it, I should be able to do it."

Joel Ward, one of the men who took part in "The Long March," said he and his then-instructor, Willard Latham, have opposing takes on the famed event.

While Latham insists participants in the 1960 march were volunteers, Ward remembers the march amid hot summer temperatures as another attempt by a tough instructor to instill confidence in his cadets.

"Then-Capt. Latham was tough, really, really tough," Ward told the Star-Telegram. "We were just college kids. We wanted to have fun."

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