When Darren Vargas Jr. entered Oklahoma State University, he wasn’t sure what he was going to do with his life. He describes his freshman self as overweight and unmotivated.

At the end of his freshman year, still not having a clear path for his life, he said, he considered a long-standing desire to join the military and “thought I’d just go enlist.” Then he heard about Army ROTC, and his life changed.

Now, going into his senior year, he’s looking ahead to life after college and even life after the Army as he decides where he might want to go in the Army. His recent performance at the ROTC Leadership Development Assessment Course at Fort Lewis, Washington, means he’s almost guaranteed to get his pick.

Cadet Vargas finished the 29-day pre-commissioning course 11th out of 500 ROTC cadets from across the country. The course begins with individual tasks, physical fitness, land navigation, field craft and an obstacle course.

In physical fitness, Vargas scored 250 points out of a possible 300 by doing 54 push-ups in two minutes and 71 sit-ups in two minutes and running two miles in 14 minutes and 24 seconds.

Then he learned how to make a shelter with his poncho and protect himself from cold and bugs at night and completed both a day and night land navigation course with a map, a compass and a protractor.

“You get a map, they give you grid coordinates, and you have to find points,” he explained. “You plot grid coordinates on the map you’re given and use a protractor to find distance and direction to the points.”

In the team phase of the course, each cadet leads a squad to complete a particular task. Vargas’ task was to rescue a downed pilot on the other side of a ravine with only a one-rope bridge crossing it.

“I had to teach the members (of the squad) to tie a Swiss seat to get across the one-rope bridge, evaluate the pilot, get him on a litter and get him across as well,” Vargas said. Only one other member of his squad knew how to tie the Swiss seat harness.

The cadets also learned first aid and cultural awareness before moving on to four days of tactical exercises, during which each one had to serve as a squad leader again to complete a mission. During each mission, each leader got new orders and had to develop a new plan on the go.

Vargas took his squad to make contact with the enemy; after they had done so, he said, one of his squad members began to shoot the squad’s prisoners.

“I had to go and tackle him and call other people to restrain, gag and tie him,” he said.

LDAC is a big percentage of the ROTC’s Order of Merit List, which helps determine where cadets end up serving.

“If you get in the top 10 percent, you’re guaranteed active duty and guaranteed the branch of your choice,” Vargas said.

Now he just has to decide in which branch of the Army he’d like to serve.

In contrast to his first year at OSU, he’s thinking far ahead to his post-Army life and trying to decide between being a physician’s assistant and a medevac pilot; both have skills he can carry into a civilian profession.