BOONE, N.C. — Appalachian State University’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program, which currently enrolls 140 cadets, culminated its yearlong 50th anniversary celebrations last weekend, with program faculty, students and alumni participating in Heroes Day at the Nov. 23 Appalachian football game against Texas State University.
The university’s Mountaineer Battalion first launched in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War. In the five decades since, the battalion has commissioned 950 officers, including Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley ’84, director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, and Maj. Gen. John Evans ’88, commanding general of U.S. Army Cadet Command. They were both on hand, along with other officers from the Mountaineer Battalion, for the weekend’s events.
