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Black Hawk helicopters coming April 19, 21

April 12, 2013

Photo of troops climbing the ladder to a helicopterAs many as four Black Hawk helicopters from the Illinois Army National Guard base in Peoria will make several trips to the NIU campus Friday, April 19, and Sunday, April 21.

Depending on the weather, the helicopters are coming to an open field just west of the Convocation Center to transport 90 NIU ROTC cadets to the Marseilles Training Center for the annual spring field training exercise.

Each chopper is likely to make two or three roundtrips between noon and 2 p.m. both days.

“This serves not only as transportation,” said Lt. Col. David Dosier, chair of the NIU Department of Military Science, “but also an opportunity to introduce the cadets to the capabilities of Army aviation; specifically, the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.”

NIU’s ROTC program recruits, retains, trains, develops and commissions quality cadets to provide flexible, adaptive officer leadership to the U.S. Army, Army Reserve and National Guard.

For more information on the expected helicopter traffic, call (815) 752-7682 or email niu_rotc@niu.edu.