Santa Clara University - ROTC

ROTC

The Santa Clara US Army ROTC Battalion was established in 1861 due to the outbreak of the American Civil War. The unit was known as the Senior Company of Cadets. On September 10, 1863, Leland Stanford, then Governor of California, presented the Corps of Cadets with forty Springfield rifles, Model 1839. Today, the rifles are preserved in the University Museum. In return for his generosity, an armory was built in his honor in 1936. The armory was located southwest of the athletic field with the pistol range located below the stage of the auditorium.

Fr. Paul Locatelli, S.J., (former) President of Santa Clara, was a cadet at the university prior to his military service and his entrance into the Jesuit Order. Two Jesuits from Santa Clara, Fr. McKinnon and Fr. McQuaide, volunteered as chaplains in the Spanish-American War. Both were part Theodore Roosevelt's American Expeditionary Force that attacked San Juan Hill on July 1, 1898.

On February 2, 2010, the Santa Clara University ROTC “Bronco Battalion” won the MacArthur Award granted by the U.S. Army’s Cadet Command and the General Douglas MacArthur Foundation. In 2011 the Santa Clara ROTC once again won the MacArthur Award. The award, named after late General Douglas MacArthur, is granted to the year’s most excellent Reserve Officers' Training Corps program among 33 battalions in the West Coast 8th Brigade. The award takes into consideration factors such as the battalion's physical fitness, navigation skills, leadership, and success in commissioning officers after ROTC.