Atropia is an imaginary place where Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) cadets learn real lessons in cultural awareness.

"It's awesome training," cadet Kayla Stevens said moments after searching two women.  "This training has taught me a lot about interacting with different cultures."

Understanding different cultures may be vital to Stevens' career.

U.S. Army Cadet Command (USACC) is currently conducting its annual training and assessment course, better known as Leader Development and Assessment Course, or LDAC, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The 29-day course is testing more than 6,900 cadets from over 270 colleges and universities across the country.

More than 3,000 Soldiers and contractors have joined forces to facilitate the training.

"The cadets we work with are getting better and better," John Liston, a USACC public affairs officer, said. "We have the cream of the crop; we have some of the best college students in America."

The training cadets receive ranges from land navigation, field craft and tactics to rappelling first aid, weapons familiarization and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive training.

One of the newer additions to the training focuses on cultural awareness.

"The training the cadets receive here is to familiarize them with the importance of being culturally understanding and how that impacts on a mission," Lt. Col. Karl Neal, cultural awareness chief, explained.

While on the training site, the cadets were placed in five different scenarios - a traffic control point (TCP), interactions with the mayor of a town, placing a detainee in custody, discussing and acting on the ethical decision making process, and conducting a cordon and search.

The cadets had been deployed to Atropia to prevent the South Atropian People's Army (SAPA) from destabilizing the region and disrupting Atropian independence.  Their mission is to maintain order while in Atropia.

The SAPA - whose mission is to conduct reconnaissance, recruit local males and conduct terrorist attacks - are well trained and indigenous to Atropia.  

Their operations usually involve two to three man detachments using small arms, RPGs and IEDs against Americans.

Stevens' mission was to secure a small cluster of houses and to find and detain a SAPA person of interest. Finding that individual meant interacting with a family of uncooperative Atropian enactors.

"Why do you Americans bother us?!" one yelled.  "I want you gone."

Stevens kept a cool demeanor and a measured level of politeness as she and her platoon mates searched the house for the person of interest.

Watching every move - and stopping the action when needed - was an instructor who was a veteran of Iraq and/or Afghanistan.

"Freeze," the instructor said at one point.  "Can you go into the mosque alone, or do you need someone from the village to enter?"

Stevens got the point and asked the village police chief to go into the mosque and bring out a person of interest.

Moments later, the chief emerged with the person of interest. Stevens' Soldiers searched the man, finding a map and a knife. The map included data on a planned attack on an American base. At that point the training ended, and Stevens came away with a valuable lesson.

"Our mission was to find that person without showing disrespect to his family," Stevens said.  "We accomplished that mission."