My JROTC Journey

“ Motivate young people to become better citizens”, a motto I have stood by for the past four years of my life. This program has helped shape me into the great citizen I am today. I used to think volunteering was a punishment for disobeying the law. I soon realized that volunteering is for everyone. JROTC has also helped me improve on my public speaking, that is something that was a very rough task for me I would break myself apart with anxiety and panic. I thought I would only rank up to a sergeant during my JROTC career. Of course I underestimated myself as I always do, I ended up being the highest rank in the battalion. I was astounded when I reached the rank of a sergeant major then a second lieutenant I just keep getting more decorations for my uniform and I kept gaining more responsibilities as time went by, a class leader then the

We were all really excited and anxious all at the same time we had to go practice and set-up for the ball at noon, which only made the excitement worse and almost unbearable. After set up was over, I went hope to get ready for the ball. A few pictures later I was finally at the hotel in the receiving line to go into the ballroom with my date and my competition happened to be sitting right next to me. We sat and ate dinner and listened to the speakers as they talked, soon after came the sabre guard to recognize the seniors who were about to graduate, which I was in charge of. It was finally time to announce who our new commander would be for the 2017-2018 school year, everyone looked at Elias and waiting for his name to be called but his name was never called instead they called mine, the whole room looked at me with astonishment and the room fell silent as I walked up to receive my promotion. I looked back at the room and there was a lot of mixed emotions some good and some bad. At the end of the ceremony the old battalion commander and I cut the cake with a sabre to