The JROTC in my school just had their 13th annual Military Ball. I've had the pleasure of being an invited guest this year, as I have been many years in the past. At first I felt this was not a good time for me to go. But then I thought I have to start getting back to a normal life, this was a good first step. My husband and I decided to go for the formal part and the dinner and then leave when the music and dancing started. It was a great idea. I felt great seeing all those fantastic kids and their great, dedicated teachers.
The Military Ball is a culmination of all the hard work these kids and their instructors do all year. Although the army funds the program, and the kids wear uniforms and do all sorts of stuff I would have been against as a child growing up in the 60's, I am totally in favor of the program now. The kids who graduate from this program are encouraged to go to college. They are not encouraged to enlist and recruiters are not allowed to talk to them in school.
The JROTC program in our school gives the kids a school family. They care for each other physically, emotionally, and educationally. They give the kids a place to come to when they are lost. This is especially important in a school as big as the one I teach in.
The JROTC does tons of charity work. They clean parks, raise money, have clothing and food drives and countless other things that I can't even remember. They have an academic team, a physical fitness team, a choir, an academic team, drum corps, color guards, drill team and more. These kids practice non stop and still manage to excel academically. Their work is part of the reason the school I teach in is one of the best schools in the city.
The JROTC faculty is made up of retired army sergeants. These teachers work an average of 10 -12 hour days, 6 and sometimes 7 days a week. They take the kids on overnight trips. They help them apply for scholarships and the right college for them to attend. One of the teachers collected old computers, had them refurbished so he could provide some of the less fortunate kids with this technology. Watching these teachers makes me want to do more.
The kids at the ball are all well behaved and respectful. They are a credit to the people that both raised them and teach them. I was one of the people that adamently objected to this program when it first started. I have come full circle and am now an adament supporter of it.
3 comments:
I too initially disliked the JROTC since the idea of "military on campus" hearkened back to a time when, if you were a teenaged male student, you could end up on the Ho Chi Minh Trail after failing one college course. I also softened my view and it changed to a more positive one when the JROTC literally saved one of my students, an abused neglected child of alcoholic awful parents. He would have been an ACS case had it not been for JROTC, which gave him a whole new life. One of my present students, a kid who basically has academically blown off this entire year but is finding his way back, told me today he is going to the military ball. I was so shocked, in view of the fact that he is a JROTC dropout, unable to deal with the discipline and dress codes. He told me he was going with some friends (not bad kids, but not JROTC themselves either). What got me was how he described getting the tickets, that someone had offered him a pair of tickets just today, and since he is selling large bars of candy as an independent distributor, he had cash on him and was able to buy the tickets. He had finagled the tickets and was happy to be able to go!! I am happy about this, since he had been hanging out with the "wrong crowd", getting involved with their drama and criminal behavior. He extricated himself from that group after getting into trouble and being suspended. The kids he is friends with now are much better, nicer kids who are not necessarily college bound but who will definitely graduate high school and stay out of trouble on the way. His valuing going to this military ball, as with you, signals a new path that you will take as your life reshapes itself and you both look to the future.
I think that any organization that encourages kids to become responsible adults is worth its weight in gold, regardless of its political or religious bend.
Young Life regularly comes to my school; and why I don't much care for their mission, it does provide kids with good, clean fun they otherwise might not get to experience.
Glad to hear you had a good time.
Thanks for a different perspective on JROTC. My dad was a conscientious objector during World War II. I followed in his footsteps during the Vietnam era. It was hard for me to stomach JROTC on my high school campus. I'm glad to know (albeit belatedly) that it's not the completely unredeemable evil that my high school peers and I thought it was!
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