JROTC help with community cleanup | dailyrepublic.com

The Fairfield High School Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC, cadets helped with cleaning up the community on Jan. 18.

Twenty-five student cadets, along with three additional high school student volunteers, participated in a community cleanup effort along East Atlantic Avenue and the area in front of Fairfield High School.

Every two months, the JROTC cadets dedicate their time to community service projects as part of their ongoing commitment to giving back to their community and school. This initiative, a component of the Fairfield Adopt-A-Street Program, showcases the cadets’ dedication to environmental stewardship and civic responsibility according to the staff press release.

Source: Good News: JROTC help with community cleanup | Education | dailyrepublic.com

Vanden ROTC earns Distinguished Unit with Merit award – Daily Republic

The Vanden High Air Force Jr. ROTC CA-20011 was selected as a Distinguished Unit with Merit. This year, only 12 percent of the 850 Air Force JROTC high schools across the United States and at selected schools in Europe, in the Pacific, and in Puerto Rico were recognized with the honor.

Worldwide enrollment includes more than 100,000 cadets who do over 1 million hours of community service each year. This award recognizes Air Force JROTC units that have performed well above and beyond normal expectations, and that have distinguished themselves through outstanding service to their school and community while meeting the Air Force JROTC citizen development mission for America.

Source: Vanden ROTC earns Distinguished Unit with Merit award

Rodriguez student earns full-ride scholarship through ROTC – Daily Republic

By Matt Miller

Coming from the Philippines where she said many young girls had to choose between “education and food,” 18-year-old Trisha Macagba feels like she has been given the gift of a lifetime.

The Rodriguez High School senior was recently awarded a $220,000 scholarship from the Los Angeles Strategic Office Recruitment Detachment. It’s an ROTC program that promotes diversity and inclusion where she will participate at the college of her choice, followed up by a four-year commitment to the U.S. Army upon graduation.

“I still can’t believe it,” Macagba said. “We came from the Philippines. My parents were worried how we were going to pay to get our education.”

Source: Rodriguez student earns full-ride scholarship through ROTC

Vanden JROTC students learn more than military skills – The Reporter

By Nick Sestanovich

Being in a school district largely consisting of children of military families, it is no surprise that Vanden High School offers a Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) program.

However, the class provides a lot more than just military skills. It provides life skills, including encouraging students to be better citizens of their communities.

“They do it for a belonging but not necessarily wanting to be in the military,” Master Sgt. Hollis Huvar, JROTC instructor and program co-founder, said. “We’re not recruiting. We’re here to provide the kids to be better citizens.”

Source: Vanden JROTC students learn more than military skills – The Reporter

Vanden Junior ROTC receives highest evaluation score – Daily Republic

By Daily Republic Staff

The Vanden High School Junior ROTC program has received the highest overall assessment score possible after its recent evaluation.

The “exceeds standards” assessment was given in 24 of the 25 areas on which the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets were evaluated Jan. 18.

Michael L. Wetzel, with the Air Force Junior ROTC, said Vanden can stand on its own against “any other program in the nation.”

Source: Vanden Junior ROTC receives highest evaluation score

Vallejo’s Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program survives – Times-Herald

By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen

The Vallejo City Unified School District came “this close” to losing its 45-year-old Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (NJROTC) program for lack of interest, but signed up the required number of students just under the wire.

Until about two weeks ago, there were some 80 students enrolled in the Jesse Bethel High School program, which needs at least 100, officials said.

“The Vallejo city Unified School District has one NJROTC teacher and the U.S. Navy provides a second NJROTC teacher,” Vallejo school district superintendent Adam Clark said in an email a couple of weeks ago. “Each high school teacher can teach a maximum of 160 students per day and no class will exceed 35 students. There are currently 81 students enrolled in the NJROTC program. The Navy has set the minimum enrollment number at 100 students.”

Source: Vallejo’s Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program survives – Times-Herald

Vanden JROTC honored for service – The Reporter

By Kelli Germeraad

On Saturday, April 8, the Vacaville Veterans Organizations and Auxiliaries hosted a “Celebration of Service” to honor fifteen years of community service excellence by the Vanden High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) to the Vacaville veteran’s community.

It was an event that included cadets and their parents currently in the program; past alumni of the program; instructors Lt. Colonel Billy Lakes, Major Marian Collins and MSgt. Hollis Huvar, as well as some special invited guests.

The veteran’s hall was a sea of green and gold, fifteen years of pictures, posters and memorabilia. Volunteers on the committee scanned some 400 plus photos of the past in order to highlight a continued service to area veterans and their families. You could not walk in to the main hall at the veterans building and not be overwhelmed by the veteran’s gratitude to this group of young people who may have set out to earn ribbons and medals for community service, and instead provided life changing support to a community.

Source: Vanden JROTC honored for service – The Reporter

 

Stars earn Stripes: Veterans groups thank JROTC program – Daily Republic

By Bill Hicks

Veterans groups of all types understand well the expression, “serving your country.” In the minds of many, that expression means donning a military uniform and doing some type of duty in locations scattered across the globe.

Vacaville Veterans Organizations, a collection of different veterans groups, hosted an event, Saturday, as a thank you for that service – but not for veterans or active duty military members, for members of the Vanden High Junior ROTC program – past and present.

The veterans organizations honored the Vanden JROTC program for 15 years of community volunteer service in Vacaville. Although situated a stone’s throw from Travis Air Force Base, Vanden High – due to its small size – did not have an ROTC program until 2001.

Source: Stars earn Stripes: Veterans groups thank JROTC program

Vanden senior bound for West Point – The Reporter

By Richard Bammer

His hair freshly cut, clad perhaps a slightly ill-fitting uniform, Vanden High senior Cameron Castillo on July 3 will raise his right hand and take the Oath of Allegiance, entering the West Point class of 2021.

He will be among some 1,250 plebes, or freshman as they are known at the United States Military Academy, who will recite the oath on the sprawling parade grounds, on the granite bluffs above the Hudson River, about an hour’s drive north of New York City, where he will begin the grueling seven-week Cadet Basic Training, commonly called “Beast Barracks.”

In an interview last week, Castillo, who will turn 18 in June, told The Reporter he had just recently received his acceptance letter into the storied co-educational federal service academy, with its long list of graduates who are household names: Grant, Lee, Sherman, Pershing, Patton, Eisenhower, Bradley, Westmoreland, Aldrin, and Schwarzkopf.

 

Source: Vanden senior bound for West Point

Paradise Valley veteran teams up with Junior ROTC to create Ready Room – Daily Republic

By Amy Maginnis-Honey

There were smiles and plenty of thank you’s Friday when the Fairfield High School Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps dedicated the Getz Ready Room.

Veterans from Paradise Valley Estates, Fairfield-Suisun School District officials and the students admired the room, painted in blue with a patterned blue rug and blue-and-white furnishings.

On opposite walls were two framed World War II battle maps, prompting one guest to point to the one representing the beach at Normandy and say, “My uncle Paul went in right there.”

On a shelf, off to the side of the door, sits a shell from the beach at Normandy.

Source: Paradise Valley veteran teams up with Junior ROTC to create Ready Room

High school Junior ROTC students get taste of Travis – Daily Republic

By Ian Thompson

Fairfield High School junior Shaham Dadhwal took a break from listening to a presentation on aeromedical evacuation Thursday to say he would be interested in that field.

Junior Thomas Pino was even more specific, voicing his interest in following his father into the Air Force and becoming a radiologist.

Both are members of the Fairfield High School Air Force Junior ROTC and were among more than 230 high school students from Air Force Junior ROTC and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics programs visiting the base Thursday.

Source: High school Junior ROTC students get taste of Travis

Vanden honors JROTC cadet group – The Reporter

By Kelli Germeraad

On January 29, Vanden High School’s Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp (JROTC) cadet group held its annual awards night.

This is a special night in which outstanding cadets are honored with national awards from Veterans and military organizations based on meeting high standards of academics, community service, patriotism, and leadership. In addition, these awards night offer the cadet group the opportunity to showcase to parents and community members the successes of both individual cadets and the group as a whole.

Throughout my interaction with JROTC programs, especially Vanden’s, I have had the opportunity to see students excel both as leaders as well as involvement in the community. This program offers each cadet room to grow and achieve as individuals and as a team.

via Kelli’s Heroes: Vanden honors JROTC cadet group.

Vanden Junior ROTC builds strength through teamwork – Daily Republic

By Bill Hicks

The movies have painted a pretty clear picture: a drill instructor, one arm tucked behind, looking over a group of ill-prepared recruits, explaining, in terse, salty language, how the lives they used to lead are now over.

Similarly, teen movies will have the protagonists laying around a room, an illuminated computer nearby, a bag of chips, clothes strewn about, the whole teen pack engaged in a conversation laced with “brah,” and “like, seriously.”

Vanden High’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program demolishes those stereotypes.

via Vanden Junior ROTC builds strength through teamwork.

Fairfield High ROTC works to preserve veterans’ heritage – Daily Republic

By Ian Thompson

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Tad Riley and his wingmen’s photo-reconnaisance RF-8A Crusaders cleared the coast of Cuba flying a little more than 50 feet off the ground, their jets’ exhaust sending up rooster tails of dust from the fields of startled Cuban farmers.

Their mission on Oct. 23, 1962, was to take detailed, low-level photos of the sites of missile and other military sites the Soviet Union was setting up in Cuba, sites which had previously been spotted by high-flying U-2s a few days earlier, kicking off the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“We were right on the deck,” the now-retired Navy flier and intelligence officer told the Fairfield High School Air Force Junior ROTC cadets who were interviewing him. “Our primary mission was to figure out if they (the missile sites) were ready yet.”

via Fairfield High ROTC works to preserve veterans’ heritage Daily Republic.