JROTC Experience I Have Long Been Impressed

JROTC Experience

I have long been impressed by the United States armed forces and its many branches of service. I was only eight or nine years old when I met my aunt Carol for the first time, who was enlisted in the Navy. I remember seeing her in her uniform as we came to pick her up from the airport -- she certainly stood out from the other travelers. As I got to know her, I was impressed by her demeanor, her composure, and her sense of values that reflected honesty, hard work, and other mores that the United States and its military exemplifies. She had a long career in the Navy and was able to parley that experience into a job as a computer technician. She always said that her experience in the Navy was instrumental in helping her decide a career path and to make sense of her life. We have been close ever since that initial meeting and, as a result of her lofty regard for the armed services and the military in particular, I made it a point to enlist in the JROTC as soon as I could, in high school.

My experience in the JROTC and my interaction with my aunt served as the primary impetus to write this paper. I usually did very well in my high school courses, but had a number of friends in the Navy JROTC program who struggled academically. Some of them even dropped out of high school. Although I am now in college and working my way towards graduation, I wanted to write this paper to truly see if the beneifts of enrolling in the JROTC truly are greater than the lack of success stories.

When I was in the JROTC, the greatest thing that I learned from it was a sense of discipline that has been highly influential for me, particularly in my collegiate endeavors. Discipline, however, is a trait that is not easily quantifiable and, although it may help when it comes time to buckling down and studying, does not directly relate to academic achievement. Therefore, I wanted to write this paper to see if there actually were academic advantages associated with enrolling in the JROTC.

Also, when I was enrolled in the program differentiation instruction was by a variety of instructors to help me and my peers to learn some academic concepts. I was never quite sure as to why this approach was used, since at the time I was unfamiliar with this pedagogical approach. It actually seemed fairly beneficial to me, although I had some classmates who seemed to become confused and even a little isolated by this approach, because it was markedly different than that of conventional classroom teachers. I was a little curious to see what the effect of this approach was on a national basis -- or even to see if this was something that in fact was employed by this program on a national basis. I was pleased to find out that it was in fact used, and that for the most part the outcomes were fairly beneficial.

Lastly, I wanted to write about this particular topic to see what exactly the correlation was between JROTC students and enlistment in the formal armed forces. I myself did not enlist, although several of my friends who graduate with me did. One of my instructors actually made a comment during my senior year about the fact that enlistment numbers of JROTC graduates could certainly be higher. I wanted to research this particular area of this subject, and see what sort of conclusions I could form about it.