JROTC students find ‘second families’ on parade field

Hundreds of JROTC high school students from Oahu and Kauai gathered Saturday at Kaimuki High School to showcase their precision marching and armed exhibition skills at the West Point Drill Meet.

Sixteen schools from Oahu and two from Kauai participated in the competition, which dates back to the 1920s. Members of the Royal Guard of Hawaii and active duty servicemen volunteered their time to serve as judges.

“People don’t realize the amount of hours they put in,” said volunteer Nelson Martinez, a retired Army veteran. “One minute of them marching is equivalent to one month’s practice.”

Kaiser High School student Leah Mills said her squad trained for months for its first competition of the year.

“We’ve been practicing every other day and then when it was two weeks before, we practiced every day after school,” she said.

A senior, Mills said she hopes to get into a military academy and continue the legacy of her grandfather and other family members.

“I wanted to be in the military, so just to get a taste of it and take on leadership positions was really good for me,” said Mills. “JROTC is like my second family.”

The family theme was prominent in most squads.

“I felt awkward since I didn’t go to elementary or middle school with the same people,” said Lorynel Martinez, 18, of Kapolei High School. “And JROTC kind of took me in.

“Competing together brought us together,” she said.

The goal of the drill meet is not to get students to join the military, said Martinez, rather it’s to help them be “better citizens” who will return from college and become entrepreneurs, physicians or other contributors to society.

“What you see here, they become community leaders,” said Martinez.

Members of the University of Hawaii’s ROTC battalion also volunteered to help at the event. Zarlon Lopez, who is studying mechanical engineering, said he was in JROTC in high school and wanted to give back.

“I wanted to be a part of something bigger,” he said.

The 19-year-old said he encourages younger students to join and just try it out.

“You might like it, you might love it, you might hate it, but you’ll take something out if it,” he said.