NJROTC and stuff like it.

As the name says, I'm in the NJROTC program here at my school. Yesterday was Area 7 competition for Drill and stuff like that. We placed 3rd for inspection, which was good, especially considering I was lucky enough to be inspected by Petty Officer 2nd Class DRAGON LADY!!! Actually it wasn't so bad. She asked a lot of pointless questions, but not one on the orders of the sentry or chain of command, which is what all of us had really studied on.
Moving on, our acedemic team, consisting of NS 2's and above, placed 2nd out to last out of 16 teams. That's what they get for not letting us first years join. You know, more than I am willing to admit actually put that Earth was the fourth planet from the Sun??
Armed Drill is commanded by a Cadet Senior Chief Petty Officer, and consists of all first year cadets. There are nine of us, all Seaman Apprentices. In competition, we placed 8th out of 16.
Unarmed Drill consists of the same people, but with a different commander, Petty Officer Second Class Smith. Competition-wise, we placed 6th out of 16. I have to admit, unarmed is a whole lot easier than Armed Drill to perform, because without our 14 pound rifles to control, movements are a whole lot easier to execute.
Colorguard, which first year Seaman Apprentice Oliphant commands with the great help of First Sergeant Broderick, is, once again, comprised of 4 first year cadets. We placed 9th out of 16, which really isn 't so bad, because every other school has teams that have been competing for years and years. We're all first years, and haven't ever competed in anything quite like this.
At first, I only joined Drill and Colorguard because I needed an after school activity so I wouldn't be left at home by myself while my brothers were at band practice during the marching season. But after a while, I really started to love what we did there, even with the snap inspections and tests on military bearing, and I was really proud to be a part of all the crazies I was associated with, because they were all fantastically great people. And I joined and worked my fat butt off so First Sergeant would be proud of us. Which is why I started crying during the awards ceremony when our school's name wasn't called for anything but inspection and when my friend Shiffauer was presented with a 3rd place medal for individual female push ups. I felt so much that we'd let our old colorguard commander down, our school, Commander Guy (who's the real commander of the bunch), ourselves, and First Sergeant especially. He and Commander put in so much time after school so we'd do well in this. They gave up so much free time out of their lives and did so much for us. At the beginning of the awards ceremony, when we were presented with the 3rd place trophy for inspection, I leaned over to First Sergeant and asked him if he was proud of us yet. But as the ceremony went on, I started feeling so dumb and........ well, like I'd let everyone down. Even though it was just my first year and there was really no reason to feel like that. But when we got back to the school, and I started putting the colors and rifles away, First Sergeant said that we'd done very well for some freshman. Coming from that tough old Marine, that is a real compliment.
I guess you can tell by now I have a lot of respect for my instructors and peers. I completely appeciate every effort given by them all.
Pray for us, that we might do even better next year.
Have a wonderful day.
Randi