Teens sacrifice their Saturday to display precision, honor

By Matt Dinger

Published: April 13, 2008

Honor, courage and commitment were on display at the Sooner Stakes Junior ROTC Drill Meet on Saturday.

Ten Oklahoma schools were represented at the meet, organized by Oklahoma City Public Schools and held at Northeast Academy, 3100 N Kelley Ave.

Students ages 13 to 18 displayed the routines that had taken months of work and required hundreds of hours of dedication to perfect.

"This is a Saturday morning, and you've got hundreds of kids out here. That says something,” said Lt. Col. Paul Green of Northwest Classen High School's JROTC.

Green, retired from the Army, has taught JROTC classes for the past 17 years. The way it brings students together is incomparable, he said.

"You see a team make a mistake, and the reaction is the same as if they'd missed a field goal,” Green said.

Teams on Saturday competed in five main categories and a sixth new and experimental category — the two man, or dual, team.

Southeast High School dominated the competition, taking first place in all four regulation drill and freestyle contests, as well as in the dual drill. They scored second in the color guard category.

Cadet Col. Josh Joseph, a senior at Southeast High School, attributes their successes to "discipline on and off the drill pad.”

For the Josephs, JROTC is a family tradition. Last year, his sister won the state meet, and his father is the master sergeant for the school.

Joseph, 18, will relinquish his saber at the end of May when he graduates. He already has his Air Force ship date and will leave for Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, in August.

Imani Brown, a Northwest Classen junior, was tossed into the JROTC class as a freshman and decided to stick with it. Now, after graduation, she plans to join the military and study to be a nurse.

"I've learned how to participate and get along with others, as well as how to be a lady,” Brown said.

Such shifts in direction don't take Cmdr. Lawrence Keith by surprise. A former Army chaplain, Keith knows his duty.

"We're in the business of changing attitudes,” he said.

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