Video: Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. Benefits

COLUMBUS, Miss.(WCBI)—Community service, respect and responsibility. Those are all traits the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps or JROTC work to instill in their students everyday.

The Air Force JROTC’s mission is to show students the importance of self discipline, Self-reliance and other characteristics needed for any career path they choose.

There are more than 120 thousand Air Force JROTC Cadets in high schools across the Country. Columbus High School JROTC instructor Terone Stone says it’s their values that bring in the numbers.

“The Junior ROTC is a program that helps build leadership and character. Our mission is to develop citizens of character, dedicated to serving their nation and community,”said Stone.

JROTC students are ahead of the curb when it comes to real world leadership experience.

” After their first year they are learning how to be positions of leadership their junior and senior years they are put into leadership positions. They are put in a position of cadet training officer and they actually help train the first year cadets,” said Stone.

Pilot Instructor First Lieutenant Adelae Caple has been in the air force for 8 years.

She says she loves working with the students because it gives her a chance to introduce them to something they may like.

” I like to answer questions so so if their unsure if they would like to potentially go to pilot training someday or be a pilot in the air force I like to give them a little back ground on what it would be like so the kind of experience they would need ahead of time, which is none, and then what we’ll do through out the year an a half that their here and give them an idea so they can better make that decision,”said Caple.

Now, as beneficial as the JROTC program is, many feel like it’s a recruiting tool for the military but Stone says… that just not the case.
” There is no commitment on the part of the kids to enter into the military as a part of being in Junior ROTC. A lot of parents don’t allow their kids to be in the program because they think their kids have to enter the military and again that just a myth,”said Stone.”

Working on planes, walking on the airline and flying are fun parts of the job but to enjoy them, Caple says, you need education.
” To be a pilot in the air force you have to be an officer and to do that you have to have a college education so to do that you have to have a high school education. SO make sure that anyone who does want to do something some day they finish high school do well so that you can go to college. do well in college so that you can compete,”said Caple.

To become a member or for more information on the Air Force Junior ROTC contact AFJROTC at 1-334-953-7513 or visit www.au.af.mil/au/holmcenter.