Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp, recently had its second meet for all their members on Nov. 1. They competed with different schools in surrounding districts with hopes to come out as the top military class in the district and obtain a trophy.

The meet took place in Denton where the schools gathered and competed. Junior Shashaank Srikanth has been in ROTC since his freshmen year.

“It includes color guard, male and female, and they have two competitions,” Srikanth said. “There’s also a physical training competition which usually includes a run.”

The teams are divided by different teams with a specific strength. There is no requirement of how many teams an ROTC member can join. If a member in ROTC is especially talented in a certain skill, a team commander might ask them to join the competition.

“I know RXO, he asked me to participate on the academic team,” said Srikanth. “They basically ask you different questions, most of the questions are like SAT type format.”

They prepared teams by scheduling after school dates depending on which competition they were a part of.

“Some members do outrageous amount of work to be fit enough to excel in their group. Some teams practice everyday after school, stuff gets intense.” Srikanth said.

Participants were able to go eat, walk, or support their fellow ROTC members until the time came for their group to compete.

“I also go to support the cadets I like to go see them compete,” Srikanth said. “It’s nice when i’m there, they’re all motivated and everything.”

Senior Robert Osorio has been in ROTC for 3 years and went to the meet to support his fellow team members and compete in the running portion of the event.

“The teams are gonna get their about 6 in the morning and they’re gonna compete for the whole day” said Osorio.

Senior commander Eric Roque Jackson isn’t just in ROTC for its military purposes, but to learn a greater understanding of his environment around him.

“I like ROTC because it can help you in any sort of setting, like a business setting,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t have to be a military one. You learn to work with people and that’s what I want to get out of it. I wanna learn how to lead and work with people,”

After the competition is when the results come to determine which school ranked what.

“A few week after, generally, we’ll get the results from the meet,” Jackson said. “We’ll be placed, like if one of our teams placed against their competition, then we’ll find out about it and probably receive a trophy or something.”

To Jackson, ROTC means more than military skills training.

“It’s a really good for organization and life skills that you would need to succeed in any kind of setting after school,” Jackson said. “It helps with just learning how to work with other people not necessarily he military component. I think that’s the most important.”