Basic training

Junior ROTC programs flourish at some area high schools

The Gloucester High School Armed Drill Team (top) is inspected by John Saldana of the Army National Guard. In photo above right, the Lynn English High School Drill Team watches a team from New Jersey. Above left, Zachary Jermyn of Gloucester High School. (Globe Staff Photo / Mark Wilson)

Jason Geary likes to raise the flag in the morning at Gloucester High School. Eranis Vizcaino tutors other students after school at Lynn English. In Hampton, N.H., Sam Lieber and his friends regularly clean Hampton Beach.

The students say they're just like other teenagers who want to give back to their community. But giving back, they say, begins with the work they do as members of their schools' Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps - a group, they say, that's often misunderstood by other students, teachers, and community residents.

"Some people think all this program is for is getting you ready for the military, but it's really not," said Geary, 17. "It's really just helping you get ready for life."

While the program's military teachings have raised concerns in places like San Francisco - which threatened to ban JROTC after next year - the programs are as popular as ever in seven high schools in the Globe North area. In each high school, more than 100 students are enrolled in the program, and in each school at least half of the students are female. Two retired military veterans teach each class, and their salaries are split between the school districts and the military. To stay in the program, students must pass all courses.

Each program focuses on instilling leadership skills and performing community service projects. While students are required to take a course each day and wear a military uniform one day a week, military recruitment is prohibited. According to the instructors at the schools, fewer then 10 percent of the enrolled students join the military.

"We want these kids to go to college and get an education," said Richard Muth, a retired Marine Corps chief warrant officer who teaches the JROTC class in Gloucester. Muth said the program has averaged about 150 students each year over the past 10 years. Muth teaches a four-year leadership program that covers everything from military history, nutrition, and physical fitness to creating a resume and applying for a job.

"What I tell kids is, don't be the guy on the bottom always looking up. Whatever you want to be, be the best, and that's our goal."

The programs have also drawn praise from area principals, including Lynn English principal Andy Fila.

"It's probably the best program we have here at the school. It's a shining star," said Fila. "They're absolutely role models."

While districts in Lynn, Salem, Beverly, Peabody, Gloucester, Haverhill, and Hampton, N.H., have programs, JROTC has not been embraced by all. In cities around the urban ring of Boston - such as Malden, Chelsea, and Everett - there are no plans to add the program, and in smaller districts, such as Marblehead and Masconomet, there's been no discussion about JROTC.

While there's been no opposition to JROTC in the area, some elected officials and educators say they aren't familiar with the program's curriculum. "I don't know enough about it," said Amy Drinker, chairwoman of the Marblehead School Committee.

In Swampscott, Superintendent Matthew Malone said his district could not afford to pay for a JROTC instructor, and questioned whether enough students would join the program. Still, Malone is hoping to find a way to have students from Swampscott High School participate in the Lynn English JROTC program.

On a recent Wednesday morning, in a quiet hallway at Lynn English, eight JROTC cadets stood at attention in Marine uniforms, waiting for inspection.

Sophomore Bianca Fowler, 15, held a clipboard and studied her classmates' uniforms. As a cadet sergeant in her platoon, she holds a rank, and like every student, she also has responsibilities: Fowler is in charge of uniform inspections.

"Explain to me the correct position of attention," she said to Ken Vielleux Jr., 16. Vielleux stood erect, his hands pressing against the sides of his camouflage fatigues.

"Ma'am, the correct position of attention is standing in an erect fashion 90 degrees from the deck," he answered.

"And your feet are at what angle?"

"A 45-degree angle."

Fowler nodded, and silently took notes on her clipboard.

Inside a nearby classroom, Ken Oswald, a retired Marine Corps sergeant major, stood in fatigues, preparing for another class. Oswald is at work by 6 a.m. That's when English's JROTC drill team practices. The team won the JROTC national championship in 2006 in Daytona Beach.

"This is about structure, self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-discipline," said Oswald, who has served as the school's JROTC instructor since the program began 13 years ago.

About 200 students enroll in the program each year, and many serve as mentors to classmates. After school, some attend a tutoring program led by other JROTC students. Others have created a leadership academy at nearby Thurgood Marshall Middle School, and teach 53 of the school's students JROTC principles.

"In this program they teach us things that we can actually use, and I have a lot more tact when it comes to dealing with people," said Eranis Vizcaino, describing the skills she's acquired since joining the program more than three years ago.

Vizcaino, who has a 3.51 grade point average, plans to go to college next year and wants to become a lawyer. While she has no plans to join the military, Vizcaino said the program's discipline would help her in college.

In Gloucester, there has been a JROTC presence for more than a century, and the high school's halls are filled with plaques honoring champion rifle teams dating back to the late 1800s.

These days, JROTC doesn't allow students to use live ammunition but still has air-rifle teams, which use pellets. On a recent day, Selina Clancy lay flat on the floor, staring through a rifle's scope at a target.

Clancy said she is an atypical national air rifle champion. Although she never held anything but a toy water gun until she was 15, she picked up an air rifle during class and was asked to join the team. Last year, she became the national champion and set a record for accuracy for shooting from 10 meters.

Clancy plans to attend college next year and wants to become a research scientist. She also hopes to become a Navy officer.

Clancy said the program has helped boost her self-confidence, and given her a broader perspective on life in general.

Over the last two years, she said, she's had breakthroughs that have helped her - such as during a drill at a JROTC leadership conference in the Appalachian Mountains, when she had to find her way out of a cave without a flashlight.

"I've picked up a lot of qualities that I probably would not have found in myself," she said. "Confidence, a sense of responsibility, duty, and honor."

Steven Rosenberg can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.