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Team Shaw Airmen judge drill competition

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Krystal M. Jeffers
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  Team Shaw Airmen volunteered to judge an Air Force Junior ROTC drill competition at Sumter High School, S.C., Nov. 29.

The four Airmen judged six teams composed of JROTC cadets in 9th to 12th grade.

Cadets demonstrated marching routines which are used in the military and are taught to trainees in basic training.

"You march around and do different types of facing movements, salutes and stuff like that," said Master Sgt. Thomas Kime, 20th Logistics Readiness Squadron section chief of fuels distribution. "These kids are taught that and then they go out and practice all the time. Then they compete against each other to find out which flight is the best."

The cadets practice for one and a half hours three to four times a week in their JROTC class. In addition, they practice up to two hours twice a week after school.

"It takes a lot of discipline," said Kime. "You have to be able to work with others as well as know what you are supposed to do. It is like a well oiled machine, if one part is not working right then the whole system doesn't work."

Drills and marching are used to teach lessons to trainees.

"What you do (in drills) is the basis of what you do as a leader," said Kime. "That is why they do this at basic training. It is the foundation of following orders. If you can't follow simple orders like 'about face,' how can we expect you to drive a fuel truck? If you can't follow the simplest of rules or instructions we cannot trust you to do the bigger stuff."

In addition to following orders, the drills and the competitions teach other lessons.

"The point of the competitions is to teach teamwork and camaraderie," Kime added. "It teaches team cohesiveness as well as breaks kids away from individuality to thinking of the flight, the squad or the team over themselves. It also helps them understand what the military will be like if they decide to go into the military."

The cadets not only get to learn from the drills, but they also get the opportunity to learn from the judges as well.

"I think it is a good way to get a perspective from people who've been through military training," said Michael Humphreys, a cadet captain in Air Force JROTC at Sumter High School. "Of course we have our instructors, but these judges give us a different kind of opinion because we grew up with these instructors from 9th to 12th grade. These judges are probably people we have not met before and they are here to give us opinions on how we drill."

"I hope that they keep on doing this because it boosts our morale every time they come down here and say, 'You did a good job, but you might want to tweak this or that.' I think it is a really good thing that Shaw and the ROTC program are doing," he continued.