Ocean Springs JROTC marches into formal inspection

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (WLOX) - It’s formal inspection day for the Ocean Springs Army Junior ROTC. The process is similar to what a school would go through for accreditation. They do this every three years.

“It shows some skills in the program that they can take into the civilian world or the military world,” said retired Col. Steven Farragut, Senior Army Instructor with the Ocean Springs JROTC.

Inside the school, the JROTC leaders present their service project to U.S. Army Cadet Command.

“They work on service learning, which is a requirement, and continuous improvement. The cadets think they can improve the program, and they develop plans to do that,” Farragut said.

“The second part is the drill and ceremony section. It measures their skill on how to remember a sequence of events. There’s also the color guard presentation, the platoon drill, and the big ranking inspection, where each cadet is inspected for their uniform look, appearance and amount of discipline it takes to maintain their uniform.”

This group is shooting for perfection: A perfect score of 600. A few years ago, they got to 599.

“We always shoot for 100%. It’s what we always work toward,” Farragut added.

The results determine whether the squad is an honor unit with distinction (which is the top rating), an honor unit, or satisfactory.

“I’m a four-year cadet. I’m involved in color guard and Raider Team. Our instructors are like father figures to me. They help out and make sure I’m okay,” said Ocean Springs JROTC Senior Leanchtra Stovall.

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