COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Recruiting: JROTC/ROTC
San Diego High's marksmanship team is hoping for a shot at a national Junior Olympic title Outdoors
Ed Zieralski, San Diego Union-Tribune
May 26, 2007
On the
back side of San Diego High School, at the southern edge of Balboa Park
and in the shadow of this city's ever-growing skyline, there's an old
classroom like no other on the Cavers' campus.
Inside the 1940s building, the San Diego High School marksmanship team
hones its air rifle shooting skills with .17-caliber pellet rifles as
part of the Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps. The students
are part of one of the oldest JROTC programs in the country, one that
traces its first shots back to 1919 as the first JROTC in San Diego and
one of the first in the nation. This year these Cavers marksmen and
women, the 1st Battalion, won the California Junior Olympics, becoming
the first Southern California team to do that.
"We had such a young team, so inexperienced, I thought we'd be lucky to
finish last," said senior military instructor Tim Hughey, retired Army
and a Vietnam War veteran. "We had two freshmen shooters, and I thought
we'd be destroyed. I never dreamed this team could win the state Junior
Olympics. But we were 41 points ahead of the second-place team (Madison
High). It was a matter of the other teams being really bad or us being
really good. I like to think of it as us being really good."
Just now, the four really good San Diego High shooting team members
senior Jearaldy Moreno, junior Marco Cedano and freshmen Monica Cedano
(Marco's sister) and Elizabeth Avalos are aiming to compete in their
sport's national championship. Senior Cristabel Ascencio also was an
integral part of the team and is the public affairs officer. They hope
to travel to Bowling Green, Ky., in early July to compete in the 2007
National Junior Olympic Three Position Air Rifle Championship at
Western Kentucky University's Diddle Arena.
"If we're going to go, we need financial help to do it because we don't
have the funds," said Hughey, who has kept the program together with
National Rifle Association grants and other funds.
Hughey estimates it will cost between $5,000 and $6,000 for the team to
travel to Kentucky. He is about halfway there, as members of the area's
active shooting community have begun to open their wallets.
"We just got a check for $200 from the local chapter of the National
Wild Turkey Federation," Hughey said. "It's amazing how many have
stepped forward and helped."
Why not? It's a project that involves good kids, great students who are
learning valuable lessons in self-esteem, leadership skills and
marksmanship through JROTC. What could be a better cause for the
shooting community to rally behind?
"I'm presenting the project to our board on June 5 and hope to get some
money for these kids," said Joe Busalacchi of the San Diego Chapter of
Safari Club International.
Jan Janus, the senior military instructor at Madison High's JROTC, is
pulling for the team that his squad beat early in the school year, only
to lose to the Cavers in late April at the California Junior Olympics.
"This was a CIF sport at one time, but was dropped because of political
reasons," Janus said of the air rifle competition. "It's still an NCAA
sport and Olympic sport. And at some schools in the Southeast and in
Texas, the teams have very active booster clubs that raise thousands of
dollars for their teams."
One of the better kept secrets in the local high school sports
community is that there are more than a dozen of these JROTC shooting
teams. San Diego High and Madison are the traditional powers, but other
schools such as West View and Coronado are coming on. Others with JROTC
air rifle teams include Sweetwater, Hoover, Point Loma, Morse,
Army-Navy, Serra, Kearny and Patrick Henry.
Most of the students had no shooting experience before enrolling in JROTC.
Moreno tried the school's basic rifle marksmanship class and qualified on her first shoot.
"Ever since then it just seemed like the thing for me to do, and here I
am, four years later, a captain," said Moreno, whose sister was the
county's shooter of the year for two straight years before being
accepted last year at the University of San Francisco, where she's on
an ROTC nursing scholarship.
Moreno said shooting and stepping inside the school's indoor range gets her into a very special place.
"It's so quiet in here, and when I'm here, things don't matter outside
of here," said Moreno, who will attend UC Santa Barbara in the fall.
The 10-meter Olympic shooting range is just one part of these shooters'
JROTC experience. In another classroom, they learn such things as
civics lessons by playing attorneys and defending their positions on
major topics of the day. The students earn physical education units for
participating in JROTC.
Public service is a huge part of JROTC, Hughey said. The cadets serve
as the color guard at such events as Padres games, immigration
swearing-in ceremonies and parades. They help the Vincent De Paul
Center with fund-raising and also work at water points at local
triathlons and marathons.
"Competitor Magazine named us Volunteer of the Year," Hughey said.
Hughey at San Diego High and Janus at Madison say it takes a special
student, one totally focused, to handle the pressure of shooting at
meets. Marco Cedano, the county's Shooter of the Year, said it's all
about concentration.
"The techniques are really important and different than if you were
just shooting in the back yard," Cedano said. "It's 90 percent mental
and 10 percent physical."
Hughey said JROTC students must pass a two-week basic safety and
marksmanship class. They must score 100 percent on the exam. Then they
learn the three shooting positions – prone, kneeling
and standing – for the three-position meets. Key
fundamentals include stabilizing the gun, correct aiming (the most
important), correct breathing and the trigger squeeze, which Hughey
said is the most difficult to master.
"I'm really not a coach," Hughey said. "One of the best teachers they
have is each other. I can help them with the mental aspects and getting
ready for a match."
Hughey said it's wonderful when the students learn something on their
own that makes them better shooters and competitors. He said Marco
Cedano listens to his heart before he shoots.
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