(These are my personal views. I found the JROTC program to be very influential in steering me on the right course as a young adult, and I would like to share some thoughts concerning those groups that want JROTC removed from public schools.)

This picture says a thousand words about the JROTC program. While many teenagers can be found cruising the mall parking lot on a Saturday afternoon, this young adult is standing on the edge of a 60-foot rappel tower about to overcome one of his biggest fears. Eye to eye with the seasoned instructor, this JROTC cadet is getting the kind of coaching that cannot be found in any other classroom in the world. This isn't about politics or guns, and there's no government program or subsidy that's going to hold his hand when he makes this jump. Today this cadet will learn the true power of the individual, and that he alone holds the key to his success. When the day is done he will have accomplished what had earlier seemed immpossible..Three times!!

The Internet has revolutionized research. Millions of people looking for answers to everyday problems are depending more and more on the web to provide the information they seek. Verifying the accuracy of information found on the Internet can be a hard nut to crack. It is my wish that easy access to an avalanche of information about JROTC will provide favorable results for the program. Unfortunately, my love and admiration of JROTC in the form of this web site is equally matched by groups opposed to the JROTC program. Conscientious objectors, gun control advocates, and socialists make up a network of web sites and publications bent on the removal of the JROTC program. History does not stand in favor of their arguments, but truth has fallen prey to an author's pen on many occasion. Unlike these groups, I have witnessed the power of JROTC first hand; as a cadet.

I'm not exactly what you'd call a spring chicken; it was over eleven years ago when I graduated high school as the Cadet Battalion Commander of the Magna Vista (VA) Warrior Battalion, and I can testify that JROTC teaches young adults the importance of citizenship, but not by trampling on the concept of the individual. It was the desire to protect individual rights that lead to the very founding of our nation, and JROTC accurately tells this story. However, the true version of history and what it means to be a good citizen does not please all people.

With false face, socialists lament the welfare of today's youth, but they are only interested in controlling the way your child views the world. Showing each student that he or she has the power within themselves to overcome all obstacles no matter how great -- without the 'helping hand' of government or society as a whole-- is the last thing they want your child to learn. Since the birth of this nation the American spirit has transcended all difficulties. The JROTC curriculum fortifies, nurtures and coaches this American spirit into a powerful force your child can use to overcome his or her individual struggles.

With particular zeal, conscientious objectors are the loudest opponents of the JROTC program. Ignoring the important role our military has played in our past and will play in our future could prove a detriment to our free society. While it should be emphasized that being in JROTC does not indicate your child will join the military, I think it should also be pointed out that the brave souls that fought for our nation's independence were little more than farmers, lawyers, writers, doctors, and businessmen that took up arms in the fight for freedom. We are all bound together in the struggle to maintain our liberty, and as a U.S. citizen you cannot escape this heritage. This is not 'somebody else's problem'. While I am sympathetic to their desire for peace, human nature dictates that peace does not equate to the absence of conflict.The preservation of our freedom as a nation, and on an individual level will cause us to face many a foe. If you are looking for a curriculum that teaches students to bow their heads in shame because they live in the greatest country on Earth, JROTC is not what you seek. No amount of conscientious objector fodder will cause me to lose pride in my nation. Nor will I let it have that effect on my child.

Gun control advocates are horrified by the marksmanship portion of the JROTC program. Aghast at the thought of young adults learning the proper safety and use of a firearm, these people stand in abject denial of our history as a nation made up of individuals. From world dictators to domestic tyrannies, to common thieves, the olive branch has only been accepted when there was a threat or actual use of arrows in our defense. Despite the pop culture pressed upon the youth of today, guns are not bad. They are an essential tool for protecting life, liberty, and property from all enemies both foreign and domestic. If you truly love liberty you cannot put away your arms. Gun control advocates would quickly dismiss my comments as those of a 'gun-toting redneck,' but it must be acknowledged that I have very good company; Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Thomas Payne, Samuel Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, just to name a few, all firmly believed in the importance of firearm ownership for personal preservation.

I would like to stress that JROTC is a voluntary class; you have to sign up for it. Any attempt to remove JROTC is an attempt to control what choices you have in raising your children.

If you are the parent of a child that may take JROTC, rest assured your child will not be "brainwashed" or turned into a "little murderer." Spend a few minutes speaking with the Senior Army Instructor from your child's school, and you will see the true purpose of the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps is to "Motivate Young People to Be Better Citizens!" Your child will be encouraged to complete high school and continue on to college!!

If you are a JROTC cadet past or present do not let the self-proclaimed "thinking class" remove the JROTC program from your community.

Be able to recognize opponents of the JROTC program:

"The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute for them the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood." (Adolph Hitler, quoted in Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock (Harper Collins, NY))

"Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." (Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party)

"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." (Hillary Clinton, 1993)

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." (President Bill Clinton, USA Today, March 11, 1993, Page 2A)

This Lady thinks you're too ignorant to know
what's best for your own child.

Be able to recognize friends of the JROTC program:

"What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly.
It is dearness only that gives everything its value.
Heaven knows how to put a price upon its goods, and it
would be strange indeed if so celestial an article
as freedom should not be highly rated."
(Thomas Payne)

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what
to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" (Benjamin Franklin)

"America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to 'the common good,' but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way." (Ayn Rand)

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety."
(Benjamin Franklin)

"Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it." (Woodrow Wilson )

"Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means push back a boundary-line and adding to one`s liberty."
(Henri Frederic Amiel )

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." (John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address
Washington, D.C. January 20, 1961 )

"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
(Patrick Henry March 23,1775)

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog." (Mark Twain)

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." (Samuel Adams)

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." (Ayn Rand)

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." (Patrick Henry, 3 Elliot, Debates at 45 (Virginia Convention, June 5, 1788))

"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes....Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." (Thomas Jefferson's "Commonplace Book," 1774-1776, quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria in Chapter 40 of "On Crimes and Punishment", 1764)