Francis Lewis High School students enrolled in the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC) have a lot to be proud of – they are the reigning precision drill champions of the United States.
Each year, the very best of the 68 schools in New York with JROTC or similar programs sends a team to compete with the best from other states – 3,625 schools nationwide – in precision drill.
On Monday, May 3 in Daytona, FL – and for the first time in their 11-year history – the cadets from the Fresh Meadows school brought home all the major trophies.
“I think that’s something to be really proud of,” said Francis Lewis Principal Musa Ali Shama of the big win and observed that 99 percent of students in JROTC graduate high school in four years. “That should be on the front page of every newspaper in the city.”
In “unarmed” competition, absolute synchronization among team members is practiced until they move as one. In “armed” drill, it is the difficulty – and danger – of marching with, twirling and tossing exact replicas of World War I-era rifles as if they were batons.
In Color Guard competition, cadets handle rifles and the flags of the school and United States, in precise maneuvers that guarantee the deference due the national colors. In pairs drill, Cadets Denise Arevalo and Alisa Ho demonstrated precision in moving as one.
Elite members of the “Patriot Battalion,” the 700-strong cadet corps, brought home the prize in both – and for the first time ever, they ranked in every event.
The armed-competition Patriot Guards team scored a staggering 5,882 points – more than 200 points ahead of the runners-up from Texas, repeating their triumphs of 2009 and 2007 and burying the memory of 2008 – when they were bested by a single point.
In unarmed drill, the Patriot Pride team scored their first-ever national triumph with 5,798 points, 220 ahead of another Texas team, the Flour Bluff SeaHawks, who had held the title for most of the past seven years.
Two cadets, Denise Arevalo and Alisa Ho aced the pairs drill with “identical exhibition drill movements in a sophisticated and timely manner,” according to team spokesperson, cadet Captain Jessica Ariel Wendroff, observing drill practice in the school cafeteria, one week after their triumph.
“It’s not about an early recruitment of getting kids into the army,” Shama continued. “It’s about exposing kids to being leaders in their community, being leaders in their school and having honor, respect and integrity and all those values you’d want young people to have.”
The teams practice as much as 36 hours, six days a week, all year long, according to Wendroff, a three-year veteran of the armed drill team, who is also Student Organization President; member of the National Honor Society Arista and recipient Sam Walton Community Service Scholarship, among numerous other honors.
Other drill champs are no less impressive. Charnette Lercara (commanding unarmed exhibition) ranks third out of 1,000 seniors academically; Gloria Consiglieri (commanding unarmed regulation), Waldy Barrientos and Christina Liu are all Arista members.
In the next year, both Consiglieri and cadet Joshua Lipke will be going on to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Consigliere leaves for the prep camp this summer.
The Francis Lewis cadet corps is the largest in the country, and also participates in “Raider” competitions, “sort of an ‘Iron Man’ competition,” according to faculty, where cadets run obstacle courses, cross barriers while transporting “wounded” and display remarkable physical endurance.
Lipke participates in both armed and Raider drills. “He can do 200 push-ups in two minutes,” said instructor Army Master Sergeant Peter Rompf admiringly, as he watched cadets exercising outside.
“We go to the Raider regionals [at Fort Dix, New Jersey] this weekend.”
