By John Dingzon

Patterson students participated in a citywide JROTC drill competition on March 29th. The event was took place at the 5th regiment Armory.

There were a lot of JROTC schools that participated in this event. Everyone was competing for the CEO Cup that is the trophy to win overall.
Whatever the outcome, at the end each school would still receive a trophy.

Patterson won 2nd place for the overall competition, while Poly won 1st place and took home to CEO’s cup. Patterson also won trophies in the following categories: drill – unarmed platoon, drill – armed platoon, squadron – armed drill, squadron – unarmed drill, and color guard.

There was also a competition called the knockout challenge, which the cadets participated in. The knockout challenge is when you have 4 element line leaders and the cadets stay in formation and the drill Sergeant gives them a command and they will move and execute the command. If the drill Sergeant says the command wrong and a cadet executed the command wrong, then that person is out, but if the person keeps up, then they stay until the drill Sergeant declares a winner.

During the event, there were also breaks where cadets had time to relax and socialize. During this time, some students saw familiar faces that they knew from previous events.

Patterson High School’s AFJROTC cadets did an outstanding job performing at the different levels of the event. A lot of eyes were focused on Patterson because last year Patterson won the CEO Cup and were in 1st place overall.

Technical Sergeant Smith and group commander C/Col. Batista were both proud of what the group had accomplished, and they thought that the cadets really did a great job.