Well-refined Air Force JROTC team gets international salute!
My SA - Web Posted: 12/25/2007 09:23 PM CST
Jenny LaCoste-Caputo
Express-News
Master Sgt. Ken Madden is used to standing for hours in the heat, running his drill team through the legendary practices that have helped Jay High School's Air Force JROTC program become one of the best in the nation.
The precision teams practice every afternoon Monday through Thursday and four hours on Saturdays all school year long. Cadets compete in at least 15 competitions throughout the year and make as many as 20 personal appearances, volunteering for duty at Veteran's Day memorials and visiting retirement homes.
But even Madden, with his tough-as-steel chutzpah and his national caliber cadets, wasn't prepared for what he discovered in aspiring JROTC students half a world away.
Madden was invited this month to travel to Singapore to teach students from around the country the basics of drill in Singapore's National Cadet Program. Madden was able to hand-pick two other Air Force JROTC drill experts to travel to Singapore with him.
He arrived in the hot, humid country ready to kick some butt, but he found out these kids, who desperately wanted to please him, wouldn't be broken.
"It was 90 degrees and 100 percent humidity," Madden said. "Then it was starting to pour down rain. I thought we'd better get inside, but one of the cadets looked at me and said, 'But sir, we have hats.'"
Singapore's National Cadet Program has 18,000 members, and 177 schools around the country sent representatives to train under Madden. They're taking what they learned back to their schools.
Singapore officials have invited Madden to come back with Jay's drill teams next year. The country in turn plans to send cadets to Jay's Mustang Classic, a national drill competition, in December 2008. By 2009, the National Cadet Program is hoping to have teams ready to compete.
Col. Dennis LeVan, commander of Jay's JRTOC program, said the invitation to Singapore is a testament to Madden's teaching ability and recognition that Jay's program is the standard by which other Air Force JROTC programs are judged.
And they have the trophies to prove it!
An entire wing of the JROTC's 25,000-sqare-foot building is filled with hundreds of gleaming trophies — many of them for first place in competitions that include inspection, regulation, color guard and exhibition drill routines.
"I learned from Sgt. Madden that practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect," said Juan Solis, 17, a squad leader on Madden's armed drill team. "What we learn here is important. You're only as strong as your weakest person. You have to work together."
In between traveling around the world and coaching one of the best drill teams in the nation, Madden has also been working to develop an Air Force National Drill Team Championship. While the Army hosts an annual national championship that's open to all branches in Daytona Beach, Fla., and the Navy has its own event as well, it has long bothered both Madden and LeVan that the Air Force doesn't sponsor its own competition.
"This is something he (Madden) has been beating on the door about for a long time, and now we're about to kick the door open," LeVan said.
Madden is in charge of assembling a nationwide team of Air Force drill experts to develop a comprehensive, sanctioned competition to recognize the top Air Force JROTC drill teams in the nation. The first event is scheduled for March, with an eastern competition in Macon, Ga., and a western competition in Oklahoma City. Madden hopes to have one site for the competition beginning in 2009.
Alisha Jackson, commander of Jay's unarmed drill team, will miss the chance to travel to Singapore, since she's graduating this year, but she's not surprised that her school's program is gaining international recognition.
"It's a big commitment to be a part of this program. We work hard," said Alisha, 17. "But that's what I like. I like the responsibility of it. I like earning respect."
