MCJROTC

The Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (MCJROTC) reaches out to thousands of American kids, most who only stay enrolled for a few weeks. It teaches them vital life skills such as how to stand behind a chair before class begins and how to effectively forget what time of day it is. Students are eligible to enroll in MCJROTC their Freshman year of high school but only after having all hair follicles removed from their body and completely denouncing any previous intelligence they believe themselves to have. Throughout the Fall semester, cadets of MCJROTC occasionally learn basic etiquette such as, "Don't throw your food across the table while having dinner with the President." and have virtually useless acronyms and lingo forced upon them as they study occupational skills i.e. Underwater basket weaving.

Legal authorization

Public Law 88-647, codified at 10 USC 2031, unwittingly authorized the Military Service Secretaries to "commission" Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) units at secondary schools that meet established criteria. Any school that has a drop-out/pregnancy rate below 99.99% and has enough space for 102 cadets to hang out for fifty minutes a day will do. Accordingly, the Secretary of the Navy has authorized the Commandant of the M'Reen Core to establish Marine Corps JROTC (MCJROTC) units throughout the United States.

Color Guard: The Art of Looking Busy

Color Guard is MCJROTC’s official way of saying, "Look how seriously we take standing still while holding flags." Cadets selected for Color Guard spend hours perfecting the ancient art of marching slowly, looking stoic, and trying not to drop Old Glory or the school flag while everyone watches.

Typical duties include:

• Parading like royalty, but with more sweat and less fanfare
• Holding flags straight enough to avoid spontaneous combustion
• Perfecting the “serious face” so you don’t laugh when the trumpet player misses a note
• Standing perfectly still for minutes on end while pretending it’s not torture

Color Guard members are often mistaken for statues, which is an insult to statues, because statues don’t have to wear wool uniforms in July. The unofficial motto? “If you’re not trembling from the heat or nerves, you’re not doing it right.”

Despite the intense training, the only confirmed combat they engage in is battling bugs attracted to the shiny metal parts of their rifles and flags. Veterans report the true enemy is boredom.

Rewards for Color Guard members include massive respect from cadets who can’t march straight and the chance to be the star of every school ceremony—because nothing says “honor” like holding a flag without tripping.

Drill Team: The Highly Competitive Synchronized Flag-Waving Olympics

Drill Team is MCJROTC’s answer to “How much can you spin, march, and stab the air with a rifle before everyone claps or runs away?” It’s where cadets show off their ability to coordinate complicated movements while trying not to accidentally bonk their teammate with a 7-pound piece of wood disguised as a rifle.

Main activities include:

• Marching in perfect formation like human metronomes
• Flipping rifles in the air with the grace of a caffeinated octopus
• Pretending that dropping your rifle during a spin is just “part of the routine”
• Practicing until your arms feel like spaghetti, your legs like jelly, and your face like it might freeze in an awkward grimace

Drill Team members are basically the performing arts stars of MCJROTC, combining military precision with acrobatics and occasional accidental slapstick comedy. Judges score their performances based on precision, timing, and the number of near-disasters narrowly avoided.

Participation often results in: - Bruised fingers and egos - Uncontrollable urges to yell “Cover!” - The mysterious ability to march backwards while spinning a rifle and still look cool

Winning Drill Team competitions guarantees bragging rights, extra respect from instructors, and the occasional awkward slow clap from the audience.

Marksmanship

A select few cadets, primarily those who try out whose aptitude for successfully hitting a 10x12" sheet of paper at like, 30 feet with an BB gun pellet gun air rifle is deemed acceptable, may be inducted into the Scout Sniper training program. During the course of this training, cadets undergo sleep deprivation training which culminates in a 10 minute phase in which they must shoot 10 targets without nodding off. After becoming proficient in the couch stance of shooting, cadets progress through the training pipeline into the slouching stance. This evolution of the program is where most of the weak wash out, as cadets must stand for an unbearable 15 minutes to shoot the standard 10 targets. Any cadets with the tenacity to remain in the program (showing up to practice), and possessing the mad snyper skillz to master the slouch stance, they attempt to learn the "morphball" position. If the cadet can shoot the standard target in this position without complaining about their knee hurting and their ankle up their ass, they have successfully completed the program, an are authorized to wear the Nazi SS flag Scout Snipers think is cool the marksmanship badge on those uniforms they wear, like three times a year.

Physical Training (PT): Pure Torture

PT, short for Physical Torment, is a sacred weekly ritual in MCJROTC where cadets voluntarily suffer through military workouts because they "signed up for this" and "can't back out now or they'll lose rank and respect." Legend has it, PT was invented when a Marine got bored during World War II and decided to see how many pushups a 14-year-old could survive before evaporating.

Cadets engage in a variety of delightful activities, including:

• Running until your lungs beg for mercy
• Push-ups that defy both gravity and your spine’s will to exist
• Planks that last long enough for you to see your ancestors
• Burpees (the official torture method of every branch of the U.S. military)

Your reward for surviving PT? Sweat, soreness, a participation shoutout from the instructor, and the eternal respect of that one freshman who thinks you’re hardcore because you didn’t puke this time.

There’s also a PT test, where you get to compete against time, gravity, and your own legs. If you fail it, don’t worry — you’ll be “strongly encouraged” to keep trying, which is MCJROTC code for “get ready to do extra PT until you question reality.”

Oh, and if you’re lucky, the cadet sergeant leading PT will be the type who treats every session like *boot camp meets Mortal Kombat*. “Motivation through suffering” is their favorite leadership style.

Harlingen Marine Military Academy

The MMA at Harlingen, Texas, is lovingly nicknamed "Call-My-Parents" Camp. Some MCJROTC units have the high honor of spending a week at MMA, an institution renowned for its asshat cadets, who cry themselves to sleep, having never seen a girl since puberty motivated cadets and their esprit de corps. Only the most dedicated and elite cadets of a unit may attend, having to earn the privilege by passing their classes and… showing up to class. At MMA, cadets will be tested mentally and physically, having to do about 50 pushups a day and jog for like 2 miles. The mental aspect of the intense conditioning of the Academy is the first experience of many fishies and LE-I cadets as a bunk-mate, inevitably taking a shower in the presence of their battle buddy, and usually suffering a crisis of sexual identity. Cadets quickly learn to grow a pair, though, when they face off against their comrades in the Thunder Dome, where all the violence of the Pillsbury Doughboy hopped up on meth is unleashed as cadets smack each other with marshmallows on a stick, i.e. pugil sticks. Tactical proficiency is also acquired at the Academy, when cadets learn the strategic skills to lead a Pickett’s charge in paintball, sometimes shooting the enemy if they aren’t first sniped by a begrudged witch doctor Staff Sergeant. Honing the Leadership skill of hormonal teenagers is the foremost goal of the week’s training at MMA. As cadets are for the frist time truly exposed to bureaucratic Chain-of-Command they must quickly adapt to outrageous rules, understanding the duties of different billets is rarely accomplished and most cadets only listen to the MI a.k.a the Devil's evil step-brother. The Freshmans' whose sole purpose is to be scared little girls and to march wherever their Platoon Serganitor hoarsely yells at them to go, being sure to sound off whenever he takes a breath, lest they be verbally berated by their Platoon Momma, who is usually just angry because they are berated by someone off in the distance for the Platoon Serganitor fucking up the imaginary parade. Next you have your Battalion Kiss-Asses, who "run the show" but are rarely seen making decisions, . There is the company staff, comprised of two officers who order the companies to attention maybe twice during the week, but otherwise have their first sergeants do everything. And of course, there is the cadet commanding officer, who is, you know, there. By the end of the week, cadets will have pushed their limits, most of them completing at least half of the obstacle course, an elite few climbing about 10 feet up the rope. They will have done the leadership reaction course, where puzzles designed to stump 5th graders test cadets’ ability to yell louder than their team members to get it done. They will have marched for endless (3) hours on the drill deck in an attempt to not trip over each other in column movements. But the greatest achievement cadets bring back home is the knowledge that they can outwalk their asthmatic and crippled comrades on a 4-mile a stroll through quaint, vibrant Harlingen ruck during the cold, bitter night.

On the bus ride back to civilization, cadets forget all the seriousness they acquired, as they frolic and eat pogey bait from Mickey D’s and watch movies on the glaring and tilted Charter bus screens. When they return home at last, cadets embrace their new iden

Uniform Inspections: Fashion Police Bootcamp

Every week, MCJROTC cadets undergo a sacred rite known as the Uniform Inspection, where their souls are judged based on the shininess of their shoes and the angle of their belt buckle. If your gig line is off by even a nanometer, you’ll be ceremonially smited with passive-aggressive stares and two hours of emotional damage.

Requirements for passing include:

• Pants creased sharp enough to decapitate small rodents
• Shoes polished so brightly that astronauts complain about the glare
• No lint, no wrinkles, no humanity
• Looking like you're ready for the funeral of joy itself

Failing inspection results in a dramatic sigh from your instructor, followed by a lecture that somehow traces your inability to wear socks correctly back to the fall of the Roman Empire.

Leadership Education: PowerPoint Hell

The backbone of MCJROTC is the Leadership Education class, where cadets are bombarded with military wisdom via slideshows made in 1997. This is where you learn that true leadership means making your team do all the work while you pretend to “supervise.”

Notable lessons include:

• How to recite the 14 leadership traits without vomiting
• Why yelling "OOH-RAH" at squirrels doesn’t count as motivation
• That time the Marine Corps was born in a bar and somehow survived

PowerPoints are delivered with the excitement of a DMV waiting room. Questions are discouraged unless you enjoy being voluntold to present next time.

Community Service: Free Child Labor

MCJROTC cadets participate in community service to prove they're not just sweat-covered teens with plastic rifles. This includes:

• Picking up trash for 6 hours while pondering life choices
• Waving at old people during parades with severe arm cramps
• Handing out water bottles while dehydrated and sunburned

It’s all worth it for those sweet, sweet service hours which you’ll forget to log until the last week of the semester. Cadets are told this builds character, but mostly it builds resentment.

Academics: The Side Quest Nobody Asked For

Despite dressing like small Marines, cadets are still technically students and are expected to not fail their other classes. Tragic.

Cadets must:

• Maintain passing grades (or at least a C in “How Not To Sleep Through First Period”)
• Complete actual tests on history, leadership, and why yelling louder doesn’t solve problems
• Pretend they know what “bearing” means in both nautical and emotional contexts

Cadets often discover that Drill Team skills do not help during biology exams, unless your frog dissection involves column left movements.

Promotions: Why Is HE a Sergeant?!

Promotions are given out to cadets who:

• Show up occasionally
• Don’t cry during PT (in public)
• Somehow impress the instructors by doing basic human tasks

Promotion Ceremonies are elaborate rituals where 12 cadets get promoted and 38 cadets reevaluate their self-worth. The newly promoted cadet is awarded:

• A shiny piece of metal
• 400% more responsibility
• 800% more blame

Everyone else sits there thinking, “But I did more stuff!” while pretending to clap politely.

The Marine Corps Ball: Military Prom with Less Romance

Every year, MCJROTC cadets gather to celebrate their achievements in the fanciest way possible: sitting in a banquet hall pretending they know how to dance.

Highlights include:

• Awkward slow dancing with someone you yelled at during PT last week
• Eating 2 rolls, a chicken breast, and 6 cupcakes
• Watching your instructors try not to cringe at your “drip”

Everyone’s dressed in either full dress blues or Dollar Store tuxedos. No matter what, someone’s cover is missing and someone else will spill soda on their white gloves.

This is also the only night cadets can act like normal high schoolers without being screamed at for "breaking bearing."

See Also

• JROTC: The Original Cult
• The adult version
• Marching in Circles
• List of acronyms you’ll never remember
• Pain
• PowerPoint
• tity as stone cold killers, and dream of one day joining the Army.