MCJROTC Students Build Confidence, Set Goals

senior Nayeli Sanchez used to be shy and quiet until she joined the school’s Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program her fresman year.

“It’s taught me to be more outgoing,” Sanchez said. “It’s helped me to have more responsibility in what I do.”

Asked if she was planning on joining the military after high school, she laughed. “Because usually people think that that’s why people join ROTC.”

Although Sanchez has done well as an officer in MCJROTC, she doesn’t plan on entering the military, but instead wants to attend to study photography.

Prior to July 2008, El Camino's MCJROTC was a satellite program of Oceanside High School, its cadet enrollment numbers hovered between 60 and 100. This year El Camino has 123 cadets enrolled in MCJROTC.

El Camino has seen an increase in interest among women, with the ratio of males to females now 3-to-2. Many of the program's command positions are now held by women, said senior Marine instructor Gene LaRue.

To hold a command position, cadets must go through a competitive application process, get recommendations from all their teachers and their parents, submit a three-page questionnaire about their abilities in public speaking, sportsmanship, what they would change if selected and other criteria. Students must also have at least a 3.0 grade-point average.

For El Camino senior Ashley Davis, the Marine Corps is in her future.

“I decided I wanted to go into the Marine Corps my junior year,” Davis said. “I knew for a fact that if I went to college or community college, I would drop out, because I’m so tired of sitting in a desk listening to the teacher talk. I want to see the world and go have fun and stuff.”

Instead of taking a year off, Davis said she plans on going through Marine Corps boot camp and then to school with tuition assistance while in the fleet. "[School is there], I have the funds for it, instead of working two jobs, or whatever, paying for college,” she said.

Junior David Barranco also is looking to the military for skills training and financial assistance. 

“I want to join the Navy and be a medic, which is a corpsman. They assist the Marines in the field,” Barranco said. “I want to be a doctor and being a corpsman, they help me out.”

After high school, senior Cesar Sumano plans to join the Marine Corps Reserves "because they give you money to go to college, but you’re still in the Marine Corps, so I like that part. And right now my family doesn’t have a lot of money so I don’t want to go straight into college right away.”

Though some of the cadets are planning on joining the military after high school, MCROTC isn’t a recruiting tool, LaRue said.

“It’s basically a program for cadets, run by cadets,” he said. “Our company staff, they are involved in everything from making their weekly training schedule, scheduling fundraisers, coordinating and communicating with other programs.”

The cadets also drill. One by one they walked from the classroom and out to the lawn, each putting a Marine Corps cover on their heads as they did so. The platoon strode down a set of stairs to the hardtop below, then got into formation — three squads of six, the guide and Sanchez, their platoon leader.

“Report,” Sanchez called, standing at attention facing the other 19 cadets.

"First squad all present," a squad leader replied.

The cadets receive the basic drill that recruits get in the first phase of Marine Corps training, said Marine instructor Mark Coates. “We try to teach them as close as we can to it, but they're not going to get the same thing that the more experienced recruits get the latter part of their training.”

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