On April 24th, our Wilson High School JROTC program set out to execute their school beautification project entitled “Operation Pick It Up”. To fulfill this assignment the cadets dispersed in groups of 15-20, working together to clean our school campuses. One purpose of this Operation was to place our ninth graders in leadership positions to demonstrate how the program has affected them. Another purpose was to show the younger students to take care of and respect their school. The mission statement of JROTC is “to motivate young people to be better citizens.” By doing this project the cadets not only met that standard of being better citizens, but also set an example of leadership, inspired others, and completed an act of selfless service. The cadets showed that it is good to do positive things even when no one is watching. This is called Initiative. The cadets also showed good use of the Seven Army Values:
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L- Loyalty
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D- Duty
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R- Respect
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S- Selfless Service
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H- Honor
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I- Integrity
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P- Personal Courage
The cadets demonstrated that they have these values by doing a job most kids wouldn’t want to do, picking up their friends garbage. The operation was lead by the ninth grade in Wilson High School JROTC. A staff was established to run the entire project:
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Officer in Charge- Drake Hiester
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Assistant Officer in Charge- Mariah Nieves
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S1- Ashley Lehmann ~Assistant Ryan Picinic
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S2- Jordan Williams ~Assistant Jared Simmons
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S3- Austin Bertolet ~Assistant Sam Yeity
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S4- Brady Stuebner ~ Steven Smith
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S5- Jillian Klinger ~ Garret Zary
Each position had a task to accomplish. They each completed their task and came together in a combined effort to make sure that the operation ran smoothly. The staff also had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Mierzejewski. In this meeting the Operation Pick It Up staff got to brief Dr. Mierzejewski on the event and what was going to be happening. The ninth graders were also put into positions of team leaders, directing the other cadets while separated in their groups.