When current senior Titus Zeigler entered Grady his freshman year, he did not envision himself in the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) uniform. After grudgingly joining at the will of his father, Zeigler now appreciates the skills and opportunities he has acquired from the program.

“It gave me a lot of opportunities,” Zeigler said. “I’ve gotten an offer from West Point which I never would have done without [JROTC]. The best thing about it for me, like after school, [is] if you join ROTC in college it’s the best opportunity for a free education.”

The Grady JROTC is 170 students strong and has gained significant recognition in competitions they have participated in throughout the year and in years past. They have also gained recognition as a positive influence in the community.

Zeigler is now the battalion commander and a cadet lieutenant colonel of the JROTC, making him the highest ranked JROTC member at Grady. Because of the program, Zeigler joined the National Guard when he turned 17 last June and is now a private.

The JROTC is divided into four different teams: the color guard, the drill team, the raider team and the rifle team.

“Color guard and drill sort of go together,” Zeigler said. “We compete against other schools in APS and around the state, and it’s basically marching. [On the] rifle team, we shoot .177-caliber air rifles in our rifle range. And raider team is a physical competition team.”

The curriculum is made up of a sequence of courses which ranges from lessons teaching students military and leadership skills to ones providing SAT prep, help with college applications and guidance for after high school plans.

“We just did a class on SAT prep, which helps us,” said Kylah Clark, a senior and major and executive officer in the JROTC. “They teach us actual stuff, and they give us, especially when you’re a senior, time to do applications and stuff. I’m not going to say they specifically helped me, but other people who aren’t as sure what they want to do when they graduate and don’t really know how to do that stuff on their own, they help them.”

Lt. Cornell Johnson, a Grady JROTC instructor, said the program teaches students valuable life skills.

“We teach them leadership skills,” Johnson said. “We put them in a position where they are responsible for wearing a uniform, for doing their assignments [and] for doing presentations. They work together as a unit; we teach them that the key to success is teamwork. What ROTC is all about is to make young people better citizens.”

Many cadets say the program has had a positive impact on their lives.

“It gave me better insight for the military,” Clark said. “A lot of people are really scared of it, but they kind of teach you that it’s not as intense as people think it is. So I do have aspirations to join the military one day, and they prepare us [for that].”

The Grady JROTC is also active in the community through various community-service projects. The projects include mentoring elementary school children, collecting money for underprivileged children during the holidays and volunteering with the Special Olympics.

“We do things in our community; the students help do things in our community,” Johnson said. “A lot of them get the 75 service hours that they require … in ROTC.”

Aside from helping the community while simultaneously learning valuable life skills, the team has also brought home the gold. The team has had a lot of success in its annual competitions. Last year it won Best Unit in APS. In addition, the Grady JROTC Leadership and Academic Bowl team placed ninth in the country last year, competing against more than 2,000 schools. No other APS academic bowl team has ever gotten that far.

This year, the team won first place in two of its big competitions, Saber Day and Annual Federal Inspection. The JROTC unit also has the largest raider team it has ever had. The unit also placed in all seven categories in the Area 6 Drill Team Competition.

“We’ve had a lot of, I guess, success stories,” Zeigler said. “People who have come in and were undisciplined didn’t want to be there; but then they actually turned out to really like it. I didn’t want to be there [at] first but I turned out to really like it. A lot of people go and learn something new or find something that they actually like about it. Anyone can join, and it’s really just up to you to apply yourself to it.”