Last December 9, the Liberty ROTC program had its Annual Military Inspection. Captain John Deehr, Commander of University of Washington’s ROTC program, awarded Liberty’s ROTC the highest rank of Outstanding in every category.
The broad categories include reports and records, academic program, cadet performance, and administration of the program, along with many other broad and sub-categories.
Captain Deehr began the inspection by visiting with Commanding Officer Bella Oliver and the student department heads in charge of Supply, Operations, and Administrative.
“All the officers are in the classroom, and the commanding officer gives a standard briefing of activities that we’ve done, our overall community service hours for that semester, and our projected amount,” senior and department head Robert LeCoque said.
This briefing gives those in command an opportunity to show off how much their ROTC program has accomplished in just one semester.
“[The command brief] is like an overall snapshot of what we do. It’s a combination of information and bragging,” Chief Al Torstenson said.
Captain Deehr asked many of the department heads individual questions about their area of expertise and performed random checks on their records, testing for accuracy.
“They’re required to explain in detail what they do and how they do it,” Torstenson said.
To end the school day, Captain Deehr gave each platoon a uniform inspection, and each cadet received an individual grade.
“Captain Deehr mostly picked at details. If somebody had a thread loose, he would nick them for that,” sophomore cadet Montana Williams said.
Later that evening, ROTC students gathered again to perform the classic Pass and Review ceremony, which is performed in almost every military organization. They set up into platoons and marched around the gym, and this gave Captain Deehr an opportunity to grade on marching, order, step, lineup, and timing.
“We had to throw together drill teams, but it actually went really well,” Williams said.
Cadets received an individual score on the ceremony, and 32 out of 91 cadets inspected got the highest score possible – a 10.
Though they had to combine separate drill teams and were graded on very specific details, ROTC performed a smooth, professional ceremony and overall inspection.
“Everybody did very, very well. No hiccups, no stuttering, no stammering. The nervousness was kept to a minimum,” Torstenson said.