The Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps had its Annual Military Inspection (AMI) on Dec. 12. AMI is a formal event in which representatives from the United States Navy come to the high school to personally inspect the program’s performance and decide whether or not it is worth running for another year.
Each year, the inspection takes in the large gym and is critical in deciding the unit’s future, Executive Officer Senior Chief Akshat Paliwal, a junior said. Each detail is inspected with nuance, regardless of how minor, he continued.
“The point of the inspection is so he (the area manager) can see how we’re doing, but also so that he can see if there are major flaws,” Paliwal said. “Then we get a certain amount of time to fix those flaws. If we don’t, our program will be shut down.”
Some aspects the area manager assesses are drills, such as marching and faces, and knowledge of the Navy plus its core values, Commanding Officer Kaydence Foronda, a senior said. One additional aspect he or she inspects is leadership, she added. The NJROTC staff trains and educates cadets on drill performance, recitation of phrases and clauses, and responding to certain prompts, she said. Last year, a rearrangement in the chain of command negatively impacted the inspection, she continued.
“Last year, we had completely new staff, which definitely impacted our annual military inspection by a lot because everybody was learning what they had to do, and we were all very new to the jobs,” Foronda said. “This year, we definitely have a stronger leadership core, and that spreads out into having better drill, better knowledge. The main thing that we hope to improve from last year is just our involvement with our guests, our leadership portion of the AMI.”
Since the 2023-2024 school year, the NJROTC has had low recruitment and numbers; they couldn’t meet their requirement of 100 cadets to maintain funding and support from the United States Navy, Senior Naval Science Instructor Lieutenant Margie Jackson said. This year, the senior leaders are optimistic, with the program being at about 80 percent of the hundred-member goal, she said.
“If we weren’t meeting all requirements, then we would go on probation,” Jackson said. “In the past, if we were on probation for two years in a row, they (the Navy) could close us down.”
Despite not meeting the hundred-member goal, the senior cadet leaders hope that the unit’s tenacity and spirit will have convinced the area manager to allow the unit’s continued operation, Jackson said.
“When they see that the cadets are really meeting that standard and (helping) the community, they know the program’s doing what it should be doing,” Jackson said.
On the inspection day, the large gym is cordoned off and any physical education classes using it are instructed to host classes elsewhere so that the cadets and area managers can use the facility, Paliwal said. The inspection lasted about four periods, and cadets are excused from classes they miss, he continued.
“We’ve given them enough time to prepare for this inspection,” Paliwal said. “This is one of those things that they’re supposed to learn in our program, which is time management. They need to be able to manage their time so the coursework that they miss in their classes then, they can make up before or after their classes.”
The NJROTC’s performance in the AMI is instrumental in their continued operation in Milpitas, Jackson said. Shutting the program down would also shut down the only JROTC unit within Santa Clara County, she added. The program gives students life skills that they can employ beyond the classroom, and its shutdown would deny students the opportunity to improve self-esteem, composure, fitness, and discipline, she continued.
“We (all JROTC programs) all have the same directive, that is a citizenship leadership program,” Jackson said. “It offers cadets opportunities to set them up for anything they want to do in their career.”