Senior Lance Chen has been working to join the Naval Academy, one of the most rigorous military academies, Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NJROTC) instructor Lieutenant Margie Jackson said.
Chen has already begun the process to get accepted into the Academy and is almost done, he said.
“They open up the applications pretty early because it’s a long process,” Chen said. “Not only is there the application with essays and everything, there’s also interviews, a nomination process, there’s the fitness assessment, and there’s also a general medical examination that takes a long time. I’m still working on my medical examination because it’s a long process.”
After completing the first set of applications, Chen had to work on nominations – the second part of admissions, he said. Chen received a nomination from Ro Khanna, the representative of Congressional District 17, where Milpitas is located, he added.
“I had to email him an entire portfolio of what I had in my resume and some recommendation letters,” Chen said. “Then I had an interview with the board; for me, it was five people. I had to be interviewed for whether I would survive in the academy.”
Before joining NJROTC, Chen was a member of the Sea Cadets, another Navy organization where he attended military boot camps, he said. This pushed him to be more interested in the military, he said.
“I did a master of arms training; that’s like police training, so close-quarters combat,” Chen said. “I would be learning to go into public, firing rifles, that kind of stuff. I went on a warship. That’s where I learned how to load cannons, firing anti-aircraft cannons, that kind of stuff. Recently, this winter, I went to Petty Officer Leadership Academy, where I learned leadership skills.”
Chen wants to become a Navy officer because being in a leadership position and doing something for the community is important to him, he said. As a high school student, Chen has done a lot of community service, he said.
“For a couple years I was the president of a community service club (Team Transformation),” Chen said. “Right now I help for Hope for the Unhoused, I foster dogs for Humane Society, I helped clean and take care of horses at the horse ranch, and I also used to host park cleanups just to help.”
Chen focused his academics around engineering and is interested in pursuing that subject alongside the military, he said. He would like to attend college before becoming an officer, and after serving as an officer, he wants to go into the engineering field, he said.
“One of the things to become an officer especially, you need a college education,” Chen said. “I’m planning to go either to the Naval Academy or do an ROTC scholarship for college.”
Being a part of the military gives you a much higher chance of being hired by companies later in life, Jackson said.
“(…)If you finish military service without any discrepancies in the record, people know that you’re committed, they know that you’re disciplined, they know that you’re loyal, they know that they can count on you,” Jackson said. “So you have all these qualities any company would want.”
In NJROTC, Jackson tries to instill a sense of confidence in her students and get them to recognize the mistakes they need to work on, she said. She also pushes for the cadets to be disciplined, she added.
“For people in the military, discipline is that you’re disciplined about what you’re doing,” Jackson said. “That you’re not pulling something out of your pocket and trying to do it, that you follow the right procedures to help you get there. (…) Discipline can help you get what you want to do – not only being committed, but you have to have the discipline and the structure.”
When he came into the NJROTC program earlier this year, Chen already had strong self-discipline and leadership skills, Jackson said. In the NJROTC program, Chen has been able to practice his leadership skills and help others, she added.
“So as a 12th grader, he helped lead our eighth, ninth, 10th, and 11th-grade students because he has a lot of the knowledge and he knows where he’s trying to go,” Jackson said.
Junior Ernesto Sto Domingo, a member of Chen’s NJROTC platoon, believes NJROTC has helped Lance become a better leader and learn new things, Sto Domingo said.
“We have (Lance) sometimes lead the class, just the normal taking attendance, leading them throughout the morning, bringing them inside,” Sto Domingo said.
Chen believes that other students could benefit from joining NJROTC, especially because it looks good on college applications, he said.
“During my college applications, a lot of things that they mention is, ‘have you been in any leadership position?’” Chen explained. “Having leadership positions, leadership skills, public speaking skills, all kinds of stuff is going to help with anywhere you’re going to go.”
In NJROTC, Chen also learned discipline skills, citizenship duties – including how the government works and staying informed on current events – and how to work with others, he said.
“It’s (NJROTC) a good sense of camaraderie, and people working as a team is very important, especially at school,” Chen said. “It’s very important to feel like you belong somewhere.”
Students might see the NJROTC program as strict because all they see is yelling, Sto Domingo said. But the yelling is there as part of leadership training to put the cadets through rigorous work, he explained.
“We mainly want to help the cadets because even we made mistakes when we first joined, and if they make mistakes, we understand that,” Sto Domingo said. “Besides all that yelling that students might see on MHS, we’re all really great people. It’s like a whole family.”