Mustang ROTC program turns 100

Mustang ROTC program turns 100

I posted this item yesterday, but did not comment on it.  In thinking on it, I should have.

As the article notes, NCHS's JrROTC program is a century old.  Indeed, I've heard, and believe it to be correct, that it's the oldest JrROTC program in the United States.  Pretty remarkable, really.

As such, it's an institution that's marked the passage of time, and tells us something about the times.  Therefore, it fits into the subject area of this blog ideally, and is worth a closer look.

I graduated from this high school, but was not in JrROTC.  My wife (also not in ROTC) graduated from there as well. . . as well as both of my inlaws, a lot of my cousins, and my father and his siblings.  Our connection with NCHS goes way back, but not all the way back to 1914.

JrROTC was incorporated in the curriculum of the school in 1914 as a mandatory class, on the nation's run up to World War One.  The high school is a land grant school.  We tend to think of land grant schools being colleges and universities, but that category included some high schools as well, and NCHS is one.  As such, back in 1914, the US could require NCHS to have a class on military preparedness, which it did.  The University of Wyoming introduced one about the same time.

This applied only to boys, of course, in an era when solders were in fact almost all male.  It was a very gender differentiated world in those days.  And it was a pretty serious course at that.  The young men were issued uniforms and taught basic solder skills. Drill and Ceremony, some marksmanship, and the like.  They didn't come out of it soldiers, but it took the edge off military ignorance in an era when most Americans hadn't had a family member in the service since the Civil War.   The Army was attempting to speed up training a bit, and it probably accomplished that.

After the Great War, the school kept the program, and kept it mandatory.  It was mandatory all the way up until the mid 1970s when, in the wake of the Vietnam War, the school board made it an elective.  By that time, the district had a second high school which didn't have an ROTC program at all.

In that intervening period, a lot had changed.  During the 1930s the program, I'm told, was one that parents appreciated as the school issued a set of uniforms in an era when money was really tight, and the extra clothing appreciated.  For a time the school even departed from the actual official Army uniform of the era and issued its own, very fancy, blue uniform, although this passed as the nation began to prepare for World War Two.  Keep in mind that money was so tight in this era that the 115th Cavalry Regiment of the Wyoming National Guard was effectively recruiting right in the schools, through a music teacher, and the kids and their parents were glad to join for the extra income.  Not all those recruits were of legal service age either.

It was probably World War Two that really started the changes in JrROTC.  The program was strong during the war, of course, but post war it actually saw some returning servicemen assigned back into it, as they went to complete an interrupted high school career. Suffice it to say, they were a disaster as ROTC cadets.  And the post war world saw a big military with a big training program, and a lot of men in the general population who had military service.  In short, JrROTC was no longer really needed anywhere in the same way that it had been in 1914.  I've actually heard of a story once where an NCHS graduate, who had of course been in JrROTC (he was male) found himself in a formation during basic training in which the DI asked if anyone had been an ROTC cadet. Indicating that he had, he found himself singled out by the DI, who instructed the other trainees to ignore whatever he did.

Juniors in NCHS, in 1946.  Note how many are wearing their JrROTC uniforms for their class picture.

Still, with a big military commitment existing during the early Cold War the district kept the program, and a person can find interesting recollections regarding it.  One really dedicated sports shooter I know noted that it was in JrROTC, which had a rifle team with actual .22 rifles as late as the late 1970s, early 1980s when I was in high school, where he was introduced to the sport.  Another individual I know recalled, in a less nifty recollection, that in the 60s when he was in NCHS they were still issued the old World War Two service uniform, which had wool pants and a wool jacket, and they never took them home for cleaning.

Locally, after Kelly Walsh was built in the early 1960s, and the decision was made not to have a JrROTC program there, an odd situation was created in that students had no choice as to what school to attend as this was determined geographically.  Boys at NC were in JrROTC.  Across town at KW they were not.  Amazingly, the program lived on through the Vietnam War, which says a lot about how the war was viewed in this region.  But times caught up with the program, and in the mid 1970s the decision was made to make it an elective.  I can vaguely recall the school board making that decision, when I was in grade school.  In my mind the number of years between that decision and my own period in high school seems vast, but it really isn't.  I only missed mandatory JrROTC in high school by a few years.

As an elective, it's lived on.  When I was in high school it was carried as a physical education class.  The students who enrolled in it seemed to do so either as they definitely knew that they were going into the service, or in order to have a PE credit that avoided the rough and tumble nature of high school PE here at the time.  Indeed, for some of us who may have been mildly interested, or even definitely interested, in the program the thought that we'd be regarded as shirking PE was enough to keep us out of it. Some no doubt joined it so they could get on the rifle team, which was the only way to do that, and I recall pondering that myself, as I wanted to be on the rifle team. By that time, girls as well as boys were in JrROTC, and there were female shooters on the team.  In that distant era, the indoor range was actually inside the school.

It's kept on keeping and I think today its simply an elective for people who are seriously contemplating military service.  I don't believe its a PE elective, and the atmosphere of the times that existed in my high school years is gone on a a lot of things.  In some ways the odd atmosphere created by the Vietnam War on all things military really didn't creep into Wyoming until the late 1970s, and of course never did to the full extent that they did in other regions, but JrROTC suffered for awhile because of that.  I also think that over time the program has evolved, like a lot of such programs, into more of a leadership and service program than a truly fully martial one. As late as my period of service in the Army National Guard the JrROTC cadets trained for a week at Camp Guernsey, engaged in some sort of annual war game, and had actual rifles for drill team use, none of which I believe to be true any longer.  I can recall being detailed to retrieve the trucks that had been loaned to them by the Army  Reserve, and can also recall having M1 Garands in our Armory that belonged to JrROTC. 

Anyhow, it's interesting how an institution like this, which has survived for so long in the schools, but which is a bit unusual for most schools, marks and reflects the times.

Postscript.

NC's JrROTC program is in the news again this morning, although this time it's for the fine performance of their air rifle team, which won a significant competition for the tenth year in a role.

I note that here, however, as this also illustrates the changing times. The article notes that the rifle team itself dates back to 1914, at which time they used M1903 rifles.  That means they were shooting service rifle competition at the time.

California National Guard rifle team at Camp Perry, 1908.  They are equipped with brand new M1903 rifles.

That's pretty remarkable in some ways as the M1903 is a fully sized rifle, although chances are that the boys on the team had all already shot full sized rifles.  The competition was not of the type that air rifles do at all, but was along range match.  In short, they were shooting in a fully adult competition using rifles that were the Army standard at the time.

Camp Perry, Ohio, where the national championship for service rifle competition was held, and still is.

When my father went to NCHS, JrROTC was equipped with M1917 rifles.  The M1917 rifle was a rifle that the US Army purchased during World War One to supplement the supplies of M1903s, which were arsenal built by the Army itself.  M1917s were built by Winchester and Remington, which had started off making them as the P14, in a different cartridge, for the under supplied British (the "14" stands for the year 1914).  More M1917s existed by the end of World War One than M1903s, although only barely so, and they continued on in some numbers in US use thereafter.  During World War Two the M1903 was used in great numbers, even though the M1 Garand became the most common rifle in US use during the war.  The M1917 saw much less use, but did see some, equipping Chemical Mortar and Artillery units early on, and State Guard units throughout the war.  Apparently it was also supplied to JrROTC units.  My father could remember the serial number of the one he had in JrROTC his entire life.

British Home Guardsmen with P14 during World War Two.

U.S. Marine training during World War Two with M1903 rifle.  One in Seven of all U.S. infantrymen were equipped with the M1903 during the war, and the rifle was the standard rifle for some formations, such as the Military Police.

Just before I was in high school the JrROTC unit there actually had M14s, which is a surprising thought.  I believe that they had the firing pins removed, but that both shows the extent to which JrROTC units had access to real arms, and the depth to which the M14 had fallen as a service rifle.  The M1903 was officially replaced as a line rifle after World War Two, and it had become a specialist rifle during the war at that.  It soldiered on for years and years after the war, but an improved variant of it in the new official NATO cartridge was adopted in the late 1950s. That rifle, the M14, never managed to supplant the Garand and it never even made it into Guard and Reserve units as the standard rifle before the Vietnam War brought on the M16, which ended up replacing it before it had really fully replaced the M1 Garand.  A highly regarded marksmanship rifle, the M14 lived on for a time as a service rifle competition rifle, but it also ended up in a lot of Guard armories and secondary use in the Army when its fortunes fell.

Soldier early in World War Two training with a M1 Garand.

Still, that JrROTC units had M14s is surprising.  At some point in the mid 1970s, however, they were removed and sent back to the Army, which began to reconsider the rifle for certain uses.  The rifle ended up coming roaring back into service in the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where its accuracy and long range performance made them a better rifle for trained marksmen than the M16 which had originally replaced it.  

U.S. paratrooper in Vietnam, equipped with M14, during 1967's Operation Junction City.  Junction City, fwiw, is the town just outside of Ft. Riley, Kansas.

U.S. infantryman in Afghanistan with rebuilt updated variant of the M14.

When the M14s went, the M1s came back, and when I was in high school they had some M1s.   The drill team used M1903s, however.  About the only time I saw the M1s was when I was in the National Guard, as we had their M1s on some occasion.  They had the firing pins removed.

Well, now times have changed and the rifle team, which shot at a range inside the high school, no longer uses firearms but instead shoots air rifles.  A person can make of that what they want, but its quite a change over a century.