Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
It was muddy and hot, but 12 Army Junior ROTC cadets from Warsaw Community High School pushed through the mud and downpours to success and awards.
These WCHS JROTC cadets earned the right to attend the annual JROTC Cadet Leadership Course at Camp Manatoc in Peninsula, Ohio.
Two hundred forty cadets attended this course, which came from the tri-state area’s 20 high schools. Cadets were challenged to develop leadership skills and teamwork skills through activities that included physical training, living, sustaining and maintaining in a military style environment, and learning and developing skills such as rappelling, rock wall climbing, archery, using an air rifle, orienteering-land navigation, operating aerial drones, learning to make swiss seats and rope bridges, and handling water-related problems such as a canoe flipping over or aiding a drowning person, learning basic first aid.
Awards won by Warsaw cadets are as follows:
1. Land Navigation and Orienteering: Daniellys Garcia-Santiago and Estin Boschet
2. Physical Fitness:
- Top Female in their Company: Daniellys Garcia-Santiago
- Top Female of all Cadets: Lydia Guthrie
- Top Male of all Cadets: Jose Casian-Fregozo
3. Cadet commendation medal: Lydia Guthrie and Jose Casian-Fregozo
4. Company and Platoon Leadership Award: Logan Ellison, Cadence Gallo, Gretchen Robinson and Lydia Guthrie
5. The Top Female Cadet of JCLC: Lydia Guthrie
Major Friedrich Josellis, senior Army instructor of Army JROTC at WCHS, was proud of how the cadets from WCHS’ Tiger Battalion fared.
He said, “This is the third year in a row that a Warsaw cadet has won a top cadet award. Cadet Guthrie is the battalion’s battalion commander, and at JCLC she showed why she earned the honor of leading this program.”
Cadet Lt. Col. Guthrie will be one seven cadets who will attend a course before the school year starts at Fort Custer, Augusta, Mich. She and these staff leaders will learn about their positions in a scaled-down version of a course offered to Army officers.
An exhausted but excited Guthrie said, “It’s a great place to learn about yourself and to find out where your strengths and weaknesses are.”
If a WCHS student is interested in JROTC, email Josellis at fjosellis@warsawschools.org, for additional information and details about JROTC at WCHS.
