Executive Officer Julia Cheon’s (12) commands cut through the Saturday morning chill as 30 NJROTC cadets matched their marching cadence to her vocal metronome, Sept. 13. Dressed in beige regulation uniforms, military caps, and shined shoes, Westview’s NJROTC unit marched down Poway Road, perfectly synchronized. The unit participates annually in the Poway Rotary Parade, using the opportunity to showcase school spirit and strengthen cadet bonds. Captain Thomas Adams said the parade is an important event for the unit.

“The rotary parade has always been the ‘Hey, we’re here, we’re alive, and we’re part of the community’ thing for the unit to do at the start of the year,” Adams said. “It’s always about a month after school starts, which is wonderful [because it] gives the new cadets a chance to start to be part of the unit.”

Cheon added that the event is an opportunity for the unit to showcase itself to all of Poway and introduce onlookers to the program.

“We’re the only [NJROTC] unit within Poway Unified School District,” Cheon said. “It’s significantly important for us to be there because we’re the representation of NJROTC [within Poway].”

During the parade, Cheon and the senior staff led the marching cadence, vocally setting the pace of the march by indicating the timing at which cadets should put down their left leg. The staff also led the unit into chants, which are memorized call-and-response phrases. Cheon said the chants, which cover encouraging mantras and regulation reminders, are an important part of NJROTC tradition.

“When we say these chants, we all know what we [are supposed] to say,” Cheon said. “[It makes us] confident about the answers because it’s like [what we] practiced throughout [class] periods. It’s not just something we do in the parade. We [chant] within the unit when we feel like we need to be motivated. It might be a military tradition, but I think it’s transformed into a reminder that we’re going to persevere through hard times.”

Petty Officer First Class Dezmond Moe (11) said he had the privilege of being the commander of Color Guard, meaning he was the bearer of the United States flag, leading at the front of the parade.

“Having this responsibility was a bit nerveracking,” Moe said. “[However,] I also had a great sense of pride knowing that I was trusted with [representing] the American flag.”

Partaking in this year’s annual parade, Moe said he was proud of his perseverance as well as the virtues of the unit as a whole.

“While commanding the Color Guard, I started to lose my voice, and in turn, it became harder to call the cadence,” Moe said. “What helped me regain my command voice was remembering to use more of my diaphragm to project my voice. Without the participation of the other cadets, the unit wouldn’t have stood out [in the parade]. ”

Cheon said the unit took time outside of school hours to practice in preparation for the event.

“[The unit] would meet after school on the drill deck, which is the basketball courts, and [practice] marching back and forth,” Cheon said. “We practiced the chants and salutes, [as well as] alignment and posture.”

Cheon said that the opportunity for cadets in different periods to join together as one unit was an important aspect of the Poway Rotary Parade.

“I’m so happy because I can see all the effort that [the cadets] put into preparing in their separate period platoons,” Cheon said. “[In the parade,] they were able to mesh together. Marching together, [cadets] were making friends, talking with each other, and laughing with each other. I also saw that within parade practices with the whole unit.”

Reflecting on the parade, Moe said he finds the event to be a reminder of how special NJROTC is.

“Marching in the parade fills me with pride and makes me feel glad that I took a chance and joined NJROTC,” Moe said. “I’m not sure that I would have been this involved in [the Poway] community if I hadn’t.”

As a senior, Cheon said she also cherishes this annual event, especially because this is her last year participating in it.

“It was unbelievable to me because I still remember [doing the parade] in freshman year,” Cheon said. “The one mile that we walk [in the parade] felt shorter than [previous years] because I was reliving all the memories that I had about the Poway parade and NJROTC in my head.”