Armed marching.

By Juan Orozco

A trip to Florida sounds nice, right? The sun and the sand, a relaxing trip with a cool drink and fun in the sun sounds like everyone’s dream Florida vacation. Well, when you go with the PHS Drill Team, there is also a lot of work that needs to be put forth on the way to the National High School Drill Team Competition (NHSDTC).

Unarmed Exhibition performing.

Everything that we practice during the entire year goes into this competition. We have to practice to perfect multiple events. We practice for Regulation, Color Guard, Exhibition, and Inspection. So, before we go to Florida, let us talk about what we do in Passaic to prepare.

As always we have our normal practice every day at seven in the morning and now that the NHSDTC is here, we are required to come to every practice. When others are going on vacation, our spring break was filled with practices every day, in preparation for the NHSDTC.

After spring break, we practiced all of that Monday, because we left the next day. On departure day, we prepared our personal belongings, as well as our ROTC belongings. We had to make sure we brought all our rifles and extras, just in case. We also brought our color guard stuff.

By five o’clock we were already on the road. (Yes, five in the morning). We were on the bus for twenty hours. We made multiple stops along the way in states like Delaware, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina. All the cadets stretched their legs for a few minutes, grabbed some snacks and drinks, before we were called back on the bus for another stretch of interstate highway.

Finally, when we made it to Florida, and saw that sign, the cadets cheered because we were almost there. When we got there, we unpacked the bus and organized our things in our hotel room. The rest of that day, we had to ourselves.

Our free time went all too quickly. Then, on Thursday, we practiced all day. We got to the arena and got a chance to practice and get a feel for the drill deck. The deck felt different and unfamiliar compared to where we are used to competing in PHS.

Unpacking the colors. Photos by Juan Orozco.

Once all the practice was over, we went back to the hotel and started preparing our uniforms. Our uniforms had to be ironed, neat, and everything had to be measured well. In short, our uniforms must be perfect.

After a long day of practice, inspection and practice some more, we got the rest of the day as free time. It was not that much time.

Then, all too quickly it was Friday, competition day. This day started early. Breakfast was served at six o’clock and when we went to breakfast, we already needed to be in uniform. That means that we had to wake up way earlier than that so that we had time to get everything ready.

The competition was great. It was fierce. Many schools worked very hard to be there and demonstrate their skill. While we may not have done as well as we would have liked, we learned a lot about competition and about ourselves.

We may not have had the perfect Florida vacation on the beach, but we became better at competition. Just wait until next year!