When I was attending Royal Palm Junior High School out of my school district, my mother had to go to great lengths to get a district variance so that I could attend a school that provided advanced mathematical and other classes, since my stay at Horizon Elementary had proved to be so dismal in the academic area.

But after two years, I had gotten to know my classmates rather well, and enjoyed the way things had progressed (this time in a young person's life is so critical, after all, and acceptance is essential). I decided that I would have to go to the high school where my classmates were going, which was, for the majority of them, Sunnyslope High School. The problem, of course, was that I was not in the district for Royal Palm, and I was most certainly not in the district for Sunnyslope (I should have gone to Apollo High School, as my sister did eventually).

I had always liked flying, and one night, while those of us who were nerdy enough to assist in the Parent-Teacher Open House night where sitting around talking, a young Kim Strong told be about the so-called "rot-sees" that were over at Sunnyslope and how they looked so cute in their uniforms. They were learning something about flying, I gathered, and I struck out to determine what this was all about.

Apparently, if one could find a class or special offering that was unique to a particular high school in the high school district collection, one could elect to attend that high school, so long as one achieved a certain level of performance in that area. AFJROTC, or "Aerospace" as it appeared in the class listings, was the key to my plan, and since I did always like flying, the added benefit of involving myself in that was a bonus. Who knew...

My first day of school at Sunnyslope was started off in "A Flight," which was first period Aerospace class. We met the instructors (A pleasant, happy-looking fellow by the name of Lt. Col George F Heileman (Ret) and a not-so-pleasant, mean-looking old beast named SMSgt. Robert F MacMillan (Ret). There were also some upperclasspeople who had attained the rank of "Officer" in this paramilitary organization, and they seemed to have plenty of time on their hands to hang around.

The unit there had two rooms at their disposal, a classroom and a "Staff Room" that was attached to it through a windowed door. The staff room held a few desks for these officer-types, and the instructors sat back there along with a locked back room full of blue uniforms. It was from that back room that we would all get our mini wardrobe of hand-me-down uniform parts, which we would be required to wear each and every Monday.

First, though, was the obvious mop of hair on my head, which had grown quite long over the many years of casual hair styling. AFR-3510, which was a real air force regulation, among many, that we were actually required to follow, quite explicitly stated that hair had to be no more than a quarter-inch in bulk on top of the head, and cleanly trimmed on the sides. And so I did it.

There was also the marching, the saluting, and the polishing of shoes and the ironing of uniform parts each week to contend with. Since this was not a true military establishment, it was difficult to believe that this sort of thing would actually be supported by the participants to the degree that it was, but it actually worked.

After a very few weeks, I found that I rather enjoyed this class, and I began to participate in extracurricular activities. My friend Adam Collins, who had also enrolled in the class (without my knowing it), and I decided that we were going to try to get involved in as much of the AFJROTC program that we could, so we joined the drill team, and we even convinced a rather frightening Atilla Szokol to allow us to participate in the color guard.

For those less-informed, the former is a competition marching activity, where many, many, many hours of practice were to have culminated into a brilliant, competitive drill team that could go to state and national competitions and actually do well. We had all of that except the last part. The latter-- the color guard-- was more of a ceremonious affair, with extra uniform parts (white ascots, white gloves, colorful agulettes, and nickel-plated helmets) and a certain degree of prestige at various school and extra-school events.

The students Sunnyslope were, oddly enough, quite impressed with the JROTC unit they had to put up with on their campus, and unlike so many horror stories I had heard, there was no hat-stealing, no shoe-shine-mussing, no jeering, no mocking, and for the most part, no disrespect. This made uniform days rather pleasant, since we gained a little bit more notoriety, and when we took part in those color guard appearances at football games, we really got everyone's attention.

In order to attend Sunnyslope, I had to travel about five miles from my parents' house. I had no car for the first couple of years, so I was forced to take the city bus every day. There were no school buses to go across districts either, and I wasn't about to walk it.

One day, while waiting for a bus to take me home, this strange character in a Buster-Brown-like haircut asked me very politely if I could possibly let him know when the bus was coming, since he would be doing some homework there on the bus stop bench. I agreed to tell him when it was coming, and he was quite polite again while expressing his thanks.

This, as I would learn shortly after, was Jon Romberg. He was a sophomore who had transferred from another school to attend Sunnyslope. I learned later, on the day when he got his various uniform parts, that he had transferred in order to take any form of JROTC, and Air Force was the closest one. He had actually been leaning toward the marines. Eventually, Jon met Adam, and the three of us became something of a force to be reckoned with in the small world of Sunnyslope AFJROTC. We did the same thing at McDonald's as well, but that is another story.

Anyway, Jon eventually got a crew cut, which he probably still has today. Adam did as well, and I got something that was significantly shorter than what I had grown used to over the 13 years or so that I had been growing my head of hair. We all had our little blue shirts and dark blue ties and slacks and black shoes on every Monday, we went through inspections, and the three of us had joined the drill team and color guard and all of that. Amazing.

Well, I was in that program for all four years of my high school life. There were two types of people who took Aerospace at Sunnyslope High School. The first, and more prevailant (unfortunately) was the misfit (being polite here). The people who had problems playing nice with others, or who needed more discipline (according to parents, teachers, parole officers, or whomever sat in judgement of each kid), and ROTC in some form was there to give it to them. It actually did work in some cases, temporarily, though the end result was usually someone who took ROTC a little bit too seriously.

The second type of person took the class for what it was. An opportunity to be a part of a group that stood out on campus (much like the "Drama Dorks" or the "Band Geeks") that actually did something interesting. I myself became the Squadron Commander in my senior year, and along the way I learned a lot about management and dealing with people, and I learned a lot about team work and coordination of efforts. I am being absolutely serious here. I think I was lucky, because the instructor and I got along really well, there were some really cool people taking the class at the time I was enrolled, and SHS had a student body that actually respected the "rot-sees" more than I would have expected. Go figure.

I got to go aerobatic flying in a T-34 trainer (the last propeller-driven trainer in the air force before the T-37 Tweetie Bird) and I spent a great deal of time at air shows. I spent a week at the US Air Force Academy, a week at Luke Air Force Base in AZ, and a week at the US Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego (the other Paris Island), and I even got a full scholarship to Harvey Mudd College, which I accepted but eventually bailed on (turns out AFJROTC was fun and education, AFROTC through USC in LA was CRAP).

Oh, I learned about how to deal with people and all that. Unfortunately, a lot of the management techniques in the military assume that people will actually respect the chain of command (which is not so common in civilian life), and and everyone has read the SOPs and Regs and has taken the same classes. In other words, as weird as military (or paramilitary) sensibilities seem to be, they make sense in their own little world, and they most certainly do not apply as well on the outside.