On Thursday, March 15th forty of North Point’s ROTC cadets got on a bus and in the zone. They prepped each other with questions and words of motivation as they headed down to Georgia for the ROTC Air Force National Drill Competition.

Many of the cadets had been looking forward to this competition with high expectations of themselves. “I want to be the best we can be,” commented Paul Babiarz (’14). The cadets knew the competition would be a challenge with 25 schools competing, but they kept their heads high and their goals higher.

The cadets had the full support of the ROTC instructors as they entered into the competition. “We just want the cadets to perform at their very best level, whether we win or lose, at the end of the day we just want to be able to say we did our best,” said Lt. Col Brown. This year was the third time that North Point has attended the competition. “Last year was the best year ever, we placed in a category for the first time, but this year we’re looking to do better,” added Brown.

For this year’s competition North Point took eight teams to compete: Armed Exhibition, Armed Regulation, Armed Inspection, Armed Color Guard, Unarmed Exhibition, Unarmed Regulation, Unarmed Inspection and Unarmed Color Guard. The Armed Regulation team got fifth place and the Unarmed Inspection team got fourth place.

Unarmed Inspection was commanded by Enrique Osborne (’13). He was extremely proud of his team’s accomplishments. “We performed outstandingly well. We worked together as a team, we all knew what we had to do and we did it to the fullest extent. All of the cadets were sharp, educated on what they had to do, and enthusiastic,” said Osborne. “I was extremely proud of the Unarmed Inspection team before we performed and when we had finished performing,” added Osborne.

The Armed Regulation team was commanded by Aaron Harper (’13). The team prepared with a lot of practice (everyday during NEST and after school), physical training, studying, determination, motivation and prayer. “We performed above the standard. We were motivated and committed, but as always there is more room for improvement, but we followed the air force core value: excellence in all we do,” said Harper.