Drill movements, interviews, presentations and dozens of cadets in uniform. These are just some of the sights one may see on Oct. 19, the day of White Station’s AJROTC mass inspection. The Joint Program of Accreditation Mass Inspection (JPA Mass Inspection) is an event for Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programs across the country in which higher ups come down to the school to evaluate different aspects of the program.
“The JPA Mass Inspection is an accreditation program for all JROTC programs,” Sergeant First Class Timothy Boyd, an Army Instructor who teaches JROTC at White Station, said.
Mass Inspection occurs once every four years, with all grades of JROTC participating in it at once. This means that a freshman just coming into the JROTC program and a senior who has experienced 4 years of the program participate in the same inspection.
“It happens every [4] years, so no cadet will see the mass inspection twice in their JROTC history,” Sarah Terhune (12) said. “The people who graduated last year, [the] class of 2023, had their mass inspection their freshman year. But as the class of 2024, we have our mass inspection in our senior year.”
The White Station JROTC program receives both physical and intangible rewards for doing well in the inspection. For placing in the highest percentile bracket for the overall inspection, all JROTC cadets get to wear a wreath and star of honor on their uniform, which is a symbol of pride for many JROTC cadets and instructors. Additionally, White Station is also recognized for having one of the best JROTC programs in the city for doing well in the inspection. However, the inspection is not just about getting prizes for doing well; at its core, it is meant to evaluate the program, which means they also recognize poor practices in JROTC units.
“Obviously, we don’t want to talk about the bad, but if we were to have failed this inspection, the program would be put on probation and we wouldn’t be able to do our [other] competitions and things of that sort,” Sergeant First Class Boyd said.
JPA Mass Inspection involves a plethora of events that span across the entire JROTC program. To name a few, the color guard team and a drill team composed of both armed and unarmed drill team members are evaluated, and a selection of cadets are interviewed about the curriculum. Additionally, cadet staff give a briefing about an improvement plan for the program, and another group presents their service learning project—a blend of community service and classroom learning—to a board of higher-ups. The inspection doesn’t just focus on cadets, though; it also evaluates the instructors themselves.
“Some things that went into the instructor portfolio are our teaching certificates, any training certificates that we’ve done as an instructor, official bios, resumes, training schedules and curriculums,” SFC Boyd said.
Each person involved in the inspection played a different role: proficient cadets were chosen for the curricular-based portfolio interviews, staff conducted the staff briefing and selected members of the battalion’s drill team—a team focused on performing synchronized routines based on army drills—performed the marching aspect of the inspection. The instructors also played a critical role in conducting the entire inspection.
“As executive officer (XO), I oversee the S-1 through [S-6] (specialized cadet leadership positions) and ensure that they get their staff reports done and [also] anything that needs to be done to get the battalion up and running, and making sure that everything is going the way that it’s supposed to be,” Terhune said.
LET 1s (first year JROTC students) are also involved in the inspection. However, given that the mass inspection requires a high level of aptitude in the JROTC program, JROTC instructors and cadets in leadership positions have to focus particularly on the LET 1s so they are prepared for the event.
“What I initially tried to do was, [as I was] just now meeting the LET 1s [for this] school year, was to get a good feel of the ones I would think would be able to execute the inspection without fail; the ones that could hold their bearing (keeping a straight face and eyes forward at all times) and [that would] be able to answer a question in a professional manner,” SFC Boyd said. “I tried to gauge which LET 1s would be able to do that.”
White Station’s JROTC achieved a 99% on the inspection overall, earning White Station’s program a top spot for the upcoming Best Unit award and for various awards from the inspection itself, such as the wreath and star of honor that are placed on cadets’ uniforms. Many cadets and their instructors are quite pleased with how the battalion performed in the inspection.