MEL TOADVINE ROTC running: Students from Ida Baker High School run a mile-long course in ROTC Raiders competition on Friday. ROTC units from all 13 high schools in Lee County came to Lehigh to participate in the competition. The runners are heading for Gunnery Rd. where they will a loop around and back to the LSHS campus.

This past Saturday’s competition of the Junior ROTC programs in Lee County high school resembled a community almost under siege. Motorists on Gunnery Rd. near the Lehigh Senior High School watched as cadettes, dressed in fatigues pants, ran from the school down Gunnery Rd. and around back to the school for a distance of a mile.

It would remind one of watching squads running in basic training at any military base.

The young men and women came from all the schools in Lee County to compete in a variety of physical endurance contests, said Sgt. Maj. Vernon Cook of Ida Baker High School.

“They’re running the mile, running as litter-bearers, doing push-up and climbing a wall and other things,” he said, as he called his teams to order for yet another competition.

The winners of the day will compete later in the State Raiders Competition.

Antonio Moghabghab wants to join the U.S. Navy when he gradates from E. Lee County High School.

“We have 13 schools in the county about 300 cadettes who took physical tests to be eligible for this competition,” he said.

Last year his Junior ROTC unit represented Lee County and came home with some awards.

The state competition is set for Dec. 5 and competition is based in three categories – male, female and mixed both male and female, he said.

One of the more interesting competitions had cadettes pulling themselves down a long rope. The teams were judged on the time it took them to finish. In the real life of the military and in war, soldiers would use such tactics as crossing waterways and other obstacles where time would be a major factor for troop movement.

The competition is referred to as the “Rope Bridge,” and the ROTC students, some from the ninth grade while others are in the upper grades, including seniors who will graduate next May.

Wesley Beck, an East Lee County High School student wants to join the Air Force after high school.

Last year, the male teams from Ida Baker came home in fourth place and the female team came in seventh place, according to the students who talked about the competition while resting in the shade for the next competition.

The teachers in the schools, all with previous military service, are sergeants and were keeping their eyes on their teams, pepping them up for the next exercise.

Cook noted that the schools were not recruiting for the military, but some of the students after graduation will be entering the armed services.

And a young man smartly-dressed in his Marine uniform was eyeing the ROTC students, looking for “a few good men and women,” as he said smiling.

Cook said that less than 50 percent of the kids in the ROTC program actually go into the military, but most enjoy the training of discipline that the ROTC course offers them.

MEL TOADVINE Girls waiting: East Lee County High School ROTC students from left, Celina Cheeseman, Yaimee Melo and Randi Nichols wait their turn to take part in a competitive run for their school in Friday's ROTC Raiders competition. Nichols says she is considering going into the military after high school.

He said 30 percent of the kids go on to school and then some of them go into the military.

The competition at the school ran from 7:30 a.m. to about 2 p.m., before the heat in the late afternoon.

Command Sgt. Maj. Vernon Cook is 46, and his tall frame stood out among the young men and women wearing fatigues with T-shirts. They also wore combat boots, but were allowed to use sneakers for the run.

Among the schools in the competition were cadettes from the East Lee County High School on Thomas Sherwin Ave., a five-year-old school that began in the old Kmart building as the school was under construction.

Christian Ramirez of Lehigh said he enjoyed the competition and his plans right now are to ship out next June 30 after highs school graduation. A young man with a lean build said he was doing well in the competition.

MEL TOADVINE Litter-bearer competition: A group of ROTC students run on the other side of a fence of Lehigh Senior High School. They were taking part in the litter-bearer competition, racing to take a patient off a battlefield.

Another E. Lee County High School student, Wesley Beck, who is the ninth grade, said he plans to go in the Air Force.

“I want to try to get an appointment first, but if i don’t I am still going to enlist in the Air Force.

Many in my family were in the Air Force.

His half brother, Donald Eaton, a former graduate in Lehigh, who now lives in Ocala, came down to Lehigh on Saturday to give his brother encouragement. On the sidelines at Lehigh Senior High School, sitting in the shade beside the school’s bus parking lot, were parents, siblings and friends watching the competition as if they were glued to a TV set.

Eaton graduated last year from E. Lee County High School. He has enlisted in the Florida National Guard to be able to get a college bonus to put him through under graduate school.

All the ROTC teams from East Lee County were wearing their “Jaguar” T-shirts – the jaguars being their mascot.

Antonio Moghabghab, a a10th grade student at East Lee County High says he has plans already to join the U.S. navy when he graduates in 2012.

“I’ve decided what I want. In the Navy, I am going to apply for firefighter training. That’s what I want to do in my life, be a firefighter, and even maybe come back here.”

The winners who will go to north Florida for the December competition were not made know until all the points are computed.