Monday, February 27

*military ball

This past weekend all the gentlemen of the JROTC at our local high school had the easy part - put on their Class A uniform.  It was not put on for an inspection but for the Military Ball.  The young ladies came in their evening gowns of many different styles most after having spent the day at different salons getting their manicures and pedicures as well as facials.   I know some were nervous and some were completely carefree and ready for the night of fun.



It has been a while since I have been around such a large number of young people at one time.  Their energy was high and they were carefree (most of them) and really enjoying themselves.  There were so many beautiful dresses being worn by the JROTC cadets and JROTC staff.   The staff (upper class men) are the ones who organized this entire event, from the planning, collecting money, selecting a photographer, arranging a speaker, set up, selecting a catering group, to cleaning up when it was all said and done.  The adults were only facilitators, everything was done by many of the students you see in these pictures.

If you are able, support and encourage the young people in your sphere of influence, for one day they will be our leaders. I know that families have always been broken, dysfunctional for many generations but I think today's youth have so much more pressures and junk to deal with today than any generation ever before, having someone to believe in them and encourage them is important.  I don't think any of us should try and be momma or daddy to the youth around us, but if there isn't such a presence in their lives, surely you can give encouragement that may have a huge impact on how they view themselves and others around them. 


I took several hundred photos, I will not bore you will of them.  Many of them turned out nicely, some I was just not able to get the lighting right on the dance floor since the room was dark.  Once again, if your students' school has JROTC program, I encourage you to have them to look into participating. They do not have to be service bound in order to participate in this elective.

In order to dance you must have your "dance face" on... all across the dance floor I was able to see so many different style dance faces. Just cracked me up.  You know we all did it too!


This is likely the same dance face I had when I danced at our prom, oh so many years ago.

Most of the young girls had a blast, but there was the one or two that I saw crying. Just broke my heart, I gave them a hug and an accepting smile. I have no idea what was going on - broken heart, hormones, hurt feelings, feeling left out, home trouble. I did only what I could do, silently prayed for them in that moment.

Here is my handsome boy, Henry and his girlfriend, Tiffany who is the XO of the company.  I hope someone else got some nice pictures of them, because seems I didn't.  :(


4 comments:

  1. Lynnie, it looks like a fabulous time was had. We have Marine JROTC at my daughter's HS and she went last year with a friend of hers who is on the armed drill team. Seeing all the young men in their dress blues was so nice. All of the female members decided to wear dresses rather than their blues though. My daughter wore a full length strapless ballgown that had a "big skirt" and was fitted at the top. (Styled something like the young lady in the green dress from the first picture). Anyway, it was a sherbert orange and it just "popped" with those dress blues. :)

    I am so happy you all enjoyed the night. We enjoyed it last year as well.

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  2. Love the pics! Looks like fun was had by all:)

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  3. Looks like a lot of fun!! I guess we'll be involved with JROTC next year with Jonathan. It's huge here ~ must be big in this region. Glad to hear it's been a good experience for you guys.

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