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Originally Posted by Penguin
Just wanted to mention the JROTC and saw you already did, though I think you can join them already in Junior High.
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No you must be in 9th through 12th grade to join JROTC.The Junior part of the name is because ROTC stands for reserve officer training corps.ROTC was established in the 1916 to allow male students attending college to go through military training in order to become officers upon completion of their degrees.This was done to bolster officer corps prior to the inevitable involvement tin WWI.In modern ROTC programs both males and females are allowed.
JROTC as an off shoot of that program these are found in high schools and are intended to encourage students to enlist in the military and to also become officers by either getting accepted into on of the 4 US military academies or by attending any college that has an ROTC program.
Membership in an ROTC program requires that person to serve an 8 year term as an officer in whatever branch the ROTC program was.Membership in a JROTC program comes with no obligations what so ever the person is not required to enlist in the armed forces.
However a person who was in a JROTC program for 2 years gains an extra rank upon completion of basic training and a person that was in a JROTC program for 3 or 4 years receives two ranks upon the completion of basic training.It does not matter what branch the JROTC program represented.
ROTC has over the past 50 years become very valuable as a little over 38% of all officers in each branch attended an ROTC program making it the most common source for a military officer.With modern ROTC programs the member must serve a term as an officer.Back during the Cold War up until the end of the Vietnam War ROTC was a requirement on some college campuses but the people completing at that time where not required to serve as an officer.
I am not sure the contribution of JROTC but I would estimate that at least in my time in the USAF around 1 in 4 people had been in a JROTC program in high school.It must be of some value other wise each branch would not spend the money on the programs.
The most rare type of officer is one who went through OCS officers training school these are all former enlisted.Of course enlisted men can sign up for programs where they are allowed to attend a college full time and go through their branches ROTC program.Additionally each year at the 4 military academies has a limited number of slots for young lower ranking enlisted that get selected by their commanding officer to attend their respective branches this is a very high honor and very difficult to earn less than 1% of enlisted members receive such an invitation.