When Caine Johnson joined the U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps in his freshman year at Petal High School, it was with the intent to grow as a person and build character.
Little did he know that three years later, he would place 14th in the nation in the individual armed exhibition routine at the U.S. Army JROTC Cadet Command National Drill Championships in Louisville, Kentucky. For the event, which was held in April, the 17-year-old Petal High senior choreographed his own routine with his drill rifle.
“It makes me feel great to know that I could get to there without having some sort of person come and show us ‘this is how you do this,’” Johnson said. “We don’t have any people who say, ‘Well, I placed first in the world and I can train your drill team.’
“It was the fact that I had my fellow drill team members able to help me and tell me what they thought looks good in a routine and help me develop my routine.”
Sgt. Maj. Don DuBose, an Army instructor at the school’s JROTC program, said Johnson’s performance was special because it was original and of his own design.
“He has to walk out there in front of hundreds of people on a drill pad, and he creates his own choreographed routine,” he said. “He does various exhibition-style movements with that drill rifle, from throwing it, spinning it, catching it behind his back and things of that nature.
“He didn’t have a choreographer or a trainer. I’m the coach for the team stuff, but what he did, he did on his own. He made up his own routine and got at that level by himself, so that’s very commendable.”
In addition to Johnson’s showing in April, Petal High’s JROTC drill team had an impressive year as a whole. The team placed first or second at all nine competitions held in Mississippi and Louisiana, and placed second out of 52 schools at the State Army Drill Meet in December.
The team is ranked in the top 12 Army teams in their brigade – which is made up of 450 schools from Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia and Florida – and was the only team from Mississippi selected to compete at the national championship in Kentucky. April’s event marks the fourth year in a row that the team has traveled to Kentucky to compete in the nationals, and they are now ranked 32nd out of the 1,734 Army JROTC drill teams in the United States.
“It gives us good pride in our battalion and in our community to know that no matter what Petal does, we always do it to the best of our ability, and that as a drill team we can function on such a high level continuously,” Johnson said.
As for Johnson, after graduation he plans to join Air Force ROTC at the University of Southern Mississippi.
“I expect it to get me a good job in the United States Air Force, and to hopefully continue on with drill,” he said.
