The Need for ROTC
A lot of college students nowadays hate, rather loathe ROTC and it’s derivative, CAT. For whatever reasons they have, they do not want to tolerate this subject because, if I presume correctly, to (1) get sunburn, (2) be under student officers, (3) ruin their Saturdays or Sundays training non-stop, (4) be dressed in a dorky camouflage and lift heavy equiptments, (5) be ordered around, (6) get a crew cut for boys and a hair net for girls, and (7) do physical exercises and clean their own buckles, shine their boots and iron their crisp uniform.
Honestly, I hated ROTC at first. Me and my blockmates were actually deceived into enlisting for this course. But what the heck, we did it anyway since we found a really good reason to continue:a handsome officer. Yeah I know, so childish and too girly, but as girls who were pushed into the realm of rifles and push-ups and shiny boots and crisply pleated uniforms, you’ve got to admit, this is one tactic we had to hold on for our survival.
But to be honest, we had to admit that being in this course taught us self-discipline, order, unity and [sort of] patriotism. We were lucky to have been handled by good and functioning officers (I didn’t say this because one of the officers is super cute) so I think that made the difference. The occasional punishments were necessary and those ordeals made us really tough and less of being impatient pricks. We were lucky because our officers here in UPLB were not power-trippers (I don’t know about the other battalions but overall, I think the course did well). You have to admit that without order and discipline and unity, our society cannot function well. Yeah, I know, you don’t need ROTC or CAT to know and appreciate these things but these courses help a lot especially now when almost all kids detest hardship and being given orders to follow. You need to restrain yourself to some degree and this course helped me alot. Besides, the exercises we did for this course made us loose weight! Who doesn’t want that?!
To be frank, it isn’t so bad. Actually you’ll enjoy it…as long as your officers are in focused and as long as you keep yourself in check.
