CadetStuff.org:

the independent cadet program resource


Copyright © 2001-2008 CadetStuff.org.
May be copied as-is for Cadet training purposes with specific prior permission and appropriate citation. All other rights reserved.

Google is your friend.

Dr. Drill

You can submit your questions to Dr. Drill via e-mail to : DrDrill@CadetStuff.org.

Dr. Drill,

Excuse me sir, but I'm a member of the Jackson High School NJROTC Drill Team and we're having difficulties finding a complete, in depth, guide to drill. We would like to know the proper commands, movements, and times to execute these movements. Of course we have looked in our cadet field manuals, but it doesn't go into as much detail as we would like. It only includes the basic drill for learning cadets. Since we would like to be a top team this year and years to come, we would like a complete guide on NJROTC drill movements. I'd appreciate it greatly if you could get that for me. Our first event is October 1st and we need to train our freshmen and further train our upper classmen. Thank you for your time.

Cadet Seaman Apprentice Travis Clark

Dr. Drill responds


Cadet Clark,

First, sorry, but I know I'm not going to hit your deadline. Dr. Drill pretty much writes these things up as fast as I get them, but these CadetStuff clowns can't get their act together for more than five minutes at a time. I think I'll start my own web site. But then, I'd still need a clue.. Anyway...

Seriously, I'm really surprised that you felt like you had to write in to me.

I'd think that your Military Studies Instructor (or whatever the Head Honcho of your JROTC unit is titled) would be able to help you find the documentation you're looking for.

But, even if he couldn't, a quick check of Google would have given you hundreds of hits, one of which was the NAVAIR Bureau site, where you would have found this:

Military Drill and Ceremonies

In accordance with SECNAVINST 5060.22, drill and ceremonies and interior guard procedures for the Department of the Navy shall be in accordance with the guidance provided in the Marine Corps Drill and Ceremonies Manual, NAVMC 2691 and in the Marine Corps Interior Guard Manual, NAVMC 2691A.

Along with links to the manuals in question.

If those don't help, and I don't believe they provide hints on teaching drill, then you want the Parris Island Drill Manual, a copy of which you can find here.

I hope this helps and good luck with your quest!

Dr. Drill

Caution: Dr. Drill isn't always one hundred percent serious. Please activate your Joke Detectors. And don't call us when you find yourself explaining to a membership termination board why you used a staple gun to keep a cadet's hands at his sides during "To The Rear, March". All we're going to say on your behalf is "Duh!"

And if you find yourself on the bad end of a serious counseling because you decided to go toe-to-toe with your squadron commander over the position of the guide during a squadron-in-mass formation or something similarly trivial, well, we're just going to point, laugh and call you names!

Dr. Drill welcomes comments and corrections. Nothing herein is to be construed as official policy unless quoted from an up-to-date regulation or manual and Dr. Drill is not to be used as a blunt instrument to reshape the pointy heads of your superiors. Dr. Drill has made an extensive study of the drill and knows some people who know some things, but he's not the Final Authority on what happens at your unit. That Final Authority is? That's right, kids! Your UNIT COMMANDER.

Readers who choose to hardcopy this document are entitled to specific rights, namely: you may print this off and read it repeatedly until you have memorized it and then rattle it off as if you had thought it up yourself; but if anyone asks you - or if you have to actually pull this printed copy out of your pocket to read from - then you are required under Law (Jude Law, that is. Y'know, the English guy in "Gattica"?) to say, "This was on CadetStuff.org and I stole it like it ain't no thang!" and then do the River Dance.