Quote:
Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
JROTC has Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines. There is no government obligation, BUT, if you enlisted then JROTC would get you Private E-2 and if the officer commanding wrote you a nice letter, then you could get PFC E-3.
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ROTC (the Senior, Collegiate program) was disbanded on January 16, 1997. Junion ROTC (for high school students), you are correct, has no government obligation and in fact high school students are largely too young to enlist (as the school year goes on more of the senior class will turn 18; 17-year olds can enlist with their parent's permission but cannot be deployed outside the US). The cadre for JROTC is almost entirely retirees (my JROTC regiment had a single active-duty Staff Sergeant or Sergeant First Class and a half-dozen or more retired Sergeants Major), so on mobilization I could see the active-duty NCO being pulled into the replacement system; as the war goes on maybe the younger retirees (who remain legally members of the military eligible for recall) will get pulled as well. Administrative and logistic support was from local Senior ROTC units; to the extent those tasks were performed by active duty soldiers (vs civilian employees) they would be degraded.
Post-TDM the situation may change, as JROTC units represent an in-place, organized military force, granted one composed largely of 14-17 year olds with no equipment, field gear or combat training. (The JROTC syllabus consisted of leadership, map reading, public speaking, first aid and drill and ceremony.) In the summer of 1997 (spoiler alert!) the California state government forms two disaaster relief regiments from the California Cadet Corps, a state-sponsored JROTC-like organization. One of these units ends up defending Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach through 1998 and then is assigned rear area security in support of the Army in the Mexican campaign. I have a handful of other cadet-type organizations used by state governments as part of or supplements to the various state defense forces.