A silver lining

AFJROTC earns silver star community service award

writer: Melissa Wrobel, Staff ReporterApril 30, 20191 Comment

Melissa Wrobel

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New year; new skull
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photo credit: Cason Jackson

Food for thought // Junior Viviane Dao serves freshman cadets and their parents during the annual First Year Dinner Sept. 28. This event, along with many others, helped the unit earn the Silver Star Community Service with Excellence Award.

For the second year in a row, the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps earned the Silver Star Community Service with Excellence Award. This award was only given to the top five percent of all AFJROTC units world-wide.

Along with the Silver Star Community Service with Excellence Award, the unit achieved the Distinguished Unit Award for the ninth year in a row.

“At first, I felt like we [AFJROTC] needed to do more and more, but as the year went on I realized that there wasn’t one week where the unit didn’t participate in a community service event,” junior Andres Farthing said. “Between Color Guards, Spirit Teams and campus clean-ups, it was easy to get hours,

as long as you were signed up.”

Farthing leads the corps with 161.5 hours of community service, assisting with the unit’s over 4,650 hours.

“Being on top only motivated me to keep signing up for events,” Farthing said. “But seeing people smiling as a result of our work was always my real reason.”

Of all 900 AFJROTC programs, the unit displayed one of the highest ‘per cadet average’ with community service hours. The Silver Star Community Service with Excellence Award is the fourth highest award in AFJROTC.

“It feels good to be a part of the reward itself,” Senior Aerospace Science Instructor Col. Brooks McFarland said. “The award distinguishes itself through our core value of service before self.”

This is the third year TX-20093 has earned the Silver Star Community Service with Excellence Award since being founded. The unit earned the award the 2014-2015 and 2017-2018 school years.

“I am extremely proud of the leadership and dedication of this year’s Wylie East AFJROTC cadets,” Col. McFarland said. “I’m not surprised by their success and achievements.”

From everyday flag details to Honor Flight D.F.W., AFJROTC helps in a range of minor and major events to help the community as a whole.

“It isn’t about me. Because of the positive influence AFJROTC has on young, enthusiastic people, students expose themselves to structure and the opportunity to change something for good,” Col. McFarland said. “Being able to commit to serving others is a great first step towards a life of service.”