At the beginning of every summer, a select few of Harrisonburg’s JROTC Cadets travel to Fort Picket Military Reservation to participate in JCLC. The acronym stands for JROTC Cadet Leadership Challenge, and it is exactly that. The camp is a full five days of getting thrown into the military lifestyle.

c/COL Maria Medeiros has been to the camp several times. “It’s hot, exhausting, challenging, and different than what you’d expect,” Medeiros said. “The fact that you’re outside in the sun all day and you go to bed at midnight and wake up at five is the worst part.”

Every year, a few months before the start of the summer, the handful of top performing cadets participate in Physical Training, twice a week, that’s different from the average PT. Cadet Kelsey Spence is one of the students going to the camp. “PT is interesting. It helps us to be the best,” Spence said. “It helps us get ready to win at JCLC.”

As far as the intensity of the exercises, they are much harder. “The worst exercise we’ve done is running the hills,” Spence said.

Exercises often consist of push ups, sit ups, and some form of endurance running. “It definitely gets their endurance higher. Last year we took all of the PT awards at camp except for one,” Medeiros said.

Cadets often see passing through the challenging PT as a right of passage into the leadership positions in the battalion. “I’m excited for camp because we’ll meet a whole bunch of new people and we’ll learn new things to help out the underclassmen next year,” Spence said.