JROTC in action
Local cadets participate in Bataan Death March Remembrance event in Ocala.
Volunteers with Ocala Blue Star Mothers and the Friends of Marion County Veterans Park served refreshments to the walkers during the Bataan Death March Remembrance on April 3 in Ocala. [Andy Fillmore/Ocala Gazette]
About 200 area Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC, members participated in a Bataan Death March Remembrance walk on April 3 at the Marion County Baseline Trailhead Park to honor prisoner of war victims of the World War II event.
Students from the Belleview High School, Forest High School and North Marion High School Air Force JROTC programs and the West Port High School Army JROTC program made the multi-mile walk to mark the April 10, 1942, march.
“The captive soldiers were marched for days, approximately 65 miles through the scorching jungles of the Philippines. Thousands died. Those who survived faced the hardships of prisoner of war camps and the brutality of their Japanese captors,” the bataanmarch.com website states.
Col. Keith Cunningham, instructor for the NMHS program, gave the count of participants at around 200 and said this was the fifth local event. About the same number of students participated last year.
JROTC cadet Zenobia, 18, noted the different conditions for the students’ walk compared to that of the WWII POWs. The distance walked by the students on Friday was perhaps a fourth of the Bataan Death March.
Damon Baxley, a “JROTC dad” came out to support his child’s participation in the dynamic history lesson.
The nonprofit Ocala Blue Star Mothers group teamed up with volunteers from the Friends of Marion County Veterans Park Inc. to offer the walkers hot dogs and cold drinks. Anne Parker, Debbie O’Rourke, Audrey Dewey, Linda (and Robert) Peterson, of Ocala Blue Star Mothers, joined FMCVP volunteers in serving the youth.
The Ocala Blue Star Mothers group is sponsoring a Car & Bike Show from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on April 12 at Silver Springs State Park, at 5656 E Silver Springs Blvd., Ocala. It will include classic cars and military vehicles, a silent auction and family activities. Park admission is $2. The show will benefit the FMCVP efforts for a Cold War Monument at the Ocala-Marion County Veterans Memorial Park in Ocala.
More information about the car show and registration is available at ocalabluestarmothers.org
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