Hand Salute Technique Smaller Image

The Officers You Salute and the Ones You Don’t

DrillMasterDrillCenter News, Instructional 2 Comments

The US military has customs and courtesies. Wearing the service’s uniform is an example of a custom. Rendering a hand salute is a courtesy, albeit a required one. The Six Armed Services All Warrant and Commissioned Officers of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard receive a hand salute by all US military enlisted and …

Excellence is More Than “Clean”

DrillMasterColor Guard/Color Team, Drill Team Training, Drill Teams, Instructional Leave a Comment

“Clean” has many different definitions. In visual terms, however, we use it to mean, “having no needed corrections; easily readable”. WHOA! what is this “easily readable” stuff, are we are talking about drill teams? Yes, drill teams are a part of the visual performance family. This family includes, dance, marching band, step, etc. Click here for my article explaining Readability. See …

Service Core Values and You

DrillMasterDrillCenter News Leave a Comment

Each Service several years ago began codifying what the service stands for and what standards the service members needed to uphold. Even if you are a first-year JROTC cadet, you need to take on these standards and make them your own. It will be so beneficial for you right away and in the long term. Don’t follow the ways of …

Drill Team Recruitment and Retention

DrillMasterAsk DrillMaster, Commentary, Drill Teams Leave a Comment

Program Motivation/Incentives “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.” Napoleon Bonapart This is the reason, among others, that we in the military have ribbons, medals, badges and other awards. The same for JROTC and all cadet and even scouting programs. Ribbons and shoulder cords are worn on the standard uniform and help let everyone know …

JROTC Recruitment and Fundraising

DrillMasterAsk DrillMaster, Commentary, Drill Teams Leave a Comment

JROTC has not had the funding available to do many things over the last 2 years and I believe that it will either remain the same or become worse over time. Therein lies two issues, 1) recruitment of cadets and, 2) funding. A little while back, I posted on Instagram that I wanted cadets to send me their ideas on …

The Military Cordon

DrillMasterDrill Teams, Honor Guard, Honor Guard Training, Instructional Leave a Comment

Military cordons (two lines of people, armed or unarmed, facing each other) are used for arrival/departure ceremonies and awards banquets. While the rifle manual here needs work, they do a fine job.   If you have any questions, please ask.

Drill Team and Honor Guard Unit Training

DrillMasterColor Guard/Color Team, Drill Team Training, Drill Teams, Instructional Leave a Comment

In the military, we train. And we train, and train and train. We have major training scenarios (exercises) that involve multiple services and other countries, we have them for a single military installation, single unit training, all the way down to military specialty and ancillary training for each individual. It’s time consuming, but well worth the effort. After all, lives …

Following the Army’s Drill Manual for all Services

DrillMasterColor Guard/Color Team, Instructional 12 Comments

FYI: this article is about JROTC colors in a competition only. Competitions don’t reflect “real life” colors presentations. But competitions do offer a great opportunity to hone some great skills. The JROTC units from the Marines, Navy Air Force, and Coast Guard all have something in common- they all have to follow the Army Drill and Ceremonies Manual, Training Circular …

How to plan and coordinate a Color Guard Event

DrillMasterColor Guard/Color Team, Commentary, Guest Post, Instructional 2 Comments

Today, DrillMaster has a guest author! Hello fellow drill mates, This article will talk about the steps to planning and coordinating a Color Guard event! To give you a little bit of information about myself, I am Alex Pantaleo, a Cadet 2nd Lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol. I have attended the Pennsylvania Wing Honor Guard Academy in 2013, then …