The Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps at Warren Central High School is having drill and rifle camp this week in the high school gym for students looking to join the teams.

Drill kicks off at 8:30 a.m. every day and lasts until noon with rifle starting at 12:30 p.m. and going until 5 p.m. Some students attend one-half of the camp and many participate in the full day. This year there have been about 30 students at drill camp and about 20 students at rifle camp.

“This week we are doing our basic training, basic fundamentals of what we should and shouldn’t do during regular drill and exhibition,” sophomore Czaria Bell said.

This is Bell’s first year to participate, and she said being at the camp will give her a good foundation and she’ll be more prepared once the school year starts.

“You can take more in, and you have more one-on-one training,” Bell said.

The camp is voluntary for those students who want to join the drill or rifle team. During the camp students have learned how to shoot a rifle and drill techniques like how to salute and stand.

Senior Naval Science Instructor Jim Holder said there are four drill teams, two armed and two unarmed. Teams will be determined Friday by a scoring system.

“What we are doing is trying to do is integrate our new students with the returning students to get them oriented towards what our competition card is going to be like for the year,” he said, explaining the competition card is a series of commands that have to be memorized in order for competition.

Holder said this week’s camp has been better than last year because of the number of freshmen who have participated.

“That is encouraging to me because I like to see the new kids come in because they’re the ones who are going to be the foundation for the unit in the future,” he said.

Holder said having camp over the summer is important because it keeps the students involved and motivated about the program plus it prepares them for competition.

Returning students have helped with the camp by training the incoming students.

Junior Trevor Scribner said the camp has been a good opportunity to let the new students know what it is the class does in NJROTC and about the different teams they have available.

“If we have the camps over the summer, we can hit the ground running when the school year starts and people who want on the team already know what to do before the competition season starts,” he said.

In two weeks, from Monday, July 18 to Friday, July 22 the NJROTC will have Freshman Orientation Camp from 8:30 a.m. to noon each day. This camp is also voluntary, but students who pass a short test at the end of the week will start the year off with a rank instead of having no rank for the first nine weeks of school.

“That gives any freshman who wants to be here, be apart of it, a chance to get in here for a week and learn some of the basics before school starts,” Holder said, adding they’ll learn more drill, participate in some physical training and have classes dealing with general command and rank structure.

From Monday, July 25 through Friday, July 29 three students will attend the Civilian Marksmanship Program’s Junior Rifle Camp in Anniston, Ala. so they can learn new techniques, equipment management and more to better serve their home unit and increase their ranking in competition.