On Oct. 8, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) Raiders Team attended a competition at West Broward High School. In attendance were the Male Varsity, Mixed Varsity, Female Varsity and Junior Varsity teams.

JROTC is a course offered at MSD that started 12 years ago to prepare students for their future. It gives students an experience of what it is like to take on duties in a real-life work environment to get members ready for their journeys in college and other careers.

This marked the second event the Raiders competed in this school year so far, with the first being held at home on Sept. 24.

“They did very well,” Lieutenant Colonel Mark Anders said. “They scored third place as a team out of more than 10 different teams, so I am very proud of them for that.”

The meet included five events in which all participants engaged in. Each team consisted of ten members. These were the team run, fitness challenge, rope bridge, tire flip and litter carry.

The team run was a standard run that was 2.8 miles around the area of the school. Each team ran in groups in order to finish at the same time.

The fitness challenge was a half mile obstacle course around the track of the school. Components of the course included ducking under tarps, carrying weights and cinder blocks from one side to the other, slalom between posts, climbing over a ladder and carrying a canoe many yards and back as a team. Each component was completed twice.

The rope bridge encompassed one member of each team tying a rope around two poles. Every team member then had to cross between poles by holding the rope from underneath using their momentum.

The litter carry was a one mile run in which each team carried a stretcher with no weights for half of the run, while the other half was run with weights on the stretcher. Along with this, three members of the team ran carrying a rucksack on their backs with weights in them the whole way through the run.

The tire flip involves half of each team flipping a tire 50 yards. Once the first five people have finished their portion, the other half of the team completes the same event to bring it back to the starting point.

At the conclusion of the activities, a ceremony was held to award teams for their excellence. In total, MSD was awarded eight medals. The Female team placed second in both the fitness test and rope bridge, and third overall. The Mixed team placed second in the fitness test, and third in the rope bridge, litter carry and overall. In Team Overall, MSD placed third.