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JROTC teaching positions touted at convention

Airmen should consider teaching junior ROTC cadets after they retire because they will earn as much as they did on active duty and make a real difference in young people’s lives, according to a top official with the program.

Greg Winn, deputy director of Air Force JROTC, made his pitch Monday to a ballroom filled with non-commissioned officers attending the Air Force Sergeants Association convention in Atlanta.

“We have a name recognition problem,” Winn told his audience. “We’re mandated by law, yet ... people aren’t familiar with what we do.”

Junior ROTC exposes hundreds of thousands of teens to military life. In the 2009-2010 school term, enrollment in junior ROTC programs for the four services increased by 5 percent over the previous year to more than 500,000 students, according to statistics from the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy.

Of the total, about 110,000 participated in Air Force JROTC, which is not affiliated with Air Force Recruiting Service; the program expects 115,000 cadets for the coming school year.

Winn attributed the jump to the recession and the stability that a career in the service affords.

“The economy had a heavy impact,” he said. “We saw a marked increase last year and we expect another huge increase this year.”

Part of the growth also is because of a congressional mandate two years ago to increase the number of programs for all the services to 3,700 by 2020. The number stands at about 3,400 today.

Air Force JROTC has 844 units in 48 states — Montana and Idaho don’t have programs — and 17 high schools overseas, Winn said. The service expects to have 955 programs by the end of the decade, he said.

Today’s skyrocketing enrollment coupled with the planned expansion is driving the push for more JROTC instructors, who must have at least an associate’s degree and 20 years of service along with good military bearing and a physically fit appearance.

“This [being an instructor] is not a retirement job,” Winn said. “It’s a second career.”