Reserve Officer Training Corps has a long history of building future military and community leaders while they are in college, and its sister program in high schools, the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, takes that mission and applies it to students who have not yet reached college age.

In Suffolk, JROTC members learn the military traditions of respect, honor, discipline and commitment, emerging from school uniquely suited to leadership positions even if they do not choose to seek careers in the military.

At King’s Fork High School, that tradition of respect led one cadet, Theran Ball, to press his peers to undertake a project designed to support and honor deployed members of America’s active-duty military at a time of year that can be especially hard for them.

Working with Operation Gratitude, Ball and other members of the King’s Fork Air Force JROTC have been collecting non-perishable food, toiletries and recreational items for troops to use in their spare time, and letters to send in care packages.

The cadets at King’s Fork have been encouraged to come up with unique ways to support their community, and their teachers and leaders have worked to teach them citizenship and the core values for serving.

Sending care packages halfway around the world to troops they’ve never met is an admirable extension of that mission of supporting the community. The fact that the project was the brainchild of a student proves how well JROTC works in accomplishing its true mission of building young leaders.