Skyline High School’s Army JROTC Cadets didn’t let a disrupted school year prevent them from accomplishing something important.

Early in the 2019 school year, some senior cadets took on the challenge to establish a lasting memorial on Skyline’s campus to honor the sacrifices made by three former Skyline students who were killed in action during the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This project included reaching out to the three Gold Star Families and collaborating with numerous other student groups and teachers on Skyline to design the memorial at the school, 845 S. Crismon Road in Mesa.

They also engaged with several local veteran service organizations to raise funds for construction and sought the approval necessary to build the memorial. While circumstances towards the end of the 2019-20 school year delayed completion of the memorial as scheduled, the cadet leadership this year persevered and resumed the project.

Not content to just build the memorial, Skyline’s cadets this year chose to engage in a service-learning project to improve their understanding of our veterans and share that understanding with others in the community. This project resulted in more than 20 cadets conducting interviews with 15 different veterans. They then took the findings of these interviews, developed presentations and briefed the results to hundreds of students at Smith Junior High School. The process of developing this project, designing interview questions, crafting and delivering the presentations involved all of the cadets at Skyline. Cadets subsequently engaged in a structured service-learning project reflection to share their experiences and knowledge gained from the entire process of designing and completing this project.

The culmination of the project was the completion and dedication of the Skyline’s Real Heroes memorial. As cadets prepared to recognize the sacrifices made by Jeremiah Robinson, Barbara Vieyra and Wyatt Martin, and to honor their families, they exhibited exceptional growth and maturity. The respect and reverence they showed during the ceremony made a lasting impression on those who attended the dedication.

Editor’s note: U.S. Army Col. Geoff Stevens, retired, is the JROTC senior army instructor at Skyline High School in Mesa.