The Grambling State University Army ROTC held its annual U.S. Army Tiger Battalion Contracting Ceremony on Wednesday.
Student cadets were honored and recognized and more in a ceremony at the Betty E. Smith Nursing Building Auditorium.
Cadets who completed the competitive process were sworn in to their contract, where they agreed to serve their country a term or a number of years, either on active duty or in a reserve component.
The reserve components is National Guard and Army Reserve.
This ceremony was the third year underneath Lt. Col. La Daryl Franklin’s command, and it was an “ex- citing moment” for him.
“The purpose of this event is toward the branching or to acknowledge our MS4 (military science level 4) cadets,” said Franklin. “The commissioning process is when they decide whether or not a cadet is going to be active duty Army or Reserve or National Guard.”
For the first time in the GSU ROTC’s history, they announced what branch and job field that the cadets would be working in. It was also historic that there were more cadets who completed the course than ever before. The lieutenant colonel said this was also a special moment for the cadets because this is a “pivotal part of their commissioning process.”
New to the ROTC pro- gram, Specialist Byron Granderson came to sup- port his fellow ROTC members and thought the ceremony was great.
“Seeing how many cadets were being contracted and receiving awards,” said Granderson, “it speaks volumes to see the numbers increasing of more African American cadets and soldiers wanting to take their military careers to the next level.”