Veterans commemorated by JROTC cadets
Retired Command Sergeant Major Willard Dockery salutes the casket of Capt. Fred Hall during his funeral at Green Hill Cemetery last fall. Hall had been listed as missing in action for 54 years until his remains were finally identified early in 2023. Cory Vaillancourt photo
Gloomy skies and pouring rain couldn’t stop a group of about 30 people from gathering at Garrett-Hillcrest Memorial Park on Russ Avenue in Waynesville on Saturday, May 25, to pay their respects to members of America’s armed forces who gave their lives in service of their country.
Organized by members of Waynesville’s VFW Post 5202, the Memorial Day weekend event brought together veterans from nearly all service branches, as well as the very young and the very old.
“We want to show the veterans that we support them and we're here for them,” said Alicia Mills of Waynesville. Mills is a rising junior at Tuscola High School and a member of Tuscola’s Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. She’s been in the JROTC for two years, enjoys the physical aspects of the program and wants to enlist one day.
Mills was there with a group of other Tuscola cadets to serve as honor guard for the brief ceremony, held under a tent on the lawn across from the now-iconic display of flags and crosses that appears at Garret-Hillcrest just prior to events that commemorate the service of veterans.
Steven Robertson, Tuscola’s aerospace science instructor and leader of the JROTC program since 2015, said that Mills and more than 80 other Tuscola JROTC cadets just like her get a lot out of the program; two recently graduated cadets will attend Carson-Newman University in Jefferson, Tennessee this fall on ROTC scholarships, and another former cadet will graduate from the United States Air Force Academy in 2025.
Although studies have shown that nearly one-third of JROTC cadets eventually end up enlisting, the program is not a formal recruitment agency for the military. Robertson said that the presence of the cadets at the memorial service serves another purpose.
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“I think it lends itself to the Air Force Junior ROTC mission, and that is developing citizens of character,” he said. “And that's the mission pretty much throughout Junior ROTC. It's definitely the heart of the program. Community service, through these events, shows their pride and hopefully some patriotism as well.”
That patriotism didn’t go unnoticed by the memorial service’s guest of honor, Willard Dockery, who spoke at the ceremony. Dockery served in the Army from 1952 to 1977, including three tours in Vietnam, before retiring as a Command Sergeant Major. He’s made 397 jumps out of perfectly good airplanes and hopes to complete his 398th this fall in Lake Eustace, Florida.
“I enjoyed jumping. I did it for 22 years,” Dockery said. “Never did break a bone.”
Dockery recently turned 90 years old. When asked about how it felt to see the JROTC cadets at the event — some of whom are more than 75 years younger than him — Dockery said he was happy.
“It’s good of them,” he said. “They’re fine folks and I appreciate them.”
