Photo By Sgt. Jonathan Thibault | Navy Junior Reserve Training Corps Cadets tour a UH-60 Black Hawk from 3rd Assault...... read more read more
FOUNTAIN, Colo. – As students entered Widefield High School, they were stopped by their amazement of a UH-60 Black Hawk landing on their practice football field during an Army Aviation Appreciation Day hosted by the school’s Navy Junior Reserve Training Corps, in Fountain, Colo., Aug. 26, 2015.
A Black Hawk aircrew from Company B, 3rd Assault Helicopter Battalion, 4th Aviation Regiment, 4th Combat Aviation Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, participated in the event to help educate students of a career in military aviation.
“We set up Army Aviation Appreciation Day to show appreciation for military aviation,” said U.S. Marine Maj. (Retired) Mark A. Davis, senior naval science instructor, WHS NJROTC. “It also allows our students to see, touch and feel a military aircraft as well as ask the aircrews questions.”
Davis said the visit had many teaching benefits and gives the cadets a break from their everyday NJROTC instruction.
“They get to hear me talk every day,” said Davis. “This not allowed them to break from the classroom, but more importantly allowed to see some of the things I’ve talked about ‘up close and personal.’ This also gives them ideas of what they might want to do or might not want to do in military. This inadvertently makes them better decision makers.”
1st Lt. Michael Garofolo, Black Hawk pilot, 3-4 AHB, said it was great to spread knowledge to cadets at WHS and provide them with the opportunity to be subjected to Army Aviation aircraft.
“This event gives them a chance to see what we do as Army aviators,” said Garofolo. “We get to healthfully influence high school ROTC cadets to see what it’s like to have a job in the military especially as part of the military that we as aviators thoroughly enjoy.”
Garofolo said he went through high school ROTC but was never exposed to aircraft and wished events like this would have introduced him to his future career field sooner.
“When I joined the Army, I had no intentions of becoming an aviator because I was never introduced to aircraft,” said Garofolo. “Once I got around the aircraft, of course I became ‘aviation all the way.’ I want the cadets who feel like aviation could be a possibility for their future to get a better feel for what they can expect if they go that route and I believe this event accomplished that.
Davis said if permitted next year, he would like to establish a more elaborate Army Aviation Appreciation Day in which all the types of airframes and their crews from 4th CAB could come and visit with the NJROTC program.
| Date Taken: | 08.26.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 10.04.2015 21:10 |
| Story ID: | 178061 |
| Location: | FOUNTAIN, COLORADO, US |
| Web Views: | 79 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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