By Vivian Fang
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With two years of leadership experience under her belt, former Executive Officer Senior Natasha Parowski has many ambitions she hopes to follow through with as MHS’ new Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) Battalion Commander. Being the new face of the battalion, Parowski hopes to leave behind a lasting legacy through establishing traditions and cadet bonding.
“What’s really unique about Natasha is just her character, she’s down to earth, she’s just a really good student, a really good cadet and people want to follow her,” said JROTC Adviser Lt. Col. Timothy Schiller, “When she came into the program, we immediately knew she was a leader.”
Parowski attributes her promotion to her frequent participation and activity in JROTC. “90 percent of it is showing up,” explained Parowski, “It’s just that extra bit of coming in after school, coming in on your own time, always giving ideas, giving feedback.”
Having come from a JROTC program at her high school in Ansbach, Germany, Parowski was already acclimated when MHS’ JROTC program started. “I think she’s deserving of her position,” said Executive Officer Junior Madeline Lee, “She has had one of the most amounts of experience. She’s a third level in Leadership and Education Training (LET-3) while most of our cadets are LET-2s right now, and she’s also had experience with drills and ceremonies extensively.”
Parowski’s bond with the cadets was the deciding factor in her promotion. “(There are) seven army values and the first army value is loyalty, and immediately she has been so loyal,” said Schiller, “For example, we were at (Trojan) Bandfest. (Parowski) came out and it was around 8 (p.m.), it’s totally raining, and she came out to check on the cadets. When you’re (leaving) home, you’re coming out of your living room, out of your bedroom, and you’re coming to check on your cadets, (just) see how they’re doing, (and making) sure that they’ve had something to eat that they’re staying dry, that’s real leadership and that’s what she proved that night.”
Much of the unity of the cadets comes from the JROTC program itself. “Even just day-to-day, you’re hanging out with these people every day, you’re going through something that no one else in high school, unless they’re in this program, are going to go through,” said Parowski, “It’s a very different experience, a very different family within the school.”
Since MHS’ battalion is relatively young, Parowski hopes to start up traditions that symbolize the battalion as a whole. “We have a thing called cords which is a rope (that) signifies different teams like drill team and color guard,” said Parowski, “I want to get a school cord so every cadet can wear it and when we go to competition they can say, ‘that’s the Trojan battalion’ because of the brown and gold cord.”
Parowski plans to attend the University of Tennessee where she will major in Clinical Psychology in order to join the army reserves to become a post-traumatic stress disorder psychologist.
