When I felt the rumble in my chest and the sound of an F-18 flying by at the Atlantic City Air Show when I was five my life took a big turn. The roar and speed of the jet made a drive in me where even at five years old I knew what path I wanted to pursue years later. For me though it was more than liking the F-18; it was the values that you need as a pilot to fly one and the things you can do through service more than anything that I saw myself doing. This experience I had so young inspired me to apply for my high school’s Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps unit as I went into freshman year. I then made it in and I knew after the first day this was something special and not just another program, and I quickly learned to embrace every team and service we did to maximize my potential for my end goal. Throughout I tried every team, service event, and took every chance to lead that I could. Moreover, the structured environment of NJROTC gave me the tools needed to commit to service and personal growth during my 2 year journey earning the Gold Congressional Award. This award which needs over 800 hours of service, personal development, and fitness taught me that integrity is about doing the work with my heart and not just doing hours to do hours. I realized service is not about participation, but about actually caring for and learning from the community you're in, especially when I worked with kids from bad areas, volunteered at food banks, and helped at farmers markets throughout my high school career. Furthermore, listening to the stories of people I would have never met if not through this award, I gained a better sense of empathy and a wanting to help others that I would not have if I never participated. This path also showed me how to find satisfaction in doing hard things and gave me the strong work ethic that I apply too everything I do today. An example of the effects is my commitment to teamwork and leadership excelled within the NJROTC unit where as captain of the two time national championship Physical Training team and the state qualifying CyberPatriot team, I experienced the intensity of pushing myself alongside my friends and feeling the strength of our success during and after the season. My captainship also showed me the effectiveness of collaboration and strategic execution during tough times too. These experiences with achieving 100 percent success or having setbacks is when I discovered one of the greatest feelings in the world, one I wake up for every day which is the satisfaction of leading or being a part of a team that successfully completes its mission or task. That experience of accomplishment, overcoming obstacles, and achieving a shared objective became my main goal. These qualities I gained through lots of effort and working for shared goals have shown me why I want military service. More importantly my experiences have shown that while becoming an aviator is my top choice, my ultimate goal is to serve as an officer in the military. This is why the ROTC opportunities that your college offers with its leadership, rigorous academic standards, and commitment to national service stands as the ideal environment for me to achieve this goal.