The trip was canceled because funds were not available for their bus fare.
The way it was planned, Alondra Viera would spend four days with her fellow JROTC cadets from Cocoa High School this weekend navigating unfamiliar woods with a compass, learning to shoot a bow and arrow and competing to see who knew the most trivia about military and U.S. history.
Instead, the cadets were told just two days before they were set to leave for an annual leadership retreat at Camp La-No-Che that because of the federal freeze on the Department of Defense’s travel spending, the event was canceled.
A couple of weeks prior, on Feb. 26, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to make federal spending more transparent. Following the order, the Department of Defense issued a memo saying that, effective immediately, the use of all government-issued travel cards by civilian employees of DOD was suspended except for travel in direct support of military operations or a permanent change of station. Later, the spending limit was reduced to $1 on travel cards.
While the cadets’ trip had already been paid for, there was no longer funding for the expense of traveling to the camp, said Matt Dailey, a test coordinator at Cocoa High and a chaperone for the trip.
“It’s a real shame,” Dailey said.
For Alondra, who has been to the camp in Paisley, Florida, two previous times, the news was unexpected.
“It was pretty shocking,” she said. “A lot of people were a bit upset, especially since we had a bunch of new people going, so it was kind of disappointing.”
How is JROTC funded?
Every year, Congress appropriates JROTC funds as part of the DOD’s Operation and Maintenance and Military and Personnel budget. The funds are used for instructor salaries, uniforms, cadet travel, training aids, textbooks, educational materials and other operating expenses. Schools provide each unit with classroom space, facilities and administrative support. The total funding for the 2025 fiscal year came out to $439,077,000, according to the DOD comptroller.
Under U.S. law, the defense department must maintain no fewer than 3,400 JROTC units and no more than 4,000 units, though in 2020, the National Commission on Military, National and Public Service recommended expanding the number of units to 6,000 by 2031.
How is the spending freeze impacting JROTC?
As part of President Trump’s efforts to reduce the federal workforce, Department of Defense officials have said they plan to cut the workforce by 5% to 8%. The agency has also implemented a hiring freeze. Throughout numerous departments, credit cards have been frozen or canceled, with DOGE announcing March 11 in an X post that it canceled more than 200,000 government credit cards. That includes DOD travel cards, which would have paid for bus fare for Brevard’s JROTC cadets.
Kids from the Space Coast and Volusia typically attend Camp La-No-Che in Lake County, said Dailey. He estimates that about 200 students attend each year.
The camp is a JLCL camp, or a Cadet Leadership Challenge. JROTC Army cadets are given the chance, usually between March and August, to attend, according to the organization’s website. These events take place around the world and are typically held at Boy Scout camps or military installations.
“The kids really do most of the work,” Dailey said. “The adults are there for supervision, and the military adults are there … to shore up some of the stuff … the adults are kind of there as backup for the kids.”
It’s not clear exactly how or if these cuts or the federal freeze are impacting JROTCs broadly, or with actions such as those taken with the Cocoa cadets’ planned retreat.
The JROTC Florida State Drill Competition was canceled due to the freeze, according to a report by WINK News. On social media, Travis Akers, a high school teacher in Jacksonville, shared a screenshot on March 11 about the competition being canceled due to “the federal government withholding of federal funds.”
It’s not just happening in Florida. JROTC cadets from Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana were set to participate in the Sgt. Memorial Paul C. Gay Army JROTC Memorial Drill Competition over the weekend, with 55 schools ane about 200 teams expected to participate, according to reporting by The News-Enterprise in Kentucky. The meet, scheduled at John Hardin and North Hardin high schools south of Louisville, was canceled due to the travel card freeze.
The topic has spurred significant online discussion among cadets in online forums, with cadets reporting their competitions, leadership challenges and more have been canceled or likely will be due to the freeze’s impact.
Camp La-No-Che: helping cadets become more confident
Land navigation, obstacle courses, carrying a team member in a litter, drown-proofing themselves with a pair of pants: At Camp La-No-Che, JROTC cadets get to practice these skills “shoulder-to-shoulder” with active-duty service members, Dailey said.
It’s a chance, he said, for kids who don’t get a lot of recognition to shine and explore a potential career path.
“We’re a Title I school, over 75% of our students are free and reduced lunch, and this is a real opportunity for them to be able to see if it’s really what they want,” Dailey said. “The thing I love is to see these non-football kids out there. They get picked to be the battalion leader or whatever, and their chest is puffed out.”
No active recruiting takes place at the camp, but recruiters and other military members attend to mentor the kids.
Alondra said camp is a good way to connect as a team. While she’ll still get to see local cadets, she’ll miss out on meeting other units from around the state, at least for this year.
“Camp can help a lot with being able to gain leadership skills and learning how to work together with people as a team,” she said. “I feel as if camp and JROTC definitely help with learning to work with people and really learning to be more confident in yourself as a person.”
Finch Walker is the education reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Walker at [email protected]. X: @_finchwalker.
