This article won the second place Kate Leckie Excellence in News Writing award from The Frederick News-Post.

During the December 4^th fire drill, students filed past the curious sight of the Navy demo that had been set up in the rear parking lot. What had started out as a demonstration with mild interest turned into something similar to an amusement park ride by the end of the day, with long lines and a lot of excited people waiting their turn.

The 6 minute motion simulation of a Navy SEAL mission gives riders a bit of an inside look of what is done in the Navy. Along with SEALS, the simulator shows control room officers, pilots, and aircraft carrier technicians.

However, these are not the only jobs available to Navy personnel. FC2 Kyle Handy, a Navy recruiter who accompanied the simulator to LHS, said that the Navy offers significant jobs right out of high school in a variety of fields.

These fields vary from working on submarines or with nuclear power, all the way to journalism or accounting.

Commander Henry Lane, Linganore’s NJROTC (Naval Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps) director, said that the reason he worked with the recruiters to bring the simulator to LHS was to expose students to the different aspects of the Navy.

Commander Lane also said that he tries to expose his NJROTC students to a mix of the different U.S. armed forces in order to give them a broad knowledge of what the armed forces have to offer.

However, not all students that got to experience the Navy simulator were NJROTC students. Senior Logan Heck’s psychology class signed up to have a turn as well, along with many other classes.

Heck said that the simulator was not quite what he thought it would be, but he still really enjoyed having the opportunity to go on it. Heck also said that, while he had a good time, the simulator did not have a big effect on his desire to join the Navy.

Heck also said that he was surprised by what he learned because he wasn’t aware that the Navy had such a variety of opportunities to offer.

Junior Krystal Knott had a similar response to the simulator. She said, “It was pretty cool. It felt pretty real.” Although she also said that it did not make her want to join the Navy.

Commander Lane said that he got a lot of good feedback from those who went on the simulator, and mostly everybody liked it.

FC2 Handy added that there was a lot of local interest from younger people wanting to join the Navy. But since he does not normally accompany the simulator on its trips he did not say what kind of impact it had on the interest.

Handy said that there are simulators like the one that was at LHS all over the country, and they constantly travel to different events to be used as recruiting tools. The one that came to LHS was in the area for the December 8^th Army-Navy college football game, a big rivalry in the U.S. military. This meeting was the 113^th annual game, Navy won 17-13.

Commander Lane said that he got a lot of positive words from a variety of students and teachers at the end of the day on December 4^th, and that this simulator is definitely something he would want back at LHS sometime in the future.