On the second weekend of every month, sophomore Kirsten Dagostino takes part in “Sea Cadets,” which is an organization for young adolescents, ages 11-17, with an interest in being in the Coast Guard or The Navy.
Sea Cadets are all over the world. Kirsten attends the one in Northport, but there are 12 other units in New York.
For Kirsten, Sea Cadets involves a lot of drills, homework, and rules that she must follow, but once one is involved in this program, he or she has a rank in the military. They start off as a recruit and attend boot camps all over the world with other members that do training like real military recruits.
“This program gives you a great experience and shows you what it’s like to be in the military,” Kirsten said proudly.
Since Kirsten has been involved in Sea Cadets, she can become an officer after one year of training after high school.
Besides every month, bootcamp also takes place in winter break for a week and in the summer for two weeks, but in order to go to boot camp, she needs to complete a BRMS. A BRMS is a book of about 800 pages that she has to answer questions in, which takes about three months to complete.“It’s a lot of work,” she says.
But Kirsten isn’t one to back down. Her step-brothers and step-sisters are involved in this program as well. Kirsten was involved on the Cross Country Team in the fall, sails in the summer, and goes upstate to her family’s home to ski almost every weekend, so she is extremely busy, but yet determined to complete and excel at this program.