RSU 19 students get hands on experience at Maine Army National Guard Day

NEWPORT, Maine (WABI) - “I heard it from over at my school, and it was pretty cool and pretty loud,” said a first grader from RSU 19.

All eyes were on the sky at Nokomis Regional High School Tuesday morning for the Army National Guard Event. The day started off with a Black Hawk helicopter landing right behind the school.

“Anyone that we can support, we try to, and luckily, today the weather is beautiful. It’s super close to Bangor sources. It’s an easy event for us to help out with and get out in the community and kind of show what we do. And when they see us flying around, who we are and what we’re potentially doing, and we’re flying around,” said Cpt. JJ Marcigliano.

Students were able to try hands on activities to get a feel for what life is like in the Army National Guard. It’s safe to say trainings are not as easy as they may seem.

“I thought it was obviously going to be easier, but I was a lot harder than I thought. I pulled the same with the weights like for a couple of seconds just to test it out, and I was like, yeah, I got that. As soon as I started doing it, my legs were just dead tired,” said Nokomis High School sophomore Ethan Gary.

High School Principal Mary Nadeau has seen many Nokomis alumni enter the national guard and is proud to have had them as students. Nadeau hopes events like today continue to inspire students to branch out to multiple career fields.

“I think it’s incredible. Like these are the kinds of events as a school we love to do, so an opportunity to bring, and you know, a tremendous resource to our country in our state. The Maine Army National Guard lets our students see the potential, all the different careers, and I love having the students of all grades come up to our campus and see, you know, get a chance to participate in something like this,” said Nokomis High School Principal Mary Nadeau.

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