Pictured: SMA Enlistment ceremony

Sarasota Military Academy (SMA), a local, public charter school, was one of 130 locations throughout the country selected as a host location for the first nationwide oath of enlistment ceremony. The oath, administered by U.S. Army Colonel and NASA Astronaut, Andrew Morgan, was streamed live across the nation to students enlisting in the Armed Forces. “This is an incredible honor not only for our cadets and our local future soldiers, but our nation as a whole. The students who participated in this experience had the unique opportunity to be a part of the first ever enlistment ceremony conducted from space, which is an incredible reward to the commitment made by our future leaders and global citizens,” said SMA-COL Christina Bowman, Sarasota Military Executive Director of Schools. With more than 800 students around the nation taking the oath, 23 local students attended the ceremony at Sarasota Military Academy. Eight seniors from Sarasota Military Academy participated: Shelby Young, Jennifer Cerezo-Portillo, Jocelyn Duron-Robledo, Skye Janneman, Justin Turner, Michael Parsels, Cody Greenough and William “Blake” Wilkinson. The students, from local schools including Sarasota Military Academy, Venice High School, Riverview High School, Port Charlotte High School, Charlotte High School, North Port High School, New College of Florida, Fort Myers High School, South Fort Myers High School, Southeast High School and Estero High School, swore an oath through a partnership between the Space Center Houston, NASA and U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Recruiters from Sarasota Recruiting Company were on hand to assist with questions and informational requests. The enlistment ceremony was streamed via NASA TV and the Army’s official YouTube and Facebook pages. To view a stream of the video, visit https://bit.ly/32v3Cjk.

Pictured: SMA Enlistment ceremony

View the original release, distributed by the U.S. Army.