Marching across an open field, with smoke from green smoke bombs flurrying into the air like fire exploding upwards, gaining height in the strong gusts of wind, platoon leader and senior Seth Woods stomps equally with his group. Events like this are only available to soldiers like Woods.

Apart of JROTC and the army, Woods has a truly eventful life. Woods first joined JROTC during his freshman year in high school, “I had just moved to Conway and I mentioned the military to the counselor so they put me in it.” He said. After being a member of JROTC for  enough time, he eventually enlisted in the army, “I’m in charge of all of team Conway when the actual Sergeants aren’t present or when they ask me to perform a task.” He says, “I have a mandatory 7 more years but I’ll probably re enlist,” for the opportunity to, “…get a pension and more education.” Joining the army comes with risks, but for Woods, it’s not about the risk, “I’ve always felt happiest when helping other people. I’ve always thought that the best thing to do is to do for other people… I can’t think of a more honorable thing to do.” 

Helping America’s people and country is not the only awesome thing that Woods gets to partake in, “I’ve done everything from yard work for community service at a homeless shelter to riding blackhawks and throwing grenades.” In the army, you get to train, “…we train one weekend a month and for a few weeks in the summer. The weekends are called drill weekend. Every morning at 6:45 we have first formation and start PT around 7:30 until like 10:30 ish. After chow we are usually separated by ‘phase’ which is determined by how long you’ve been in… Last drill we went over marksmanship, shooting positions and room clearing as a fire team.” He said. 

Not to mention, the army requires you to work as a team, “Training with a team has a lot of ups and downs. I love working as a team but it changes so much at RSP (which is the termfor drill) that it can be hard. As with anything there are people that I naturally got along with great and some a little less… When it all works out, it’s the best part, sometimes it’s a lot of strings trying to unravel at the same time.”