Photo courtesy Norwich University The Norwich Drill Teams have been consistently the best, winning competitively over other schools since 2002 and filling Jackman Hall with many trophies. Members of the Norwich University Drill Company won a number of awards in the recent 2009 Cornell University Invitational Drill Competition (CUIDC] which was held at the Barton Hall field house on the Cornell campus.

The meet is a collegiate-level competition between senior ROTC marching units.

CUIDC has been held annually for over 20 years. Norwich University has won the Overall Winner trophy every year since 2002 and the Cadets held true to form again in 2009, their eighth win.

A visit to the main lobby at Norwich’s Jackman Hall, the main administration building, will reveal many, many trophies won by various Drill Company competition teams over the past several years. So many, in fact, that it is time to clean house!

This year, Norwich took 12 competition teams: Platoon Inspection (2 teams), Regulation Squad Drill (2 teams), Regulation Platoon Drill (2 teams), Regulation Color Guard (3 teams), Two-Man Trick Drill (2 teams), and Platoon Trick Drill (The Shock Platoon). Teams were either upperclassmen (sophomore thru senior) or freshmen. All teams compete with rifles. Each event was judged by members of the U.S. Marine Corps.

The Inspection procedure examines the appearance and their equipment and their military bearing.

In addition, they are queried about current and historical military facts. The Norwich cadets study fact sheets in preparation for this inspection.

Squad Drill and Platoon Drill competition consists of a known standard set of marching commands that each unit completes on its own. Units are judged on their merit of marching skills and appearance according to a scoring sheet.

Color Guards also are inspected and their quality of marching and maneuvering is judged.

All drill movements are judged according to conformation with the Marine Corps Drill and Ceremonies Manual.

All routines begin with the formation of the unit, march onto the parade area, and conclude after departure from the Drill Deck.

The Trick presentations are where the flash and style of the cadets really shows.

The units are judged on their precision, sharpness, level of difficulty of the tricks they are attempting, their appearance, the continuity and flow of the show, and the originality of what they are attempting. The goal is to look polished and not drop any rifles!

The Norwich Drill cadets are some of the nation's best, and their performance record confirms that.

This year the cadets brought home trophies for: 1st in Platoon Inspection, 1st and 2nd place in Platoon Drill, 2nd and 3rd for Squad Drill, 1st and tied for 3rd in Color Guard, 1st in Two-Man Trick Drill (Cadets Ploof and Daileda), and (of course) 1st in Platoon Trick Drill -- the Shock Platoon. Two other 5th places did not earn trophies.

Having so many 1st and 2nd places, there was little doubt that Norwich would win the overall competition trophy! They won out over the following schools in descending order of final placement: Rochester, the U.S. Naval Academy, Villanova, Rensselaer Poly-Tech Institute (RPI) Naval ROTC, UPenn, GWU, Carnegie Mellon, [U.S. Army] West Point, SUNY Maritime, Mass Maritime, RPI AF ROTC, Ohio State, Cornell, & Kings Point.

ROTC units were represented from the Army, Air Force and Navy.