Battalion S-5: Public Affairs
c/1LT Nguyen, Caroline
Hello, everyone! I’m c/1LT Caroline Nguyen. Please feel free to call me by my first name, though I’m open to any artistic interpretations of my surname. I’m your S5 Public Affairs officer for the 2023 to 2024 school year, which means I have the honor of managing Kearny AJROTC’s social media, photography, recruitment, and other various odds and ends. In short, I’m responsible for making our wonderful battalion look good (I am not permitted to photoshop muscles onto any cadets. Sorry!).
As for my life outside of JROTC, my hobbies include (but are not limited to) traditional and digital art, fashion, theatre, reading and writing, badminton, jewelry making, and botany. If you want me to get real specific with it, I like painting with watercolor and gouache, have a real habit of working in pen and ink, and use both oil and chalk pastels. On rare occasions, I also use acrylics, alcohol markers, and colored pencils. I’m actually the president of Kearny High’s fine art club; my pride and joy!
Some records I wear as a badge of honor include how I’ve never been sighted without my sketchbook, the fact I own over 30 houseplants, and that I own an even more abhorrent number of plushies.
[ Thank you for reading! Be nice to bus drivers. ]
JROTC Career
I’ve completed a whopping SINGULAR year of JROTC and have enrolled again for my sophomore year, which makes me a LET-2. My origin story goes like this: first I became the S5 assistant for my company. Then I signed up to be S5 assistant for our battalion. Now I’m S5. See, I’m very on brand! I actually can’t believe I got this knee-deep into the program, but I’m very happy I made it here. Despite me originally joining JROTC because I wanted to avoid the humiliation that comes with having poor depth perception in PE class, I stuck around because of my fellow cadets, incredible AI’s and all of the opportunities that came with it. My running theory is that JROTC fixed my sleep schedule by making me wake up early for special events. I also have a lot of new friends and experiences from it!
Academics
I’ve gotten an honor roll for every quarter I’ve attended Kearny High School. Listen, it doesn’t sound as impressive when I mention I’m hardly a sophomore, but I am fully intent on maintaining all A’s until I graduate! I take a lot of advanced and honors classes, and next semester I’ll actually be taking an AP. I’m also involved with a lot of clubs! Last year I was in about 8, including things like Teens Make Health Happen, Flower Club, Baking Buddies, and more. This year I’m on our JROTC academics team.
Now for small school talk. Everyone and their mother assumes I’m a DMD student, but I’m actually a proud member of BST! (Biomedical Science and Technology. I need to deconstruct the acronym whenever I mention it to someone to keep my ego afloat.) I was about a hair’s breadth away from becoming a DMD kid, but the thing that stopped me was my love of biology. It is by far my best subject, and I’m hoping to have a future related to it. See, I was weighing my options: learn digital media design at home and dissect brains at school, or dissect brains at home and learn digital media design at school? There’s really only one feasible option unless I want to get into some real hot water with my parents about why I frequently purchase formaldehyde.
Awards and Decoration
JCLC Attendance Medal (N-3-11)
Good Conduct Ribbon (N-3-10)
LET Service Ribbon (N-1-6)
Other Achievements
5x Honor Roll, President of Fine Art Club, Co-Secretary and apparently Art Director of Teens Make Health Happen, SSC Member, Secretary of Sending Sunshine, 10th Grade Class Secretary, Theatre Club Stage Hand, Prop Designer, and Set Designer, CPR Certified, and Most Likely to Grow Up to Become a Mad Scientist.