JROTC students bond during Wickets Island campout

Far out in Onset Bay, a group of high schoolers grew closer.

Cadets from Wareham High School JROTC boated out to Wickets Island for a 24-hour campout on Friday, Sept. 11 and Saturday, Sept. 12. They bonded over a host of team-building activities and learned about the history and nature on the island.

The cadets paddled out to the island on the afternoon of Sept. 11 and pitched tents on the island. Being isolated on the island, they had to prepare well for the trip.

“It’s different from your typical camping experience, you know? We made everything by ourselves. We brought materials from land and stuff like that to help out, but we made everything by ourselves,” said Jacob Solomon.

Once they got camp set up, they competed in kayak races, played red light, green light and swam in the bay. At meal times, they grilled hot dogs and French toast sticks on skewers and cooked “hobo stew,” which Solomon said contained onions, carrots and beef. “It had a lot of really good healthy stuff,” he said.

The maritime theme pervaded the entire trip.

“We sang a lot of sea shanties,” Solomon said.

Brianna Gabrey made the trip magical when she found a large stick that became her wand. She was dubbed the wizard of the trip. She said she tried to cast a few spells with the wand, but they didn’t work well.

“I’m still a beginner,” she said.

It wasn’t all spells and s’mores; the cadets learned a lot about where they camped. Onset Bay Center outdoor program director Stuart Downie toured the cadets around the island. He taught them about the local ecosystem and how Indigenous people used the island as a burial ground. “It kind of gave me a different perspective on [the trip],” said Gabrey after learning about the island’s past.

After sunset, Col. Matt Stanton led a vigil for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. They lit candles and reflected on the event for over an hour. None of the teenaged cadets were alive 25 years ago when the attacks happened. Gabrey said it gave them an opportunity to learn about the experiences that people who were present had and what it meant.

When the cadets returned to shore on Sept. 12, they were a much tighter-knit group. Hudson Kuklinsky said he didn’t know half of the cadets he camped with before the trip. But after spending the night on the island, he felt like he knew them well.

Gabrey, the lone sophomore on the trip, said she made new friends she wouldn’t have otherwise. “I wouldn’t have interacted with them normally other than on a field trip,” she said.

Solomon said he hopes they can do another camping trip on the island in the future. “I definitely recommend it, if Col. Stanton is up to do it again. I think it was definitely a really great time,” he said.