Retired Lt. Col. Paul Nagy, left, and retired Gunnery Sgt. Emmett Bryant have directed the Colquitt County JROTC program since 1996.

Although they have nearly 40 years of active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps between them, neither retired Lt. Col. Paul Nagy nor retired Gunnery Sgt. Emmett Bryant was in Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps while in high school.

That hasn’t kept the pair from operating Colquitt County’s outstanding JROTC program since its inception in 1996.

The two are among the longest-serving high school military instructors in Georgia and have trained well over 1,000 cadets over the last 16 years.

The Colquitt County unit has become known for its performances in drill meets and for producing one of the top precision air rifle teams in the nation.

It also has prepared its cadets for careers in the military and other professions.

Owen Lamb, who was the unit’s company commander in 2003 before serving four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, including two tours in Iraq, said Nagy and Bryant make quite a tandem.

“The colonel is more into the knowledge part,” said Lamb, now a patrolman for the Beaufort County (S.C.) Sheriff’s Department. “The gunny does the physical part.

“They taught me everything I needed to know.”

And Nagy is succinct in what he believes he and Bryant are charged to teach.

“We are trying to turn out better citizens and teach them leadership,” Nagy said.

It appears they are succeeding.

Among the graduates of the program are students who have gone on to careers in the military, law enforcement and health care fields.

The list of successful former cadets is a lengthy one.

Staff Sgt. Michael Weaver runs a Marine Corps recruiting substation in Virginia. Chris Griggs is a military contractor dealing with counter-terrorist intelligence. Shawn Bostick is in criminal investigations with the Colquitt County Sheriff’s Department. Steve Lawson is a squad leader at Camp Lejeune. Mandi Pyle is a registered nurse working at South Georgia Medical Center. Aubrea Diehl is a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Dori Miller is in college studying biology. Deddrick Head is at Savannah State; Yohann Brinson is at Florida A&M.

And those are just a few of the success stories that Nagy ticked off.

Former Colquitt County Superintendent of Schools Leonard McCoy was a proponent of the JROTC program.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for young people whether they choose to go into the military or not,” McCoy said.

And, he added, “It adds the element of helping to remind us that our future is our youth and they will be there to help protect us.”

The high school in Hammond, Ind., that Nagy attended did not have JROTC.

But after graduating from Valparaiso (Ind.) University, Nagy enlisted in Marine Corps Officer Candidate School and initially specialized in artillery. He later became an intelligence officer.

He has been stationed in Japan and also served as weapons instructor in Quantico, Va.

While serving at the recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., he met Ora Sue Higgins and the two married on June 7, 1980.

He went on to serve at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C.

After a stint as an intelligence requirements officer at Quantico, he went to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm and later to Somalia.

Nagy was working for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., when he decided to retire in 1996.

His retirement lasted all of three days.

A committee that included local businessman Hinton Reeves and retired Army Lt. Col. Hoyt Holland led a search and the Colquitt County Board of Education had agreed to start a JROTC program, accepting the U.S. Marine Corps proposal.

Nagy heard about the need for a senior military instructor at the high school from Col. Dave Ingram, a former colleague, who was running the JROTC program at East Coweta High.

After traveling to Moultrie from Tampa, Nagy met with school system administrators Curtis Bynum and Diana Clark and soon agreed to take the job.

Bryant was retired from the Marine Corps and working for the Department of Corrections training security personnel for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta when he heard of the opening at Colquitt County.

Nagy interviewed three people, but Bryant was clearly the best choice.

“He had been a DI (drill instructor) and he was committed to South Georgia,” Nagy says of Bryant. “He was tailor-made for this.”

Bryant agrees.

“All my adult life, I’ve been training someone,” he said.

Like Nagy, Bryant did not have the advantage of JROTC at his high school in Bolivia, N.C. But he came from a military family. His father served in both the Army and Navy, his brother was an Army warrant officer and his sister was in the Air Force.

Bryant himself was in the Air Force 5 1/2 years before joining the Marine Corps, serving another 17 1/2 years.

When Nagy and Bryant greeted their first group of students in 1996, the JROTC building was not completed and classes were held in the canning plant.

And many of those students were assigned to the ROTC because they were disciplinary problems and school officials believed the military experience might help them.

Nagy says that is not the province of ROTC.

“We want to get away from the notion that this is a special program for kids with conduct problems,” he says. “We only want those who want to be here.”

Nagy explained that the high school has signed a contract with the Secretary of the Navy and certain standards have to be upheld.

“If the child doesn’t have the aptitude for ROTC or if he is not representing the uniform in the proper way, we can put him out,” Nagy said. “If they’re not acting right in their other classes, they can’t be here.”

By January of the first year of the program, the 160 original students had been culled to 72.

“We weeded them out,” Nagy remembers. “We spent that first year clearing that up.”

By then, the program had moved into the gray building across the parking lot from the Gladys Espy Memorial Gymnasium, where it has remained.

And it is where the cadets have embarked on a four-year Georgia curriculum for JROTC that Nagy helped develop.

Freshmen cadets take the course titled Leadership Education (LE) I in which they learn the basics of leadership, citizenship, public service and career exploration, general military subjects and core military skills.

The first year, much of the focus is on time management and study skills.

Sophomores take LE II; juniors, LE III; and seniors, LE IV. Each year, the course of study becomes more advanced and stringent.

“By the time they’re in LE III and LE IV, they can control a class of 20 kids,” Nagy said. “Those are the kinds of kids we’re looking for.

“And I think people would be surprised at how much academic work we do down here.”

Cadets also undergo rigorous physical training.

“There is a lot of physical fitness,” Nagy said. “We are mandated to teach people how to lead. And people who lead and are successful are generally physically fit and healthy.”

Lamb, also a member of the rifle team while in the Colquitt County JROTC, said he was well-prepared when he left Colquitt County for Marine Corps basic training.

“You could tell people who had no idea how to do drill,” he said. “They were just so far behind. You’d get so frustrated, but then you’d think, ‘They just didn’t have any training.’

“I can’t image having gone from high school into the military without (JROTC). If I hadn’t had it, I don’t think I’d’ve gone in.”

Nagy said parents often want their children to remain in ROTC when it has been determined they no longer can be part of the program.

“A lot of parents don’t understand what it takes to make a kid mature these days,” Nagy said. “Sometimes they need a teacher, not a friend.”

And Nagy said only cadets who meet the JROTC criteria can remain.

“Organizations that have high standards remind their members about it every day,” he said.

Bryant said other Colquitt County High teachers say they can pick out who is in ROTC “by they way they carry themselves and present themselves.”

Colquitt County’s 2012-2013 JROTC program has 160 cadets and the company staff includes Company Commander Dylan Globerman; Company Executive Officer Adam Crosby; Company First Sergeant Jessee Misenheimer; and Company Gunnery Sergeant Kelli Norman.

Those seniors who have gone through the course of study are taught by two retired Marines who are certified both by the state and by the U.S. Marine Corps.

“And the administrative requirements are steep,” Nagy said, noting, “We have to do what all the other teachers have to do, plus the Marine Corps reports.”

The Department of Defense and local school systems share the JROTC instructors’ salary.

Nagy and Bryant are justifiably proud of the success of the program over the years.

The Commanding General, Marine Corps Training and Education Command, Quantico Va., annually recognizes the top 20 percent of Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps programs throughout the nation as Naval Honor Schools. The designation is based on an annual unit inspection conducted by the Inspector General of the Marine Corps; the unit’s level of community service; scholastic achievement; and extracurricular performance (drill, marksmanship and physical fitness competitions). Colquitt County Marine Corps JROTC received its ninth such award this year.

The most visible measure is how well the drill teams and rifle teams have performed and both have been successful. Colquitt County has taken top awards at drill meets in Georgia and Florida.

“Wherever we go, we are always invited back,” Bryant said. “We have people ask us, ‘Why are your kids so well-mannered?’

“Our kids always represent their parents and this community well.”

The rifle team, under Bryant’s guidance, has been among the best high school programs in Georgia and one of the best JROTC squads in the nation in recent years.

Bryant says if he and Nagy have been successful, it is because “we are a team.”

“We get along and we work well together,” Bryant said of the pair’s long-standing and successful relationship. “We’ve been committed and we make people go by the rules. We do what we need to do.

“We’ve been trained to look after our troops.”