After Opening Formation, drill was practiced by two flights — one of experienced cadets, the other of inexperienced. During this time, much improvement was made, especially by the inexperienced flight. Afterwards, aerospace engineer Matt Otterstatter, whom C/1st Lt Menk invited, virtually came and talked to us about his career, how he got where he was, and what some of his projects were (like working on designing the rockets that launch out of Israel’s Iron Dome weapons defense system. Cool!). One thing — out of many — that I took away from it was all the critical thinking engineers like him had to do in order for them to come up with something that would work, or something that could be done better and more efficiently than before. During Commander’s Call later on, cadets C/AB Brannon and C/A1C Stotter were promoted, the former to Cadet Airman and the latter to Cadet Senior Airman. Also, C/SrA Bateman was promoted to Cadet Staff Sergeant — a huge step in his cadet career!
— C/2d Lt Hayden Bateman