Tinian High’s Keyla Flores graduates in Top 2 of AIT class

Private First Class Keyla Flores, far left. (Contributed Photo)

Keyla B. Flores, a Tinian Jr./Sr. High School’s Class of 2020 graduate, has graduated from Advanced Individual Training in the U.S. military as Top 2 in her class, with the Honor Graduate title.

This comes soon after Flores graduated from her Basic Training last Sept. 10, 2020 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina with Charlie Company 1-61. Flores graduated from AIT training on Dec. 8, 2020, at Fort Lee, Virginia Bravo Company 16th Ordnance.

Her training comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which even affected basic training.

“Wearing a mask every day, even when we were marching somewhere, was a challenge. It was hard to breathe in some cases,” said Flores. “Then every night we had to get our temperatures checked. We moved from one building to another so often every time cases would pop up. I just pushed through day by day, to be honest. I was already prepared for what I signed up for.”

Basic training was cut into four phases because of the coronavirus outbreak. The first phase involved quarantine. “The only hard thing was showering in three minutes,” Flores said. “We also did a lot of physical exercises to prepare for the [Army Combat Fitness Test].” Her basic training lasted ten weeks.

Following the completion of basic training was AIT, which took about 13 weeks to complete. Every day during the training, Flores would wake up at 4am to do physical training and went to class in the Ordnance School for Mechanics, completing a new module every week. She also learned how to troubleshoot faults in different vehicles and how to replace parts.

“Then at the end of AIT, we did a two-mile ruck march and stayed in the field for three nights…troubleshooting vehicles, qualifying our weapons again and… field training,” Flores said.

At the end of her AIT, Flores obtained a certificate of achievement for exceptional performance while assigned to Bravo Company, 16th Ordnance.

After graduating from Basic Training and AIT, her first assignment will be at Camp Humphrey, South Korea. After her flight got canceled due to the pandemic, Flores stayed in Fort Lee until she was shipped out on Jan. 11, 2021.

During her time participating in the Tinian Jr./Sr. High School JROTC program, Flores was known as a dedicated, active cadet. Besides being the outgoing Stallion Battalion executive officer during her senior year at TJSHS, she was also in charge of the Unarmed Drill Team. In addition, she held the former positions of S4 clerk, S3 clerk, S1 clerk, and Alpha Company executive officer.

“…I remember this one specific high school breakdown… where I messaged my brother telling him about how I wasn’t ready for the real world and how bad I wanted to succeed. …Among other things, he told me to suck it up and that was the end of the conversation,” said Flores. “I joined the military because I wanted to go to college but couldn’t afford that and it made me super nervous to start school right after high school… I still have a lot of things to work on to get to where I want to be.” 

Her advice to cadets? “Success shouldn’t be rushed and that everyone is different, you have time, just keep working hard—you’ll get to where you want to be.” (Lloyd Rivera/Samantha Sandbergen)