The Manchester West High School Navy JROTC toured the Navy's newest Independence-class littoral combat ship USS Manchester (LCD 14) before the ship's commissioning May 26 at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The unit's previous cadet commanding officer Anahi Bracero-Miranda, and this year's commanding officer Josh Moser, lead the unit cadet procession on Manchester. The crew provided an extensive tour answering all the cadet's questions of this high tech ship.

"I was so excited to see the new ship named after our hometown," said Bracero-Miranda.

Mosher said he was amazed by the sophistication and automation of the ship.

"I'm amazed at the capabilities and size of the flight deck," he said.

Upon completion of the tour the cadets were able to meet and talk with the ship's commanding officer, Cmdr. Emily Bassett. She posed for pictures with the cadets and said the visit felt like "old home week" to have Manchester High School students on board after several of Bassett's crew visited the school Nov. 2, 2017 on a familiarization tour of the city.

Many of the cadets attended the May 26 commissioning ceremony.

"This is very unique for our cadets to have this opportunity," said retired U.S. Navy Captain Arthur Stauff. Manchester West's Navy Science Instructor.

The Navy JROTC program at Manchester West is 47-years-old and according to Stauff and his cadets a respected and appreciated program for Manchester's High School students.

Rear Adm. Mike Bernacchi, commander, Naval Service Training Command (NSTC), is headquartered at Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois, and his staff support the Navy JROTC program and 98 percent of initial officer and enlisted accessions training for the Navy, as well as the Navy's Citizenship Development program. NSTC includes Recruit Training Command (RTC), the Navy's only boot camp at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill., NROTC at more than 160 colleges and universities, Officer Training Command in Newport, R.I., the Navy JROTC and Navy National Defense Cadet Corps (NNDCC) citizenship development programs at more than 600 high schools worldwide.

For more information about NSTC, visit http://www.netc.navy.mil/nstc/ or visit the NSTC Facebook pages at https://www.facebook.com/NavalServiceTraining/.

For more information, visit www.navy.mil, www.facebook.com/usnavy, or www.twitter.com/usnavy.

For more news from Naval Service Training Command, visit www.navy.mil/.