I've told you a fair number of legends that center around Benton Academy, I've also told you one or two that center around Benton High School. The School I attend. The story I'm going to tell you now, is a ghost story that is well known to the cadets of Benton High School's Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps or JROTC for short. That is commonly pronounced “JAY-rotsee” for those who were wondering.

This story, like I just said, is well known to the cadets of Benton High School, but has by and large escaped notice of the larger student body. Cadets are encouraged not to tell this story because of the tragic history behind it. And it often paints the program in a bad light. In the end I'm often led to wonder if one young man's quest for glory, power, and prestige did not blind him to the plight of his fellow cadets. And if his boundless ambition did blind him to the dangers. I'll let the reader judge for him or herself and make their own call.

Cadet Captain Sean Murphy was a young man that possessed boundless ambition and dreamed of being a decorated, career army officer. One who would accumulate dozens of medals for both bravery and accomplishments in the military sciences. And his first step on the road of greatness was turning the broken, poorly disciplined armed drill team of the Benton High School's JROTC program into a lean, mean drilling machine.

Sean Murphy had his job cut out for him, the cream of the program had just graduated, leaving behind a crop of swollen, ill trained and ill disciplined cadets behind. The Benton JROTC program was at the time a joke, and Sean knew it, the program was underfunded and many of the students down on the program and the cadets that wore it's ill fitting hunter green uniforms. The staff considered the program a dumping ground for troubled students. And those who came from troubled and broken homes.

The cadets Sean was to drill and mold into his “Dream Team '' were the sweepings of the street. The problem child of the school. The ones the school had given up on and swept into the program in hopes they would be kept away from the general population. Many could not tie their own shoelaces and many only saw the program as a waste of time and barked at the restrictions placed on them. Some did more than bark, some lashed out with their fist and their feet.

But Sean was up to the task. Standing six foot three inches with short cropped back hair and a voice that sounded like a bullhorn he bellowed out orders. Rain, or shine he drilled his tiny band. His broken Irish voice seemed to echo off the brick walls of the school. He scolded and criticized each cadet that broke step and berated the platoon as a whole.

He publicly dressed down each cadet that did not live up his ideals. Often forcing them to do push-ups, sit-ups and one mile ones as punishment for their infractions. The instructors, far from trying to stop this abuse, encouraged it and rewarded Sean with praise, a promotion and accolades. This only caused Sean to double down on his training. He knew the annual drill meet with their biggest rival Yazoo City High School was only months away and while his small, humble platoon had turned the corner and were now marching in step, they were still far, far from the well oiled machine Sean thought they could be.

And so he doubled down on them. Uniform inspections from a once a week thing to almost daily. Sean went to extreme measures to ensure each uniform was worn correctly. Including using a lighter to burn away loose threads of the uniform, while being worn by cadets. Such loose threads were commonly called “Irish Pendants” by Sean. When one cadet questioned this method. Sean had him run twenty three laps around the football field in full BTU. That stands for Battle Tactic Uniform.

In short Sean was a madman who demanded perfection. But this brutal training paid off, by the time of the annual drill competition, he had fielded one of the best armed drill teams the program had ever seen. But then something happened that nobody could have expected to happen. On the day of the meet a rainstorm moved into the region, a blinding rainstorm, a rainstorm that would go down in history as one of the second worst ones ever to hit the Central Mississippi. It would drop a reported twenty three inches of rain and cause flash flooding in all low lying areas.

As Sean watched this storm roll on, his brow knitted in frustration. He had expected Yazoo City to call off the  competition due to the weather but they refused instead saying they would move the competition inside their school's gymnasium. Worst of all Clinton, Terry, Ridgeland, Madison, Flowood, Terry and Vicksburg had already traveled to Yazoo City to take part in the competition, since those programs were well funded they simply traveled ahead of the storm and rented motel rooms out for all of their cadets.

Now, any other commander would have called the operation off. The roads between Yazoo City and Benton were indeed passable. Were in flooding conditions and despite reports of washouts between Yazoo City and Benton he ordered his small platoon to board the bus prepared for them. Many took one look at the rain swept road and knew their fates were in the hands of God.

Sean was the last to board the bus. He paused and took one look at the school and sighed as he climbed the bus. The rest is history. According to newspaper clipping I've uncovered the bus swirled out of control once it crossed a bridge. The school bus broke over the guardrail and plunged down into a deep gorge.

All fourteen cadets, their commander Sea and the driver were killed, the swollen stream that ran through the gorge carried away the bus, and the bodies of the fourteen lost souls, and swept them into the Yazoo River. According to legend it was then swept into the Mississippi River and then into the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless, the bodies were never recovered and remained lost to this very day.

Now with the ghost story.

Since that day, people have often reported the sound of phantom feet marching across the blacktop at school. And the sound of a disembodied voice calling cadence. And of a group of phantom cadets, dressed in there 'Class A' uniforms. Lined with ribbons, stand under the roof top, of the waiting area. Often they seemed distressed as they huddle around, trying to keep their hands warm.

And my own account. One Saturday afternoon after cheerleading practice, I was walking to my car. When I heard a faint voice behind me calling out cadence. I looked over my shoulder and there behind me stood two lines of cadets dressed in their 'Class A' uniforms. They were marching in good order but something seemed off about them. They seemed almost stiff, and there skin seemed shallow and their eyes sunken in. And beside them another, still marching beside them still bellowing out orders.

I watched them pass me by, two abreast and then they seemed to vanish into a thin cloud of smoke, I felt a chill pass over me as they passed by. Their eyes glazed over, their eyes reminded me of a fish that had been hauled in on a fisherman's line and left on the banks to breathe its last ragged breath. I will never forget those eyes. Gaunt and hollow, void of light of emotion. Their skin, gray and waterlogged, the sound of their phantom steps echoed in my ear long after vanishing from my sight.

Students are not the only ones to see these phantom cadets as they are drilled even in the after life. One day, not too long ago a group of visiting dignitaries was touring the school when they happened to notice a platoon of what they assumed to be cadets from the school's JROTC program was performing for them a series of drills. The group was impressed with the smartness of the group and how professional they looked.

They watched the group perform drills for a good fifteen to twenty minutes before the group seemed to move on. Later that day, the group of dignitaries complimented the senior instructor on the fine performance. The senior instructor blinked, and in a low voice informed them that no cadets were practicing drill at the time.

I believe that the souls of those fourteen cadets who were killed in that tragic accident remain earthbound because they never got a chance to prove themselves. I'm a cheerleader, and part of the thrill of cheerleading is getting to show off my talents and skills, skills homed and developed over long periods of intense workouts and training sessions. I would feel the same way, if I had died before a big game. But as for helping them. I don't know how to help them move on, I'm sad to say.