Clover Park High School Air Force JROTC cadet Miguel Angarita thought he had his military service career plan all mapped out.

"I was thinking first (going into) Special Forces or maybe (becoming) a fighter pilot," said Angarita, a sophomore.

But a field trip to Madigan Army Medical Hospital Feb. 7 with the other cadets in his unit now has Angarita considering several other career paths he can take.

"(After) seeing this, now I have to widen my options more," he said.

While other students in the Clover Park School District took a day off as part of a semester break, Air Force JROTC students visited Madigan and other spots on Joint Base Lewis-McChord as part of an interactive learning experience.

"This is to give them an overview of what a good education and motivation can accomplish," said Senior Master Sgt. Maureen Arroyo, an aerospace science instructor with the JROTC program who accompanied the cadets on the trip. "People look at us as recruiters, but we're not. We're just building good citizens."

To start off the day, cadets filed into a briefing room in the hospital's radiology department where Robert Pourpasand, a quality control technician for diagnostic services, showed the many features the hospital's radiology digital imaging system can perform with a simple click of a mouse - everything from displaying an X-ray of a broken bone to a more complex scan of the brain.

"You guys have come to the best medical facility in the world," Pourpasand told the cadets.

Soldiers working in the physical therapy and pathology career fields also spoke about their personal experiences, what they do on a daily basis and on deployments, their educational backgrounds and what kind of academic focuses cadets need to have to succeed in the career field.

"A lot of the stuff they're stating in there I didn't know," said cadet Tiana Goode, also a sophomore. "I didn't know chemistry would be that involved in studying sports medicine. That never crossed my mind."

Similar to Angarita, Goode also thought she knew exactly what she wanted to study once she graduated from high school.

"I was really stuck on political science," said Goode, who plans on perhaps enlisting in the Air Force and becoming a security forces policeman. "(Today) shows me that there is more out there (career-wise)."

Many of the military jobs in the medical field are very similar to those in the civilian world, said Sgt. 1st Class Dennis Tucker, the Lakewood Army Recruiting Station commander who assisted with the tour.

"(Today) is just to give them a different aspect of something different other than high school classes," Tucker said. "We saw a lot of different jobs to give them an idea of what's out there. We're (very similar to the civilian world). It's just that we wear a different uniform."

The day also included a trip to JBLM Main to experience several variations of the versatile Stryker vehicle.

"I think a lot of us are active learners and like to be involved with stuff hands-on," Goode said. "And I think this is a good way for us to broaden our horizons and widen our scope."

Angarita agreed.

"It's nice to get out and learn things and actually hear from people that are working and explain to us what they do," he said.