On the March to Japan : Competition: This drill team works hard. It’s won state and national awards and is now practicing for an international award in the island nation.

To the strains of spirited music, the young women marched flawlessly in the early morning sun.

Their feet stamped to the cadence, their heads pivoted im military unison. Their voices sounded out: “H.B.! H.B.! H.B.!”

School had long been out for the summer break. But not for these young women of the Huntington Beach High School Drill Team. On this day they were practicing relentlessly at the high school, as they have throughout the summer.

“We’ve got to be very good for international competition,” explained their teacher-adviser, Linda Stewart. “When we get to Japan, we want to look great.”

The drill team won state and national competition this year. The victories earned the 43 young women an invitation to Nagoya, Japan, in early August for international competition. After working for months to

raise money, 32 of the drill team members and Stewart are now assured of making the trip. They are scheduled to depart July 31 and return Aug. 8.

“The overall cost for the entire team is about $50,000, and we still need to raise about $10,000 of that,” Stewart said. She said that parents are paying most of the costs for their daughters and that the drill team hopes to raise the final $10,000 to partially reimburse the parents.

But the team is definitely going, Stewart said. “The only girls who aren’t going are those who couldn’t because of summer jobs or because their parents didn’t want them to go,” she said.

The young women on the drill team range from 15-year-old sophomores to 18-year-old seniors who graduated in June. Their backgrounds and interests vary widely. But when assembled for drill, the young women have a remarkable similarity--all extraordinarily healthy and athletic looking. Most have long hair pulled back in a pony tail or long braids.

There’s a reason for the hair being pulled back from the face.

“It’s a regulation,” said Brande Dunn, 18, team captain. “Hair has to be pulled back from your face. This is because in drill, it’s necessary to see the faces (of the team members) and their facial expressions.”

In military drill performance, the young women have a mask-like quality on their faces. The look is intent, but not pained; pleasant, but unemotional. The drill movements are quick and hard-edged--no flowing, ethereal gestures.

Explained Dunn: “In large military groups, such as ours, there are sharp, stiff movements, and there’s also a tiny bit of dance. There’s also a certain beat to the music. There are definite counts. The counts are longer, stronger, sharper.”

The term “military group” refers only to the type of drill. The Huntington Beach squad, as well as similar high school units that participate in military drill, are not affiliated with the armed services.

But while not part of the Army, the young women of the Huntington Beach High Drill Team are as disciplined in performance as West Point cadets. Their practices extend for hours, often without a break.

Teacher-adviser Stewart, during a recent practice, yelled to the young women: “This is boring. This is repetitive. But you’re looking better. Keep it up. Concentrate, concentrate.”

Stewart, 25, of Arcadia, graduated this spring from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in communications and political science. A former cheerleader, she was seeking a part-time job as a cheerleader coach in a high school when she learned last fall about an opening at Huntington Beach High for a drill team coach. She took the part-time position, worked hours with the young women and proudly saw the team capture an array of trophies, including the state and national awards in “large military-division drill.”

“These are a great bunch of girls,” Stewart said. “It’s going to kill me to have to leave them next year.” She plans to go to the University of Nevada-Las Vegas in the fall to begin work on a master’s degree in communications.

But before she leaves, Stewart hopes the drill team will add an international trophy to the stack already won this year.

The young women enjoy talking about the big trip to Japan. Said Kim Stillwell, 18. “We’ll stay at a hotel, and we’ll have some free time for guided tours. I can’t wait to see the different culture; it’s so different over there.”

It will be the second trip to Japan for drill team member Heather Humes, 16. She first went to the island nation two years ago as an exchange student visiting Huntington Beach’s sister city of Anjo.

“I stayed with a family over there, and it was wonderful,” Humes said. “The people over there are so nice. They’re so polite; they’re just totally different from us. I never met one rude person over there.”

Kim Haberlein, 18, said the Japanese trip culminates a year of goal-setting by the team. “We just made it a point that we were going to win this year,” she said. “We worked together as a team. There’s no one who’s better than the other person. We’re a team.”

Humes said the overseas trip has a serious responsibility that goes with it.

“We want people we meet over there to know that we’re friendly and that we’re proud of being from Orange County,” she said. “People from a lot of the countries that will be competing in Japan have never met anyone from the United States. We want those people to know that we’re friendly and easy to get along with.

“We want to leave a good impression of the United States.”