Craig McIntosh

Cadet Spotlight

Kicking Off a Career of Leadership

by Andrew Batista

Football Time in the Bluegrass never begins until Craig McIntosh feels that the moment is right. While he channels his adrenaline, 68,000 fans in Commonwealth Stadium pause with anticipation each Saturday as McIntosh, a walk-on student athlete and University of Kentucky Army ROTC cadet, kicks away a football and thus begins the Wildcats’ weekly gridiron battles.

“Kicking a football is much more of a mental challenge than a physical performance,” said McIntosh. “When you’re kicking off, you’ve got one shot, and it’s either hit or miss. It’s not like you can hustle on the next play to recuperate mistakes you might have made. Ultimately, in that moment it’s just you and the ball.”

McIntosh takes his exceptional focus and discipline,

The soldiers of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team (BCT) from the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) who are scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan by early March will have a University of Kentucky alum among those leading their mission.

Lieutenant Colonel James Becker, a battalion commander based at Fort Campbell, Ky., will have about 800 soldiers assigned to him as they make their way overseas for a year-long deployment. Becker’s unit will be in charge of ensuring all logistics and medical support is provided for brigade combat team soldiers located in Regional Command-East in Afghanistan.

Among their responsibilities will be organizing maintenance of equipment which includes radio systems, mine-resistant vehicles, and weapons, as well as medical facilities, and all the supply and transport operations for fuel, food and water in the area, according to Becker.

University of Kentucky graduate, Col. James “Jim” Crider is currently serving as the G3 for the 3rd Infantry Division/Task Force Marne in Northern Iraq. In this, his third tour in Iraq, Col. Crider is planning, resourcing and synchronizing stability operations there. On September 1, 2010 he began primarily training, advising and assisting the Iraqi Security Forces. But his job includes dealing with other issues as well including regional relationships between the Arabs and the Kurds, securing the boarder, providing provincial reconstruction, and protecting American forces.



Currently nearing the end of his third tour, Col. Crider explains that each of his tours has been different. His first tour was with the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division during the initial invasion.

“I was able to witness much of the initial jubilation amongst the Iraqi

Cadet Spotlight

by Robin Roenker

Oluwaseye “Mary” Awoniyi has always known she wanted to be a soldier and a lawyer. Since the age of 12, she’s had her sights set on joining the prestigious ranks of the Army’s elite JAG Corps.

With scholarship support from UK’s Army ROTC program, Awoniyi, 22, is about to begin her second year of law school at UK, forging a direct path toward her dream.

“I’m doing exactly what I want to do. I’m exactly where I want to be,” said Awoniyi, a native of Nigeria who moved with her family to the United States when she was six.

Awoniyi is the first-ever law school Army ROTC cadet at UK. She joked that she’s the program’s “test run.”

Sometimes, there are challenges to being a trailblazer: her law school finals don’t always coincide with the finals of the rest of the

Jason Cummins’ employer gave him a three-year, full-tuition college scholarship, sent him to flight school, paid him to attend one of the most prestigious MBA programs in the country, and asked him to teach economics at West Point. In May, the UK Class of 1993 alum returned to take up the leadership of the UK Army ROTC program; the same program from which he himself graduated 16 years ago.

Cummins’ office walls in Barker Hall display a scrapbook of his Army career: the tail rotor blade from an Apache helicopter, the flag of the 101st Airborne, his MBA diploma from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a cavalry sabre, and unit pictures from Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, Cummins also brought with him a list of ambitious goals for the UK Army ROTC program that is matched only by his seemingly boundless energy.

A Lexington, Ky. native, Cummins followed