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Last week, the UK Army ROTC program hosted its 2nd Annual Mentorship Breakfast. The inaugural event celebrated the launch of a new mentorship program within the battalion. The purpose of the program is threefold: ensure academic success for all cadets, develop the future leaders of the United States Army, and improve retention within the corps of cadets. With over 150 in attendance, the breakfast provides a unique opportunity to reach out to UK faculty, community leaders, ROTC alumni, and UK students in order to share leadership experiences, encourage professional discussion, and foster a commitment to life-long learning. This year we were fortunate to have Mr. Bob McDonald, President and CEO of Procter and Gamble, as our keynote speaker. Mr. McDonald delivered a challenging presentation entitled “Values-Based Leadership,”

Brennan Parker

Cadet Spotlight by Jason Kazee

Keep moving forward. Words such as these can get you through daily challenges, lifelong struggles, or even just around the next corner. Though these words are not found in the United States Army Code of Conduct, soldiers and civilians alike can rely on them. Cadet Battalion Commander Brennan Parker depends on them to carry him through whatever may lie ahead.

Parker recently took part in a 12-cadet relay that carried the game ball from Joker Phillips’ hands in Commonwealth Stadium and delivered it to a team from the University of Louisville’s ROTC program. The team ran 46-miles to a town located mid-way between Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. The cadets from the University of Louisville took over from mile 46 and delivered the football to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. Capped off by Brennan delivering the ball

 

Of the record 59 ROTC teams and more than 400 cadets running in the 26th annual Army Ten-Miler on Oct. 24, University of Kentucky came out on top, with an overall time of four hours, 12 minutes and four seconds.

After last year’s Washington D.C.-based run, in which UK's first formal team received fourth place, cadets intensified training and sought improvement.

"We came in with first place on our mind, and that was it," said senior and team captain Ben Skaggs. “We wanted to represent our school well." Times were determined by adding the finishes of each team’s top four members.

Skaggs attributed the team’s success to Lieutenant Colonel Jason Cummins, UK professor of Military Science, who pushed to start the official running group

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, qualities

 

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.

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.

Oluwaseye “Mary” Awoniyi 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