Officially Sworn In

So many of you have read about my struggles with retrieving a contract with the Army ROTC.  It has been a long and hard fought journey.  I started off doing Air Force ROTC in 2006.  I spent two years with them trying to get a scholarship.  I was getting ready for Field Training (30 day evaluation of officership) and I still hadn't gotten the scholarship, so I got out of the program and kept going to school.

My dreams of becoming an officer were a far off memory for a couple years until last summer.  We had just moved to NC and I talked to a friend who really sparked my interest in the program again so I signed up for ROTC my first semester at UNCP (Fall 2011).  I hit the ground running.  My motivation was at 200% and I performed everything to best of my ability last semester.  I started the contracting process in early September.  Lots of bad news came...first was around October, the Army was cutting officer slots for commissionees for the years 2012 through 2015.  My year was 2014 and our contracts got drastically cut.  Our battalion is made up of four universities and there were only 13 possible contracts to be split among 66 potential cadets.  Talk about slim to none.  The next bad news came in December, my medical examination came back as disqualified because of my history of psoriasis.  I thought my chances were done, but my cadre pulled together in February to send out a request to waive my disqualification.

Then the waiting began....the months dragged by as I waiting for the ultimate outcome but I continued to give my all...not just in ROTC but my classes as well.  If the ROTC plan were to fall through, I wanted to make sure I continued to be efficient in my classes striving for As in all my classes.

This past Tuesday, my Captain came to me with the best news ever.  I was going to sign my contract and ASAP.  He wanted me to go up to Battalion right away to sign the paperwork and swear in.  I think my heart literally jumped out of my chest when he told me this lol.

So yesterday, I officially swore my life to the United States Army.  Next week, I get all my paperwork together to start the SMP and from there it's a rap!  Just keep trucking until May 2014.  I can't believe I've come this far.  It seemed like such a long road but in reality time has flown by me.  It was just around this time last year I was telling myself that I had three years until graduation.  I'm coming up to the end of this semester in less than 30 days, then I start my evaluation year for ROTC, next summer I'll be going to LDAC, and then the countdown begins to graduating and commissioning.  Wow how time flies!