my purpose of achieving greatness in the Army has changed within the last six months, and they definitely aren’t the reason why I decided to join the Army when I was 18. At 18, I joined ROTC because it offered me money for school, guaranteed me a career after college, and, most importantly, it was a direct connection I would have to my mother. In the beginnings of my army career, these reasons were enough. I showed up to PT everyday, showed up to class twice a week, showed up to labs, and packed rucks and tied my boots tightly for every field training (FTX) we would have; I did all because I was grateful to be on the Army payroll and knew that every time I put on my uniform, my mom was proud of me.
now, the best part of the Army, arguably, is the people. In the days I wanted to quit, the money wasn’t enough—we all eventually realize this after a few months or years, but lucky for me, i found out quickly that i serve and am served by the greatest people this country has to offer. in rotc, i wanted to become a great officer because i wanted to be the best leader to an imaginary platoon i would have in the middle of field training some day in the future. i wanted to be great for the private who needed someone to look up to & for the platoon sergeant i would have one day, hoping he or she trusted my capabilities to lead us and lead us well. being great is in the eye of the beholder, but i knew i wanted people to trust my abilities to make professional risks, serve them well, & be the leader i always wanted to have.
now, delaying my army career by three years, my purpose has evolved. yes, i want to be the best officer i can be to serve my subordinates well, but in delaying my career, it meant my peers will someday be my senior officers/commanders i will serve. my best friends, my classmates, my battle buddies will be captains by the time i enter the army as a butter bar. this takes a while to get used to—while I’m studying for exams & standing in make-believe formations, my friends are bathing in the training rotc prepared them for & putting to good use the knowledge they took years to obtain. it’s no secret that i love my friends who i will one day call sir or ma’am. i am overjoyed and overwhelmed by their existence by love & when i think of them, all i want if for them to succeed.
i think about the army i will enter into, not the army our history books sells us, or the army the news outlets portrays to us, but the army that will be standing in four years. & when i think about that, all i see are MY friends leading americas son’s & daughters into war. the united states army’s purpose is to fight and win americas wars, and my best friends, Brie Sikes, Olivia Litle, Grace Landers, Ascher Spottswood, Ethan Carr, and all the people I met in the seminole battalion and neighboring ROTC programs, will be DIRECTLY responsible for the task at hand. they will not only just lead America's sons & daughters into combat in defense for our nation's freedom, but they are leading me into war. i don't take that task lightly, i am the daughter of a former commander, and, at the end of the day, my job is to come back home to her, safe & sound. it is up to me to prove to her that the army she left behind is in the good hands of my friends and myself. my friends will shape and lead the army for three years before i even step foot into it. now where does my evolvement play into my friend's role in the army? my purpose in becoming the BEST officer i can is because i want to follow my friend's well & i want them to trust that i can, one day, best support them and stand by them professionally and personally. bottom line, i want to help them succeed.
my hope is that the day our nation approaches a war that tests all of america's values, and my best friends become the commanders they were born & trained to be, they can confidently call upon to me to stand right by them as an XO, a PL, or a shoulder to lean on. the army is a human interaction and nothing is more daunting or frustrating than trying to lead men & women in complex times, and i hope i can grant them a sigh of relief when i am there to follow them. i am beyond confident in their ability to lead based on the numerous of trainings we've done together, tough times we've experienced in our personal lives, and the love manifested between all us; i want to be the best follower the army has ever seen because it will be led by the best leaders it has ever seen (i might be bias because my friends ARE the best leaders i've ever seen).
good leaders lead from the front & good friends support you from the sides. in the same way I feel refreshed every time I say a prayer to the Lord, rooting me deeper in my faith, I feel refreshed every time I have an MCD (military development) class. I am refreshed in my purpose of serving when we learn about the values of leadership and the characteristics of war and tough times, i spend all 75-minutes of the class thinking about my friends. i think about how they are about to graduate in less than 450 days and how i am equally as honored to commissioned beside them as i am to commission behind them. my friends are the soldiers i have ever dreamed of and more, despite disappointments and frustrations and thousands of miles apart. i will one day inherit the soldiers my friends have spent their careers shaping, i will inherit the army they have been developing, and i will inherit them as my leaders...& when they do pass these down to me, i will be ready. so please, if you, my dear friends who have or about to embark on your army careers, ever need a soldier, call me. there will not be anyone more loyal to your cause or more grateful to serve alongside you. the money will never be enough to leave home, wake up before the sun, endure physical torture in the preparations of war, and will never be worth the thousands of hours of training we will go through. but, at 18, i already learned all of this, and when it's time to put my head down & work, i am blessed enough to see my friends alongside me.
i will never regret my decision of joining the united states army because my brothers & sisters in arms will be able to tell stories with me that my friends back home will never be able to understand.
with all my love,
♡steff
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