Cadet joins to continue family legacy

Army News Service

FORT KNOX, Kentucky - As the cadets moved from learning how to put on the gas mask to the gas chamber and then to leadership scenarios during first aid scenarios, one cadet remembered lessons her father taught her.

Cadet Rebecca Karis is fifth-generation Army. She said she grew up learning followership and leadership from her father, a retired lieutenant colonel who served 22 years in the Army and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Family of Service

Growing up as a military child, Karis said she always felt pride in the military.

"There's a sense of pride in serving my country and being part of something that's bigger than me," she said. "I wanted to serve my nation and keep the legacy going with my family."

She said her family has served in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

"I feel a lot of pride in what my family has done and what they represent," Karis said. "I look up to them and aspire to be the leaders they are."

She said growing up, her father's Soldiers always showed him a lot of respect.

"I want to embody that," she said passionately. "I want to try to be the leader my dad's been in my life as a father and the leader he was to his Soldiers."

Karis said she grew up hearing stories from her grandfather, who served in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot.

"He's got some pretty crazy stories," she said. "We'll be sitting around the dinner table, and they'll just be talking about people. I'll go look them up on the Internet. Wow, they've met that person. They're so humble about their experiences. I want to be like them."

Leadership training

Karis, a senior at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, is pursuing a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. She's attending the Cadet Summer Training, or CST, the largest annual training event in the Army at Fort Knox.

More than 8,000 Army ROTC cadets from across the country routinely attend Army ROTC basic or advanced camp training every summer at Fort Knox. Up to 2,000 additional cadets attend Cadet Professional Development Training, or CPDT, which includes internships, Army nurse clinical training, advanced military training and Cadet Troop Leader Training.

She said she's like a sponge for every tip her father gives her.

"He said, 'You're going to be a leader. You're going to accept everything your platoon doesn't do and everything your platoon does do,'" Karis said. "He told me to take care of my Soldiers, and they will take care of you in return. He told me to check in on them, even the small details because those small things add up. They aren't just a number. They're people in a platoon or company. They make the mission happen. Take care of them."

She said she's learned a lot here at CST as well.

"I had a few events where I could've done better, and I could've thrown myself a pity party but instead, I took the constructive criticism, talked to the experts, learned from the experience," Karis said. "This is a learning environment. We're learning to be leaders."

Karis captains the women's soccer team at her college and captained her high school team as well. She said being an athlete and leading her sports team gave her skill sets but working with predominately male teams at CST was a new challenge.

"Women aren't the majority here but we're in the field. Here's the mission, we're going to complete this raid. I'm going to move my people to get them to successfully meet this objective," she said. "It's still game plans, managing people, not overly complicating it."

She said the key is keeping it simple, working with the doctrine and the noncommissioned officer to take care of the mission and the people.

Grandfather's footsteps

Karis said she hopes to follow her grandfather's footsteps and be assigned to branch aviation so she can provide medical services.

"Both my grandpa and my great grandpas flew," she said proudly. "I want to help people. I want to take care of the people who are eliminating the enemy. I want them to be able to go home to their kids and their partners."

Karis said no matter where she gets assigned, she knows she'll learn from her enlisted leadership.

"I'm going to get to my first unit, and I know I'm going to mess up and learn from it. I'm going to be better each day, thanks to help from the knowledge I learn from my warrant officers and enlisted leadership," she said. "If you don't have enlisted, you don't have a platoon. I don't have people to help me complete my mission."

She said training commands like Cadet Command are essential.

"It helps me develop and learn to lead," Karis said. "We have a great cadre. They take great care of us. They're constantly checking up on us. They've been great people to look up to and aspire to be like. This is a good place to learn, develop, fail, make mistakes and come out as a better leader. It's been a great training experience."

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