BUIES CREEK, North Carolina – Father and son. Father and daughter. Mother and son. Brother and sister. Brother and brother. Husbands and wives. Future husbands and wives. Friday morning’s Campbell University ROTC commissioning service was a family affair, more so than other ceremonies the nationally recognized program has hosted over the past 45 years. Fourteen cadets were sworn in and saluted as second lieutenants in a service marked by laughs, hugs and tears. Lots of tears.
Much of that emotion came from brothers sharing the stage — Travis Chambers and his younger brother Sha’Kor Chambers. The Statesville natives were introduced and given their oaths by their former JROTC instructor from high school, LTC. Frank Gammon. Gammon recalled having to turn away a younger Sha’Kor when he first tried to join the junior program.
“I had to, because he was only in middle school,” Gammon said. “Everything his big brother did, he wanted to do. They were inseparable. Only graduation and the U.S. Army could push them apart. And now the U.S. Army has brought them back together again.”
Sha’Kor said it was Gammon who encouraged him to go to college rather than enlist out of high school. It was Gammon, he said, who encouraged him to apply just before the deadline passed.
“He saw in me then what I’ve become in the last four years,” he said. “I’ve found myself in these last four years. This experience has been extremely valuable.”
Brig. Gen. John Byrd, the service’s keynote speaker, said he knew all too well the emotions the Chambers brothers were feeling Friday. Byrd joined the Army alongside his twin brother, James, and said the two regularly confused soldiers, as well as commanding officers. He recalled his own commissioning at Campbell in 1984 and said his father delivered the oath for both him and his brother that day.
Today, Byrd is the assistant adjutant general for the North Carolina Army National Guard, serving as principal advisor and assistant to the adjutant general and responsible policies and directives between the National Guard, the state and military. He encouraged the 14 new officers to look to their commanding officers as mentors and to build on the leadership skills they learned at Campbell.
“We willingly sacrifice ourselves for others, but often in the civilian world, they sacrifice others for themselves,” he said. “Why is it that great leaders make you feel safe? Because they work to build your trust.”
Psychology graduate Ariel Ayala talked about his long road to graduation, which included a two-year hiatus from school to serve. He announced during his “thank yous” that he was getting married to his fiancé, Josselyn Williams, after the ceremony.
Miriam Firth, the third child in her family to enter the military, was sworn in by one of her older brothers and pinned by the other. Paige Hawkins was sworn in by her father, a Campbell graduate commissioned in 1978, who remembered watching Paige play at the fountain in front of Marshbanks while he served as PMS of the ROTC program then. Christopher Joe’s father, Joseph, flew 14 hours from his station in South Korea to watch his son become a second lieutenant.
The new officers will take their oaths again in an abbreviated ceremony at Saturday’s main commencement in the Pope Convocation Center. ROTC cadets are commissioned upon completion of the Campbell Battalion’s Advanced Course and successful graduation from the University. Their commissioning as a U.S. Army officer begins their career in either the active Army or Reserve/National Guard.
— by Billy Liggett