Learn How People Have Gained from ROTC

CPT Saepyol C. Warren / Class of 2002

Chemical Officer - Pusan, Korea

How has ROTC prepared me for a successful Army career?

UP’s ROTC program offers top-notch training for the commissioning officer and an invaluable experience for the college adventurer. ROTC’s dedicated cadre coach and mentor you every step of the way, equipping you with the fundamentals, developing your leadership skills, and personally encouraging you through the challenges. The curriculum effectively shapes leaders by requiring mental toughness, teamwork, dedication, and proficiency—setting you up for success in today’s rigorous Army.

ROTC is full of unique opportunities: Warrior Forge, a basic training-like experience with cadets from all over the world; parachutist training and helicopter rappelling; Ranger Challenge, a regional physical fitness and teamwork competition; first-hand training with an Active Duty unit; and plenty more. The relationships you develop in ROTC will often last throughout your career, as you cross paths and appreciate how diverse, yet similar your experiences are. And lastly, you will never regret learning and taking ownership of the core Army Values--Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage—which forge character and bring triumph to any endeavor, be it in service to country or otherwise.

3 University of Portland ROTC nurses

Astin Mills, Theresa Nowak and Alicia Bolster

It doesn’t take much time in military service before you realize it’s a small military.  You’re bound to run into people you know all the time, and over and over again.  Sometimes knowing this doesn’t make any difference – it’s still a surprise!  When three students from the University of Portland School of Nursing and ROTC programs showed up at the same place, same time, and all for a program called C4, it was a pleasant surprise indeed! 

Astin Mills (formerly Bush) graduated from U of P in 2004.  She has spent 2 years at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, AK as a clinical nurse in med-surg and day-surgery settings.  She was just assigned to a mobility position for an upcoming deployment.  In preparation for this deployment, a coveted slot to attend C4 training became not only desirable, but necessary.

Theresa Nowak (formerly Dries) graduated from U of P in 2005.  After finishing OBC  (Officer’s Basic Course), she married Bryan Nowak (also of UP….oh by the way is a cousin to Astin Mills…I told you it was a small military!).  Theresa joined him on the Island of Oahu where she works as a postpartum nurse at Tripler.  Attending C4 is an important part of her pre-deployment training.

Alicia Bolster graduated from U of P just this year, and completed OBC immediately prior to this C4 class.  Unlike others who must wait longer for their opportunity to attend C4, she went from one to the next without much break.  She is heading to “somewhere in Korea” where she will begin her Army nursing career.

We joined a total of 103 medical personnel from the Army, Navy, and Air Force in some training held at Camp Bullis – an Army Encampment outside of San Antonio, Texas.  This course is named C4 – Combat Casualty Care Course. 

In a nutshell, C4 taught us the difference between hospital and combat trauma situations.  We “humped rucks” for 3 days in the field, forgoing showers and other creature comforts.  We endured simulated combat scenarios – complete with live gunfire (blanks) and realistic mannequins to whom we provided medical care and secured a Casevac (casualty evacuation) via radio communication.  We hiked around in MOPP 4 chemical gear at the height of a hot Texas afternoon, attacked a hill with tactical prowness, rescued downed pilots amidst gunfire and bombing from speakers hidden in trees.  We inserted chest tubes, and intraosseous infusion devices.  We discussed the best kinds of materials, devices, and products to form occlusive dressings, tourniquets, and bandages in a combat setting.  Through it all – we were guided and taught by the Navy Corpsmen, Airmen, and Army Medics who provided their fresh on-the-ground experience, pictures, and stories from their recent deployments. 

C4 is an important foundation – it provides us with a training and perspective that will guide us in our future deployment experiences as medical personnel.  The current environment is more “joint” than it has ever been – Army, Navy, and Air Force medics are working side by side in interlocking systems of providing care.  So maybe it isn’t so random that 3 U of P ROTC nurses found themselves at C4 together.  And maybe this won’t be the last time that we run into each other.

1LT Amanda Straub

Class of 2004

As a graduate of the University of Portland’s ROTC program, Class of 2004, I would like to take a moment to tell you what I’ve been up to since I graduated and how my ROTC training has affected my career so far.

The University of Portland has a consistently outstanding ROTC program and placed many students from my year group and the three years before me in the top third of cadets ranked nationally. We heard it all the time, but I didn’t begin believing it until I started meeting my peers on a national level.

When I attended LDAC I received the highest scores for tactical training problems in my platoon. I was one of two people in my platoon who could tie a Swiss seat and my platoon was one of the only groups to complete the initial rope bridge challenge during team building exercises because the other cadet and myself were able to help the rest of the group get through it. It may sound like a very small accomplishment, but it established me early in the camp as someone who knew what she was doing. Many of my fellow cadets came to me for help when planning tactical missions after that and when it was my turn to be in charge, I had no problem getting people to follow me.

After commissioning I joined the ranks as a transportation platoon leader in a National Guard unit in Portland. I will never forget the first time my commander asked me to plan something and I asked her if she wanted an OPORDER. She was totally shocked that a newly commissioned Lieutenant who had not attended OBC knew how to write an OPORDER. There are many things I learned at the University of Portland that my peers simply did not get as cadets. The Military Decision Making Process for example, is not normally taught until your Captain’s Career Course. Style’s of Leadership are also not taught at some schools and many schools do not go into depth on tactical training, supply requests and inventory, OERs and NCOERs, finance inquiries, convoy planning or maintenance tracking. No matter what branch you go into, I guarantee, as a Platoon Leader, you will need to know something about all of these procedures in order to properly care for and maintain your Soldiers and your equipment.

I attended AG OBC in the fall of 2005. Again, I excelled in tactical situations and often helped my peers plan and execute their own missions and briefings. I was surprised to learn that most of my peers, unless they were prior enlisted, still did not know how to process or create OERs and NCOERs. Because we were AG officers, we received in depth training in these areas, but I have learned since that some officers never fully understand the evaluation system or utilize it correctly. As personnel officers, none of my peers expected to see combat, until one AG Lieutenant wrote our advisor a letter about an ambush he survived while convoying in Iraq to take care of personnel issues. He said he had to fall back on the skills he learned in ROTC to keep himself and his convoy alive and he urged us to keep our tactical skills sharp.

In today’s dynamic battlefield, there is no “rear.” You can be a nurse, personnel officer, maintenance officer, anything, and be subject to attack anytime you move. And you will have to move. I took this philosophy back to my platoon as we prepared for deployment to Afghanistan. As a transportation platoon, they had a pretty bad attitude about learning and refreshing their infantry skills. Until I explained to them that they were only truck drivers until their vehicles broke down or got blown up. Then, they’re infantry. Now I am not an infantry officer and I never attended IOBC, but I reached back to the skills and knowledge I learned in ROTC and created tactical training to prepare my platoon. Many of them have been in the Army for 15+ years and hadn’t used their infantry skills since Basic Training. I taught them slowly, utilizing the crawl, walk, run philosophy and creating hands-on training scenarios for them to run through whenever we had a spare moment at our mobilization site. Once again, my peers sought my help when planning and executing their own missions and asked if their Soldiers could merge with my platoon for training. When we came to the end of our prep period we received high scores from our mobile training team OCs on our final training scenarios. Two of them pulled me aside and complimented me on my platoon’s performance, my tactical knowledge and my leadership. During an AAR one of the OCs evaluating me said in front of everybody, “That was a sexy plan!” That’s my favorite compliment so far.

Shortly before our deployment I was reassigned as a Task Force Public Affairs Officer. I am a journalist, so it made since, but I was very sad to leave my platoon, and they were sad to lose me. But I felt confident that I had built a strong team with strong tactical knowledge that they could fall back on in any situation. I still see the Soldiers from my platoon often and they tell me all the time how they use the things I taught them. They are often surprised by the carelessness, complacency and lack of knowledge of some of the infantry Soldiers they roll with on convoys. I have every confidence that they could pull their own security and hold their own in a messy situation, and so do they. They have encountered small-arms fire, IEDs and RPGs and thankfully, they have all come through all right.

As a Public Affairs Officer, I have the opportunity to travel a lot, by air and convoy. Another skill I picked up at the University of Portland kicks in as I bounce from unit to unit writing and photographing their work. Listen to your NCOs. I have been in several situations where I am the ranking person, but I know enough to keep my mouth shut and follow instructions from the person in charge of the mission, regardless of their rank. Too many chiefs with big heads and big egos cause problems. Thankfully I have not been in contact yet. Sometimes by the skin of my teeth, a mere second. I hope I will never need to rely on my tactical skills in a real-world situation, but if I do, I know I will be ready.

You can not rely on meeting other people down the road who will give you the knowledge you need to perform your job. You can’t wait to pick up knowledge as you advance because you never know when you will need it. You can not assume that your Soldiers will already have the knowledge they need to perform their jobs in a combat environment. You need to seek knowledge, training and mentorship on your own to develop your skills and pass them along to your Soldiers. Pay attention to the things you learn early in your career, in ROTC. Take it seriously, internalize it and make it a part of your instinct and share your knowledge with those around you. It is the best way to ensure that you, and the Soldiers around you, succeed and stay alive.

Best of luck to all of you in your careers and in life!

Eric E. Hungerford

Lieutenant Colonel, Military Intelligence - United States Army Reserve

Lieutenant Colonel Hungerford was born on June 1, 1954 in Milwaukie, Oregon

• Volunteered for the United States Army in 1975

• Graduate of Clackamas Community College, AA Music/History, Portland State University, BS Marketing, and New York Regent's College, BA Science

• Attained the rank of Staff Sergeant before being commissioned from OCS in 1982.

Lieutenant Colonel Hungerford’s military education includes

• Defense Language Institute (Russian)

• PLDC (Primary Leadership Development Course)

• OCS (Office Candidate School)

• Infantry Officer Basic Course

• Airborne School

• Electronic Warfare School

• Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course

• Combined Arms and Services Staff School

• Combined General Staff Course

• Defense Intelligence Agency Counterterrorism School.

Lieutenant Colonel Hungerford's assignments have included duties as:

• Analyst at the Army Security Agency Field Station Augsburg (Germany)

• Administrative Assistant 3745th USAR School Munich (Germany)

• Platoon Leader 20th Psychological Operations Co USAR, Portland, OR

• Executive Officer of HHC 2nd Bde, 2nd ID (Korea)

• Rifle Platoon Leader C Co, 2/16 IN BN, 1st IN (Mech)

• Intelligence Officer 2/16 IN BN and Chief ASPS G2 1st ID (Mech)

• Commander HHC INSCOM Field Station Sinop (Turkey)

• G2 Operations Officer 4ID (Mech)

• Assistant S3 104 MI BN, 4ID (Mech)

• Intelligence Officer Division Artillery, 4th Infantry Division (Mech)

• Strategic Analyst 405th Military Intelligence Detachment (Strategic) USAR, Denver CO

• Reserve Production Officer Joint analysis Center USEUCOM, RAF Molesworth, UK

• Counter Drug Military Analyst for the FBI Albuquerque, NM, for the DEA, Denver, CO, and for the FBI Portland, OR

• Deputy Collection Manager USEUCOM, RAF Molesworth, UK

• Deputy Counter Terrorism Division, USPACOM, Pearl Harbor, HI

• Team Chief Former Regime Elements, Counter Insurgency, USCENTCOM, Baghdad, Iraq.

Lieutenant Colonel Hungerford's decorations and badges include

• Joint Meritorious Service Medal

• Meritorious Service Medal

• Joint Service Commendation Medal

• Army Commendation Medal (3rd OLC)

• Joint Service Achievement Medal

• Army Achievement Medal (2 OLC)

• Joint Meritorious Unit Award (2nd Award)

• Good Conduct Medal, Army Reserve Components Achievement Medal (4th Award)

• National Defense Service Medal (2nd Award)

• South West Asia Service Medal (1 Service Star)

• Korea Defense Service Medal

• Global War On Terrorism Expeditionary Medal

• Global War On Terrorism Service Medal

• Armed Forces Reserve Medal with 10 year device and M device (2nd Award)

• NCO Professional Development Ribbon

• Army Service Ribbon

• Army Overseas Service Ribbon (3rd Award)

• Army Reserve Components Overseas Training Ribbon (6th Award)

• Army Parachute Badge

• Expert Marksmanship Badge (Rifle, Pistol)

• German Armed Forces Proficiency Badge (Gold)

• German Army Marksmanship Badge (Bronze)

He is a recipient of the Knowlton Award from the Military Intelligence Corps Association and member of the Artillery Honor Society, Honorable Order of Saint Barbara.

Lieutenant Colonel Hungerford and his wife, Diane, have four children: Sarah, Ryan, Christian, and Elise.  They have retired to Silverton, Oregon.

LTC Mike Ascura

Class of 1988

Lieutenant Colonel Mike Ascura is a native of Guam.  He received his commission into the Field Artillery from the Reserve Officer Training Corps Program at Portland State University in 1988.  His operational assignments as a Field Artillery Officer include Company Fire Support Officer, 2nd Battalion, 218th Field Artillery (105 T, ORARNG); Firing Platoon Leader and Battery Executive Officer, 1st Battalion, 27th Field Artillery (MLRS) in Babenhausen, Germany; Assistant Battalion Operations Officer, 4th Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery (155 SP) at Fort Polk, LA; Observer Controller, Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, LA; Chief, Operations Cell, Office of the Commanding General, Fort Polk, LA; and Battery Commander, Charlie Battery, 2nd Battalion 80th Field Artillery (13F AIT), Fort Sill, OK.

His acquisition assignments include Combat Developer for the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS) in the US Army Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, OK; Test Officer, Operational Test Command at Fort Hood, TX, where he served as the Test Officer for the Joint Contingency Force Army Warfighting Experiment (JCF-AWE) where he received the Military Operational Tester of the Year Award; Assistant Product Manager, Towed Artillery Digitization (TAD) at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ; Senior Project Officer,

TRADOC System Manager – Army Battle Command System at Fort Leavenworth, KS; Assistant Director of the Test Facility for the Command and Control Battle Communications System (C2BMCS) and Program Manager, Ballistic Missile Defense System Simulation (BMDS SIM) for the Missile Defense Agency at the Joint National Integration Center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Lieutenant Colonel Ascura is currently the Product Manager for Crew Served Weapons at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ.

Lieutenant Colonel Ascura received a Bachelor of Science Degree from Portland State University, and a Masters in Business Administration from City University in Bellevue, Washington.

His military education includes the Field Artillery Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) Cadre Course, Combined Arms Services Staff School, Material Acquisition Management Course, Command and General Staff College, and the Program Manager’s Course.

His award and decorations include the Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal (4 OLC), Joint Commendation Medal, Army Commendation Medal (2 OLC), Army Achievement Medal (2 OLC), National Defense Service Medal (2 Bronze Stars), Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Military Outstanding Volunteer Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal, Southwest Asia Service Medal, Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait), Army Superior Unit Award, and the Joint Staff Identification Badge.

Lieutenant Colonel Ascura is married to the former Lisa Ann Harwood of Oregon City, Oregon.  They have five children: Austin, Braden, Carissa, Desiree, and Elise.

CPT Cameron R. Wilson

Recruiting Operations Officer

Captain, Aviation - United States Army

Captain Wilson was born on April 23, 1977 in Portland, Oregon

Volunteered for the United States Navy in 1995

Graduate of University of Portland, BA History

Graduate of Norwich University, MA International Diplomacy and Conflict Management

Captain Wilson's military education includes:

• Initial Entry Rotary Wing Aviator Course
• Aviation Officer Basic Course

• Electronic Warfare Officer Course
• Warfare Officer Course
• UH-60 Advanced Aircraft Qualification Course
• Military Intelligence Officer Tactician Course
• Military Intelligence Officer Advanced Course

Captain Wilson's assignments have included:

• Flight Operations Officer 377th Medical Company (Air Ambulance), Camp Humphreys, South Korea

• Executive Officer C Company 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii and Task Force Pirate, Operation Enduring Freedom V, Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan

• Platoon Leader C Company 2nd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii and Task Force Pirate, Operation Enduring Freedom V, Bagram Airbase, Afghanistan

• Company Commander B Company, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Training Battalion, Ft. Huachuca, Arizona

Captain Wilson's decorations and badges include:

• Air Medal
• Army Commendation Medal (2 OLC)
• Army Achievement Medal (2 OLC)
• National Defense Service Medal (2nd Award)
• Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal
• Global War on Terrorism Service Medal
• Korea Defense Service Medal
• Army Service Ribbon
• Army Overseas Service Ribbon
• Army Aviator Badge

Captain Wilson and his wife, Kelli, have one child: Sydney.  They currently reside in Sierra Vista, Arizona.