1LT Amy Dodd, U.S. Army

Similar to other military children, trying to answer the question of where I am from is always difficult. My father was an Army Officer therefore I spent the first half of my life moving around. New York, the place I was born, I wouldn’t be able to tell you much of anything about just like the majority of places we lived after. My father retired and my family settled down in Arizona. I ultimately chose this place to call my home because I attended High School and University there so it’s one of the only places I can speak intelligently about.

Up until my senior year of High School I had not considered going into the Military, but the more I looked into it the more it seemed like a viable option for me. I grew up around the Military, so it wouldn’t be a new way of life for me. I asked my father about joining and if he thought it would be a good idea for me to pursue. He wisely advised me that ultimately it would be my decision, but that I should make sure that the commitment was what I really wanted because the military would require a lot of me. My father was a West Point graduate, and recommended I take an ROTC route so I could compare civilian and military roles, he also joked that the most fun he had in college was “roof top tanning”.

With his advice, I joined ROTC at the University of Arizona because it seemed a comfortable fit for me. I never could decide on what I wanted to study in college, and in 2013 I graduated with three majors in Political Science, Russian and Psychology which all didn’t assist in me deciding on what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to help people, and try to be a part of something larger than myself. So the one thing I was certain of when graduating, was that I was going to commission into the Active Duty United States Army, and I still recall to this day when I was informed by my Professor of Military Science that I would be a leader of Air Defenders.

I have now been an Air Defense Artillery Officer for three years at an Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) Battalion – or most people know us as Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortars (CRAM). I love being in an IFPC Battalion because of our mission to defend friendly and coalition forces. My father was right in saying that the military would demand a lot from me, because it has not been without it’s difficult times, after two deployments now, one to Afghanistan and the second to Iraq, the continuous cycle can put strain on anyone’s life. However, hearing the personal stories of those that are protected by our system from enemy rockets makes it all worth the momentary strain.

My most memorial moment of my career so far had to be on my deployment to Afghanistan, I was serving as a Battle Captain at the time in the Engagement Operations Cell, and the Taliban had fired a rocket into our base. My crew and I went through our Battle Drill, and the Land Base Phalanx Weapon System (LPWS) engaged the round and detonated it. This was part of our job – to defend the base from incoming enemy rockets - but in this instance one of my operators informed me that the round was estimated to nd directly into our Battery living quarters. It was a terrifying moment, and we all waited for the call in from the Command Post. We received confirmation that everyone was accounted for and when we got off of shift the Soldiers of the Battery were telling my crew their personal account of hearing the alarms, hearing the LPWS fire, and the explosion of the round being destroyed. It put a more personal twist to all the stories we normally hear, because on that day we knew we protected our family.

That was the reason why I decided to serve. I wanted to be able to help and protect people. In this current field that I am in, that is what our entire mission is, to make sure that our Soldiers and Coalition forces are protected while on base and are able to return home to their families at the end of their tour. While I didn’t know what I wanted to do in College, I couldn’t have found myself in a better position to fulfill what I wanted out of the Army. As a member of the United States Army, I would like to be remembered as a respected, competent and confident leader. I also want to show that you may not know where you are going, or what you want, but you can always find satisfaction in putting in the effort to complete your goal at hand and you’ll ultimately find yourself exactly where you need to be.