This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of covering Northwestern State University’s Army ROTC Commissioning ceremony. NSU joined colleges from across the country as men and women of every race and background “…do solemnly swear that I will defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…” A Commissioning ceremony is a celebration of everything that is right and good about America.
Wednesday’s commissioning recognized a young man who achieved excellence in his collegiate career as well as displaying grit, character and leadership in Army ROTC. Caiden Matthews served NSU as an orientation leader, president of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, senator in NSU student government, and founding member of the Black Male Alliance. He was also a R.F. Lewis Scholar.
In Army ROTC, he earned Air Assault wings, attended Cadet Troop Leader Training and served as cadet battalion commander. While a cadet, Lieutenant Matthews was also a driving force behind the NSU Army ROTC cadet corps’ phenomenal growth over the past few years. Matthews will be commissioned into the quartermaster corps, his first choice, and will serve in the active Army.
The commissioning ceremony and oath are short and simple, a rite of passage as old as America that will continue as long as our Nation endures; each generation taking its place in the hard, dangerous-and necessary-work of our nation’s defense. The oath is to the Constitution, suited to those who would lead an Army protecting a society of free men and women. From Saratoga, through Gettysburg, Belleau Wood, Bastogne, Pusan, the Ia Drang Valley, Mosul, Kandahar and any number of miserable, dangerous places, citizen-soldiers have carried America’s faith and honor against her enemies.
All over America, young men and women such as Lieutenant Matthews will be entrusted with our nation’s most precious resource, the lives of the men and women under their command. It is an awesome and humbling responsibility. No one can see the future. We do not know from whence trouble will come, only that it will. When it does, the finest young men and women this nation has to offer will rise to meet it.
Of the thousands of officers commissioned through ROTC, most will serve as reservists; some will go on full time active duty. Others, like General and Secretary of State Colin Powell, will go on to do great things from a humble beginning. Most will return to civilian life in a few years, their lives enriched by their service. Located in colleges across America, ROTC is a huge force for social mobility.
When I stood during the National Anthem and watched the ceremony, the years melted away. It was once again a fine summer’s day in “…this eighth day of June in the year of our Lord, one thousand nine hundred and eighty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the two-hundred and ninth…” at a small college in Georgia where I was commissioned in the Air Force. The subsequent forty years have been quite an adventure. I have no idea where my college diploma is, but my commissioning certificate is framed and hanging in my den. Godspeed Lieutenant Caiden E. Matthews!
