Day in the Life of a Richmond ROTC member

Most weekday mornings around 8:30, hundreds of University of Richmond students grumble and groan as they wake up and prepare for their morning classes.

By this time, junior Jordan Furtado will have already woken up, gotten dressed and driven to campus for a 6 a.m. workout. Twice a week, he will then get dressed in his military uniform and sit down in his Military Science and Leadership class, which begins at 8:30 a.m.

Furtado is one of about 30 or Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) members at Richmond who has made similar commitments part of his or her everyday life and part of his or her future.

The military lifestyle had been a constant in Furtado's life before coming to Richmond. Both his father and stepfather are colonels in the Army, but did not push him toward the same life for the sake of following in their footsteps, he said. Furtado had, at various points, wanted to be a doctor, a veterinarian or an environmental engineer, but eventually found his calling in a military career, he said.

Furtado said he thought he had a leg up on his fellow incoming cadets by knowing some military protocol and customs before he had gotten to Richmond, but said that he had not known how much of a commitment the actual ROTC program would be.

He thought that others had the same questions coming to school, and that a typical class would start with around 14 cadets and get whittled down to 10 or so by the third or fourth year, he said.

The reasons for quitting varied from concerns about time commitment to grades to the program not being what was expected, he said, but he thought the most dedicated people were still involved.

"If you care, you get over the fact that it sucks a little bit sometimes," he said.

Despite the rate of attrition and the early-morning time commitment, Furtado said the ROTC program had largely allowed him to maintain a regular lifestyle, something that had attracted him to Richmond over other options.

Furtado said he would have qualified to attend the United States Military Academy, more commonly referred to as West Point, but he chose Richmond because he did not want the military commitment to dominate his entire time in college. He also received a full-tuition scholarship from Richmond.

Cadets are involved in a variety of on-campus activities, including club sports, Greek life, a capella groups and student government, Furtado said. He is a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity and plays on the club rugby team. He said he generally felt as though he had enough time for all of his commitments.

The ROTC requirement has made him a better student, he said.

"You have less down time, and you just don't think about it," he said. "[The Army teaches] certain requirements, such as time management, and you realize that sleep isn't as important as you think it is."

The path to being a third-year cadet does come with an increased time commitment, Furtado said. He said he had felt the responsibility to be a role model to the younger cadets, and his superiors often emailed him asking him to pass along information to the rest of the group.

Furtado stands out, particularly on Tuesdays and Thursdays when he is required to wear his military uniform to classes, but he said that he had not thought that students on campus had treated him any differently because of it.

"Sometimes there is a conception that [cadets] have nothing else going on, almost like we are military nerds," he said.

He quickly added that Richmond was a great campus to have an ROTC program, and that he had not had any negative social confrontations because of it.

"Overall, we have a campus that is very supportive of the military," he said. "I think, in part, because we are a bit less liberal than other campuses."

Looking ahead, Furtado said that there were a variety of options for careers in the military, from having a desk job to being on the ground in combat zones. Infantry is his first choice, he said.

"I'm a junior in college, and I've gotten to jump out of a plane five times and out of a helicopter once," he said. "I love adventure, and the Army is great for that."

Contact reporter Casey Glick at casey.glick@richmond.edu