University’s ROTC units did “magnificent job” on Run for Freedom

This was such a meaningful way to pay tribute to our fallen heroes and provide for their children’s college educations. The ROTC units did a magnificent job in both the logistical and emotional support behind this community project. They should be proud of the message they sent around the globe!

I am grateful that First Command Financial Planning was allowed to participate in a small way. We were all very honored to run for those that have been killed, and their families. We, like Old Dominion University, appreciate and are thankful for the freedoms we enjoy, as those that wear the cloth of the nation serve and protect our way of life. Norfolk and Hampton Roads understand this more than most, but the Run for Freedom showed the world how we feel! Thank you.

– Jeffrey S. Geraci

A Navy ensign and a division officer in his ship’s combat information center, Fuller was an Honors College student and a member of the ODU Blue and Gold Society, which included a term as president. He received the USAA Spirit Award and the Bob Walker Excellence Award.

He was a member of Volunteers for Special Engineering, the Society of Naval Engineers and the Golden Key National Honor Society, and served as an engineering ambassador.

The Kaufman Prize, which carries with it a $10,000 award, was established by Landmark Communications Inc. to acknowledge graduating seniors who have exerted exceptional and constructive influence on the university, its students or the community by demonstrating the highest qualities of leadership and service.

Kimberly Tansey of Norfolk, a May graduate with a degree in physical education/exercise science, won the second-place Kaufman award, which includes a cash prize of $2,000. Tansey’s many activities included serving as president of the Student Ambassadors. She plans to pursue a doctorate in physical therapy at ODU

Army, Navy ROTC leaders are not your average cadets
Student leaders who are charged with molding the next generation of Army and Navy officers find that it takes a firm hand, an agile mind and an even-handed temperament.

“You don’t have the leverage you do in a military setting where, if someone doesn’t do the work you can take their pay,” said Lt. Col. Barry R. Hendricks, professor of military science and director of ODU’s Army ROTC program. “Trying to motivate your peers – your classmates – is not easy. You need to counsel and develop a leadership style.”

Commanding respect and leading by example may come easier for this year’s Army and Navy ROTC cadet battalion commanders, however. Wallie Lacks and Elizabeth Sokolowich are not your typical ROTC leaders. Both seniors, they already have several years of military service to their credit, a background not often found in student commanders.

At age 31, the father of a 16-month-old daughter, veteran of deployments in Bosnia, Albania, Zaire (now the Congo), Kosovo and Iraq, as well as having served in the personal presidential helicopter service with Marine One for Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, Lacks certainly is a positive role model for his 130 Army ROTC charges.

A criminal justice major, he maintains a 3.91 GPA, is fit at a level that only comes from rigid self-discipline and expects nothing less from those he leads.

“It’s very much like being a good parent or older brother. I tell them if I can do it at 31 and they’re just 20 or 21, that makes them change their attitude and step up,” Lacks said.

The son of a Marine who “placed the military above family,” he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1993, just after graduating from Poquoson High School.

Recalling his own frame of mind at the time of his enlistment, Lacks said, “I was rambunctious, an idiot, I needed a turn-around and after 13-weeks at Paris Island I saw the light!”

Drawing from that experience he said of his current assignment, “I don’t micromanage them. I put them in charge, in positions of responsibility because I know when I was coming up, being micromanaged drove me crazy.”

Says Hendricks, “He’s not your average college student. He brings experience in here. With that experience comes a respect that is its own leverage.”

Lacks, however, prefers to downplay his military background in favor of his current day-to-day leadership. “Talk the talk and walk the walk is what it’s all about. Show them what you are doing every day to be the best.”

Sokolowich, also 31 and a biological sciences major, takes a similar approach to the 260 Navy cadets in her charge.

“We have a lot of opportunities for them to take leadership roles,” she explained. “I don’t always know the 100 percent right thing to do, but I can see giving people the added responsibility helps them to step up.”

Capt. John A. Brown, professor of naval science and head of ODU’s Navy ROTC program, is certainly happy to have cadets such as Sokolowich under his command. He employs the strategy of pairing “straight stick” midshipmen, those fresh out of high school, with more mature cadets like Sokolowich who are part of the Seaman to Admiral program.

“That is absolutely a great tool for us,” Brown said. “Midshipmen are more likely to turn to them more easily for advice and guidance. Also, it’s an important mentoring role for our officer candidates to take on.”

A former Navy nuclear enlisted person, Sokolowich is also married to a Navy “nuke” currently deployed aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt and has a 16-year-old step-daughter to raise while attending classes and leading cadets.

Both Lacks, with eight years of military service, and Sokolowich with 10 years in the Navy, say they can still relate to their fellow students’ concerns by recalling their own military career tracks.

In Lacks’ case it was the offering of deployment that kept him focused on his decision to pursue a military career.

“Somebody says deployment and I’m there – let’s go. Of course I’ve always being in the wrong place too many times – Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Iraq.”

Sokolowich said that while she was “an attitude problem” in her early years, she rarely had a moment’s doubt about remaining in the military. “I knew it was my life from the first day. Still, that fourth year was the rough one, where you thought, ‘Maybe I am done.’ It’s not always easy.”

She said she found her heart’s desire as a nuclear training instructor before enrolling at Old Dominion. “I loved that. I would do that every day for the rest of my life.”

Seven Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) units and 13 commands and activities from throughout the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) organization have been named to the NETC 4th quarter Honor Roll for Retention Excellence.

Voss a August 2005 Alum:

dead behind the wheel of a parked car Monday morning.

News was stationed aboard the Elrod, according to police.

block of Thimble Shoals Blvd. in Newport News.

© May 3, 2007

NORFOLK - The Navy officer found shot to death early Monday in Newport News "excelled" and "was just driven to get back to the fleet" when he was commissioned two years ago, according to the commander of the ROTC program at Old Dominion University.
Ensign Cory Allen Voss, 30, spent about nine years as an enlisted sailor when he was picked in 2003 for the "seaman to admiral" program initiated by then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda.
With prior college courses, Voss completed the three-year program and was commissioned as an ensign in just two years, Cmdr. Jared Keys said Wednesday.

Fellow officer candidates reminisced about Voss, who was discovered in his truck on a secluded street nearly 3 miles from his house, as word spread of his death.

Reach Jack Dorsey at (757) 446-2284 or jack.dorsey@pilotonline.com.

ODU’s Military Student Union will sponsor a “Walk to Remember” April 21 to honor service members who lost their lives in operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom.

Annual awards recognizing superior leadership, academic and military excellence and physical fitness skills will be presented to the students by representatives of military, civic and service organizations.

President Roseann Runte, Tidewater Community College President Deborah DiCroce, Norfolk State University President Carolyn Meyers and Capt. Kelly Baragar, commanding officer of the Hampton Roads Naval ROTC, gathered last month on campus to sign a memorandum of agreement between the Hampton Roads NROTC unit and TCC, adding to the Navy’s first multi-institutional national NROTC consortium.

By Mark O. Piggott

COMNAVSUBFOR

Public Affairs Office

Cmdr. Jimmie L. Miller ’90 has come a long way from the streets of Paterson, N.J. An electrical engineering technology graduate and the first African American to successfully complete the “nuclear power pipeline” from Old Dominion’s NROTC unit, Miller last June received the 2005 Frederick B. Warder Award for outstanding achievement from the Naval Submarine League.
The award recognizes a specific action, contribution or continuing performance which most positively influenced the reputation, readiness or future well-being of the submarine force.

Miller, 42, was honored for his actions as executive officer aboard the ballistic missile submarine USS Rhode Island from July 2003 to February 2005. He is currently assigned to N811 Assessment on the staff of Commander, Naval Submarine Forces, U.S. Atlantic Fleet in Norfolk.

Miller took his experience of surviving in a tough neighborhood and turned it into a lifelong career. “I grew up in the projects of Paterson, N.J., which was probably the toughest area in a very tough city,” he said.

While seeing to the day-to-day affairs of the submarine, Miller, an ordained Methodist minister, was traveling two hours every Sunday to Gainesville, Fla., to minister at the Zion Temple A.M.E. Zion Church.