Photo By Spc. Cami M Carber | LSU ROTC Cadet Kyle Galloway of Baton Rouge is centered between fellow ROTC cadets at...... read more read more
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By Spc. Cami M Carber
415th Military Intelligence Unit Public Affairs Representative
CARVILLE, La. – When Kyle Galloway walked onto the campus at Tulane University with a full scholarship, he never dreamt Hurricane Katrina would give him the opportunity to attend Princeton, realize his destiny, and get paid for an education and career in the Army National Guard.
Army ROTC Cadet Galloway is a now a junior majoring in civil engineering on a three-year Dedicated Army National Guard Scholarship at Louisiana State University. He is now on his fourth semester at Louisiana State University and works as a student research assistant for Professor Hassan Mashriqui at the LSU Agricultural Center where they do storm search modeling. "I'm actually a huge fan of Dr. Mashriqui, he is a great guy to work for," Galloway said. "Not long ago, there was a huge cyclone in Bangladesh, where he is from, and as soon as he found out he just stopped everything and started storm modeling it. I don't think he will ever admit it, but he has saved thousands of lives and that has truly inspired me."
Galloway joined the ROTC program at LSU and is learning how to become an officer. He will dedicate at least eight years of service to the Louisiana National Guard upon graduation. Currently, he also trains with the 922nd Heavy Engineer Horizontal Construction Company under the 769th Engineer Battalion as a heavy equipment operator.
When Galloway originally arrived to accept his scholarship at Tulane, he spent only one day on campus. He was then forced to evacuate due to Hurricane Katrina. "I moved into my room at Tulane and ended up having to evacuate all on the same day. The university told us that Katrina was in the Gulf so I basically had to put all of my stuff down and leave," Galloway explained.
While staying with his cousins in Lafayette after being evacuated, Galloway watched the news as New Orleans was being shriveled up into ruins. "Once it became clear that the city of New Orleans was completely damaged and under water, it was obvious that Tulane was not going to be re-opening for a while. "I pretty much told myself that I needed to start deciding what I was going to do for that semester," said Galloway.
Throughout Galloway's search for a new college, Tulane's administration announced that they had negotiated with universities all around the country and had convinced them to let their students attend for free, as long as the tuition of Tulane was being met. "Since I had a full ride at Tulane, I didn't have to pay my tuition and since I was given the opportunity to attend any college of my choice, I decided to go to Princeton University, one of the best schools out there," Galloway exclaimed.
Because Galloway was already on the waiting list for previously applying to Princeton during high school, Princeton pulled up his records and allowed Galloway to start school only two years later. While enjoying his semester at Princeton, Galloway received a phone call from Tulane stating that due to the storm and financial hardships, most of their engineering programs were being dropped.
"I ended up going back to Tulane for one more semester, after I attended Princeton, because even though Tulane had dropped my major, they did not drop it all at once. It was then, being back in New Orleans, that I actually got to see all of the damage from Katrina," Galloway said.
"I decided right then that my purpose in life was to do flood control and I became really passionate about it. I knew that LSU had an amazing program for civil engineering so I just took the next step and applied there."
Now that Galloway had decided that he wanted to finish going to college at LSU, financially, it became an issue. Since his degree from Tulane had been eliminated, Galloway now needed a new way to pay for school. "I was trying to consider all of my options when a recruiter at LSU told me about the ROTC program," he said. "I applied for it and now have a three-year dedicated guard scholarship which pays for my full tuition and LSU provides me, and all scholarship winners, with free room and board." Additionally, Galloway gets paid for weekend Guard drills and for being an active member of the ROTC program.
"Basically, my dream job would be to join the Army Corps of Engineers because I want to do flood control management and they have the most power in that field. I also would love to get a map of southeast Louisiana and see what we need to do to make us hurricane and flood/ proof," he said. Although he had his future all figured out in his mind, life and experiences changed that and led him to where he is now. "I knew that I wanted to go National Guard because I have specific goals that I would like to achieve in my future civilian career and the Guard and the ROTC department can definitely help me achieve those goals.
Cadet Galloway is attending the first phase of officer's training development this summer at Fort Lewis, Wash. He will graduate LSU in 2009 and states that he has the National Guard and ROTC department to thank for it. "I would recommend the National Guard to anyone, especially high school students," he explains. "Because not only is it a great way to pay for college, but you establish camaraderie and it's the best training that you can get in America to help you achieve your goals."
| Date Taken: | 06.27.2008 |
| Date Posted: | 07.01.2008 11:15 |
| Story ID: | 21053 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 227 |
| Downloads: | 142 |
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