FORT HUACHUCA — Melissa Anderson is a cadet staff sergeant and squad leader in the Wildcat Battalion of the University of Arizona’s Army Reserve Officer Training Corps Program.
Unlike many of the cadets in the battalion, she has to drive from Fort Huachuca to Tucson, three days a week — Monday, Wednesday and Friday — to take part in ROTC events. Those three days a week involve getting up at 3 a.m.
“My husband gets up the same time and we have breakfast together,” she said.
Her husband, Jared, is an Army staff sergeant assigned to the 309th Military Intelligence Battalion, where he is a interrogator instructor.
At 4:15 a.m. she is out the door for the drive to the UA campus, arriving around 5:30 a.m., in time for the hour-long physical training that starts at 6 a.m.
Between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. she does her college homework, as she works on her degree in political science. At 10 a.m. she attends an ROTC class.
Preparing for classes during those hours gives her more time with her four children, Elizabeth, 4; Magdalyne, 3; Samuel, 2; and Arabella, 7 months, when she’s home.
Hailing from California, she met her New York husband while both were attending the Defense Language Institute in California.
The family is schedule-oriented, and it helps that her husband’s sister lives with them and takes care of the children.
But, both she and her husband ensure they spend time with their three daughters and one son.
Her political science classes are done at the University of Arizona South campus in Sierra Vista, and that means leaving Tucson to make sure she makes those courses in time.
Next semester, she will attend classes at the main campus in Tucson.
This weekend, she was with about 85 other members of the Wildcat Battalion in the ROTC equivalent of a field training exercise (FTX).
The area the battalion was staying at is in Garden Canyon, and right across the road from her bivouac area is where her husband is during his unit’s FTX, where his interrogation students are going through training.
Of her husband, Anderson said he supports her in her goal to get her college degree, be a member of the ROTC and become an officer.
“I’m blessed to have him as a husband. Every woman should be lucky to have a husband who supports her as Jared does me,” she said.
Although the other members of the ROTC battalion are returning to Tucson this morning, where they will do some additional training, Anderson got permission to remain behind.
Her daughter Elizabeth is part of a church play today.
“She has one line, and I’m going to be there to hear her say it,” the mother, wife and future Army officer said.
herald/Review senior reporter Bill Hess can be reached at 515-4615 or by e-mail at bill.hess@svherald.com.
And I forgot: everyone in her unit will be expected to be understanding and do extra work or ignore her absence when family issues come up.
By the way, if her husband were at home nurturing the kids, then my view would be different. But the article makes it clear that they both have full-time schedules - he is on active duty in the Army.
Poor kids.
How many times will she be asking for such special permission to get out of the duties everyone else has to do?