Connor: Faith, Family Power Military Career Goals

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The 2006 movie “The Guardian” had it all: Academy Award winner Kevin Costner in the lead role and rising star Ashton Kutcher cast in a story about the U.S. Coast Guard’s training program.

The film performed decently at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics, but the action-adventure drama left an impression on University of Alabama sophomore Bailey Connor. Her paternal grandfather was a member of the Coast Guard, so seeing “The Guardian” eventually sealed her decision to pursue a career in the Coast Guard.

The Sumter, South Carolina, native applied to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy upon graduating from Wilson Hall School but wasn’t accepted. She eventually enrolled at Marion Military Institute in Alabama, where she began researching other branches of the military. Within months, Connor completed basic and advanced individual training to become a combat medic in the Army National Guard. She also transferred to UA, where she joined the Army ROTC program.

“While I was at Marion, I learned about all the other branches, and the Army and National Guard really stuck out to me,” Connor said. “That’s where my direction started to shift. Friends showed me around UA, and my mom was born in Brent and lived in Jasper, so I have family here, and it was part of the reason I was so drawn here.”

With ROTC, Guard duty, a part-time job and kinesiology and nutrition classes, Connor doesn’t have much room on her plate for other activities. But she’s made an exception for one, and it helps the activity is Army related: the Ranger Challenge.

Connor is one of 11 UA Army ROTC cadets who were selected to join UA’s team. The students compete in such Army-related events as land navigation, ruck marches and one-rope bridge against teams from other universities throughout the year.

Connor and her teammates will compete in the Southeast Brigade Challenge Saturday, Jan. 21, at Camp Blanding in Starke, Florida, where they will face the winners of six Southeastern states and Puerto Rico. The winning team will advance to the final round at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, where the winner of all eight Brigades, teams from West Point and other countries will compete.

“The very first day of battalion PT, they were talking about tryouts for Ranger Challenge,” Connor said. “I saw all the people, and there were only a few girls. It was the fifth day I’d been there, and I was nervous to go over there. I didn’t go the first day, but I wanted to. I then noticed them carrying the aid litter in the wrong direction and thought ‘I need to fix that.’”

Training is difficult: The 11 cadets train each morning at 6 a.m. in addition to their scheduled ROTC workouts. In any given week, they’ll do multi-mile ruck marches with 40 pounds of gear, cram as many sit-ups and push ups into two minutes as possible and practice throwing grenades at targets. While the training has been challenging, everyone has a specialty. Connor has high pushup and sit-up numbers for female competitors, but she said she isn’t the strongest runner. She’s detail oriented and has combat medic training, which will help the team in the casualty-care component of the regional competition.

“AIT was definitely my most intense training,” Connor said. “I learned a lot more than I’d ever known about how the body works and the most important things to focus on in a medical emergency. I learned a lot about keeping composure and relying on one another, and those things translate well into this competition, where no one is any better than anyone else and everyone helps each other.”

Brandon Sinnott, UA’s Ranger Challenge Commander, said Connor’s adjustment to both ROTC and the Ranger Challenge team was easier due to her experience in Guard training and at Marion.

“A lot of times, the selection process is simply trying to get the women to try out,” Sinnott said. “We didn’t have to sell it to Bailey, though. She’s very calming, very motivated to get done what needs to be done when she has her mind set to something. She also played softball and volleyball in high school, so she was used to competition.”

The fall semester was a test in time management, as commitments to various aspects of ROTC, class, Guard and work required a strict schedule and work ethic, Connor said. She never considered dropping any of her commitments, though, and she credits her drive to her parents and her faith.

“They both worked full time,” Connor said. “My dad would leave before I was awake and got home after dark, then he’d do things around the house. I had a thousand good role models as a child. Motivation came from that, from seeing all the successful people in the world. Everyone is drawn to those over night success stories, but those stories are rare. Most people have decade-long stories, and what I’m doing now will build me to strengthen my character to prepare for things down the road.”