High schoolers visit Fort Liberty for ‘Meet Your Army Day’
What do you need to know to pilot a Black Hawk helicopter? How much should you study to pass the SIFT test? Do you need a degree to operate a sentinel radar system? Students got these questions answered and more during the third annual Meet Your Army Day last week at North Carolina’s Fort Liberty.
Military officers and personnel interacted with more than 1,400 high school students from all over North Carolina. Inquiring minds were able to ask questions, speak with vendors from different military and veteran affairs services, and interact with their equipment. Aviation, medical, and air defense were some of the fields represented, and students were able to ask those who served about what life is like in the armed forces.
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As state military liaison consultant for the N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI), Howard Lattimore said that educators were able to gain knowledge and awareness about the Army that they can pass on to their students.
“Most educators think it’s just frontline fighting, artillery, infantry, some communication, and those things. But some of those career fields that high schoolers are interested in — cybersecurity, AI, IT gaming — they have those things in the military,” Lattimore said.
Heather Winstead, district military liaison for Wayne County Public Schools, said the event was important for helping young North Carolinians plan their futures.
“The importance to me is that North Carolina is focused on the three E’s right now. They’re focused on ‘enlist, enroll, and employ.‘ One of the important E’s — is enlist,” Winstead said. “And so we want to make sure we give an opportunity to students to see what the actual job would be. We want them to be able to touch and feel what the MOS (military occupation specialty) would be that they’re interested in, get questions answered, and be able to kind of immerse themselves.”
Another one of the districts in attendance was Wake County Public Schools. Superintendent Robert Taylor said that as superintendent of one of the largest school districts in the country, he thought it was important that he accompanied their students on the trip so that they could fully seize the opportunity.
“And so this is a great opportunity for them to be able to show their cadets up close and personally, what that military service looks like,” Taylor said. “I know it will make any conversation that they have about the military more relevant because they are now in a setting where they can actually see and understand those things that they’ve experienced as former service members.”
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Sgt. 1st Class Latoria Hinton highlighted some of the questions students should be asking if they are interested in enlisting.
“What are the hours like? What are you doing in your downtime? How much downtime would you get? Am I required to deploy? Things like that would probably be at the forefront of my mind if I had to be a high schooler again and ask those questions,” Hinton said. “How much pay am I getting? Those are the questions they want to know.”
Command Sgt. Maj. Alberto Pena said that when he speaks with high schoolers, he does not think they understand the full scope of what the military has to offer.
“I would share that me being from New York and high school dropout, I joined the Army with the GED, right? And the Army gave me the opportunity where now I have a master’s in business, started working on my Ph.D., professional certifications,” Pena said.
Lt. Col. Ramon Ramos, organizer for the event and the recruiting battalion commander for Raleigh recruiting battalion, said he wanted to educate North Carolinans, particularly the youth, since this is “their Army.”
“A lot of folks in North Carolina that don’t live close to a base, or maybe they don’t have veteran family, don’t know who we are and what it is we do and the opportunities that are available. So that’s what this day is,” Ramos said. “And just open the doors, open the base, so people can see what the base looks like.”
As a self-proclaimed “Army-brat,” Ramos said that even he did not understand the range of roles and professional development opportunities that the military offered.
According to the Department of Defense, the Army took steps during the 2024 fiscal year (FY24) to transform the recruiting process. This included graduating their initial class of Talent Acquisition Technician warrant officers in the U.S. Army Recruiting Command earlier this year. And in August 2024, the department announced that 25 noncommissioned officers from the first cohort of Talent Acquisition Specialists will embark on a four-month Training with Industry program to learn specialized techniques from industry partners.
The Army also announced in September that it had exceeded fiscal year 2024 recruiting goals for the active component.
The Army Enterprise Marketing Office capitalized on their “Be All You Can Be” campaign, according to the press release, and leveraged innovative technologies to reach expanded audiences and help identify candidates interested in military service.
Another initiative involved expanding the Future Soldier Preparatory Course, which is meant to help potential recruits handle academic and physical fitness barriers to service.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect Howard Lattimore’s title as state military lisason consultant.