{"id":13673,"date":"2016-05-05T09:09:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T14:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=13673"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:28:24","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:28:24","slug":"shannon-mckerlie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=13673","title":{"rendered":"Senior Shannon McKerlie: ‘What am I going to be doing for my country?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shannon
Shannon McKerlie is one of the 25 Carolina Reserve Officers’ Training Corps cadets and midshipman who will be commissioned into the armed force this weekend. (photo by Jon Gardiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s going to be a big weekend for graduating senior Shannon McKerlie.<\/p>\n

But unlike most of her classmates, her celebration won\u2019t be inside Kenan Stadium with the other 3,721 undergraduates having their degrees conferred. Instead, the pinnacle of McKerlie\u2019s college career will be the morning before Commencement on the steps of South Building.<\/p>\n

There, Cadet McKerlie will become 2nd<\/sup> Lieutenant McKerlie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really excited,\u201d said McKerlie, who will also participate in the Red, White and Carolina Blue graduation ceremony on May 6. \u201cI think I\u2019ve learned as much as I can in this setting. There\u2019s so much more to still learn, but I think they\u2019ve set us up with a good foundation here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the 25 Carolina Reserve Officers\u2019 Training Corps cadets and midshipman who will be commissioned into the armed forces, McKerlie\u2019s Carolina experience will end not only with a bachelor\u2019s degree in Germanic and Slavic languages and literature \u2014 but also a role as an officer in the Air Force.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll be a very good officer,\u201d said Lt. Col. Kenneth Cates, commander of Carolina\u2019s Air Force ROTC. \u201cShe has a very calm and business-like demeanor, but at the same time, you can tell that she truly cares about whoever she\u2019s interacting with, which I think is the hallmark of a good leader. You have to care about the people before you can ask them to do these extraordinary things that we do sometimes in the military.\u201d<\/p>\n

That leadership style, McKerlie said, has been shaped throughout her time at Carolina \u2013 from beginning as a \u201chuman sponge\u201d and absorbing everything happening around her to becoming a training instructor as a junior and wing commander as a senior.<\/p>\n

\u2018<\/strong>Time of my life\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For McKerlie, serving in the military was always in consideration. But at a young age, she said, she saw the drawbacks of the lifestyle, and she kept the option on the back burner until she was in high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always had this idea that I didn\u2019t want to be with somebody in the military, so I didn\u2019t want to do that to somebody else either,\u201d she said. \u201cBut then I realized people make it work all the time, and it\u2019s a really great lifestyle for a lot of military spouses.\u201d<\/p>\n

While at Cary\u2019s Panther Creek High School, McKerlie decided to take the next step toward a career as a military officer by accepting an ROTC scholarship and enrolling at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n

As part of the scholarship, McKerlie spent her first year in college determining whether the military was, in fact, for her. If it wasn\u2019t, she could leave the program before her sophomore year, no questions asked.<\/p>\n

But that decision took far less time than her Air Force test run.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I started, I knew,\u201d McKerlie said. \u201cIt was perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

She spent her first two years at Carolina learning military conduct, traditions and history while keeping up with her studies in the College of Arts and Science\u2019s Germanic and Slavic languages and literature program.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, a lot of that has come at the sacrifice of doing other activities,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s always that balance of \u2018OK, I need to get to sleep by this time on Sunday night so I can get up for physical training.\u2019 There are a few things I kind of regret not doing \u2014 I wanted to join a dance club or an acapella group \u2014 but I think it was worth it because there have just been so many opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her biggest opportunity came during the summer before her junior year when the cadets participated in month-long field training.<\/p>\n

The two-part program conducted at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and the Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Mississippi serves as the cadets\u2019 first major test as officers: can they lead under stress?<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved it,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve never been yelled at. It was so intense and it was pretty much 24\/7. We were just exhausted and always so hungry. But I absolutely loved it. At the time, it was the best time of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming a leader<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It was at field training that the reality of joining the Air Force sunk in.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of every day, we would sing the Air Force song as loud as we possibly could, and they would play Taps at the end of the day, and that sort of wraps it all in,\u201d McKerlie said. \u201cIt makes you remember why you\u2019re doing this. I\u2019m putting myself through all of this so that I can be in the Air Force and so I can protect the people that I care about. \u2026 It gets really real after field training.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she returned to Chapel Hill as a junior, McKerlie took over a stronger leadership role in the ROTC program, serving as training squadron commander and then physical fitness squadron commander.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The training positions led her to return to field training for another summer \u2014 but as an instructor leading the younger cadets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just having an impact on the cadets who are about to go and be leaders in their detachments, I think that\u2019s a really powerful thing,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s so much pressure not to mess it up because you don\u2019t want to tell them anything wrong that will, in the future, get them in trouble. It\u2019s just an opportunity to do so much good.\u201d<\/p>\n

During her senior year, McKerlie served as wing commander as she prepared for her new role as an Air Force officer. Late in the fall semester, she was officially assigned her specialty: remotely piloted aircraft pilot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that she will bring her work ethic and competency in whatever she does,\u201d Cates said.<\/p>\n

This weekend, McKerlie will walk away from Carolina with a diploma in hand and a gold bar on her uniform, and she will step into a new commitment to lead the next generation of Airmen.<\/p>\n

After four years, she said, it\u2019s time to do what she signed up for.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning it was a lot of \u2018Here\u2019s what the Air Force can do for you,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cNow, it\u2019s really \u2018What am I going to be doing for my country?\u2019 I want to put myself out there and take that risk to protect these people and these principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Story by Brandon Bieltz and photo by Jon Gardiner, UNC Office of Communications and Public Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s going to be a big weekend for graduating senior Shannon McKerlie. On the morning before Commencement on the steps of South Building, Cadet McKerlie will become 2nd Lieutenant McKerlie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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