Augusta University ROTC cadets swear oath during Veterans Day event

Cadet Floyd Geesler’s father is a staff sergeant with the Army deployed to somewhere in the Middle East, though he does not say exactly where. It was his father’s encouragement that got Geesler to take a look at Augusta University’s Army Reserve Officer Training Corps.

“I tried it and I really liked it,” said the sophomore originally from Rochester, N.Y.

He was one of six cadets who took the Cadet Contracting Oath on Wednesday during AU’s annual Veterans Day Ceremony. The oath is a formalized version of the paperwork the cadets signed earlier pledging themselves to service.

“It’s basically an oath saying I will join the Army,” Cadet Chase Inglett said.

The oath was one of the highlights of AU’s program, moved inside due to the weather. The day is a day to remember veterans and their service, said Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson, associate vice president for enrollment and student affairs. But she said for veterans, such as those in her family, “daily appreciation is the most appropriate way to appreciate what you have given and sacrificed.”

Jackson said she strives to remember that, “keeping a constant awareness that freedom is not free and that there are men and women who carry this cost” for everyone else.

Unlike his father, Geesler said he wanted to enter the service as an officer,.He will be a 2nd Lieutenant after completing the program, and that leadership experience will help later on if he goes into business for himself or pursues another line of work.

“I really like the opportunities it provides,” he said. “I want to use (that experience) later on in my career.”