FAU ROTC Student Wins Prestigious Award

On Friday, April 9th an FAU, ROTC student Marcus Nielsen, received one of the most prestigious awards given to a student, the ROTC Medal. This medal is awarded by the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution National Defense Committee. It is presented to a graduating ROTC student who has demonstrated academic excellence, dependability, good character, adherence to military discipline, leadership, and a fundamental and patriotic understanding of the importance of the reserve officers training corp.

Nielsen is in his last semester of college and majoring in political science. Among Nielsen's many impressive accomplishments he has been the President of the FAU College Democrats and the FAU Cadet Club, Student Government elected representative, a member of Phi Kappa Phi honorary society and liberal arts math tutor. He was also awarded the FAU Gatlin Award as well as a study abroad scholarship from ROTC which he used to study abroad in China and learn Mandarin and Chinese political theory.

This outstanding student began his Army career after enrolling in the US Army Reserves during his Senior year of high school. He then went on to enroll in Army ROTC at FAU and after only one semester was awarded an ROTC scholarship. Since then he has been named captain of the FAU ROTC branch and in charge of 55 other students, attended US Army Airborne school and was ranked in the top ten percent of all ROTC cadets.

When I asked Nielsen why he joined ROTC he said, "I wanted to be a lieutenant instead of a private and I would also like to get paid to live in Europe." When Nielsen graduates in May he plans to travel Europe and then return to be an ROTC recruiter at FAU before leaving to be an infantry officer.

To find out more about ROTC go to GoArmy.com.