Ryan O’Malley

Although some people would be scared to go into the military, Ryan O’Malley feels differently: “I’ve personally already come to the realization that there’s a danger factor in whatever, but [going into the Army’s] a certain ambition that I have.”

O’Malley has not always been interested in the military; he originally committed to play football at University of Illinois but decommitted once the coaching staff changed. That’s when he received an offer from Army West Point.

“Up until that point, I hadn’t really considered it, but you know, if someone’s going to give you a full-ride scholarship, you should at least give them the decency to look and know what their school’s all about,” O’Malley said. “And when I started looking into Army West Point, I just immediately fell in love, and the big thing is when I was at that school taking my official visits, I could see myself there, so it was a pretty easy decision from then on.”

After four years of college, O’Malley will graduate as an officer and is required to serve five years in the Army. One position he will serve in is a platoon leader, where he will help the enlisted soldiers learn what they are doing, work them out and be accountable for them.

O’Malley also hopes to become a United States Army Ranger. “You can join a ranger regiment, which is unbelievably prestigious, which is probably what I want to shoot for in the fact that they do small-man missions,” he said. “They’re basically the army version of the Navy Seals. Everybody’s seen Navy Seal movies where they’re six-man squads, they can do assassinations, they can do hostage rescue, they can do counterterrorismーall these different crazy things.”

O’Malley said committing to the Army “may be unique and may be out of the norm, but it’s just something that I am personally driven to do.”