U. S. Army

I am proud to have had the opportunity to serve our country in the U.S. Army and to continue a family tradition as the third generation of the Smith family to serve. I completed basic training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and spent the remainder of my enlistment stationed at Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

My decision to enlist was influenced in part by a desire to take responsibility for my own education. Although my grandparents had generously offered to pay for college, I felt that, as a young adult, it was important for me to find my own path forward. The educational benefits available through military service played a meaningful role in that decision and eventually helped me complete both my undergraduate and master’s education with very little of the cost coming directly out of pocket. By the time I began pursuing my doctorate, those benefits had been exhausted, but the educational foundation they helped make possible ultimately contributed to my continuing through the completion of a Doctor of Information Technology in 2025.

This photo was taken while I was home on leave around 1989. In fairness to the haircut, the flattop was considerably more fashionable at the time, thanks in no small part to the popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the action movies of the era.

My son and me in September 2017, shortly before his deployment to the Middle East. He represents the fourth consecutive generation of the Smith family to serve in the U.S. Army, continuing a tradition of military service that has spanned our family for generations.

My grandfather, Lieutenant W. Herbert Smith, around 1943. He passed away while my father was still young, so I never had the opportunity to know him personally. Even so, his service remains an important part of our family history and the military tradition that continued through later generations.