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One of the nation’s top ROTC cadets, senior Ken Segelhorst
is operations officer for MU’s Army ROTC Tiger Battalion
and a member of four national honor societies. Photo by
Dan Glover
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It’s
the Challenge
Note: This story was published originally
in the winter 2004 issue of Mosaics, the magazine for
alumni and friends of the College of Arts and Science.
By Nancy Moen
You know those extreme challenges on TV?
Those are mere games to this ROTC cadet, who trains himself
and others for the real thing.
As captain of the MU Ranger Challenge
Team, Cadet Ken Segelhorst leads his nine fellow cadets in competitions
against battalions across the Midwest.
The teams engage in grueling
tests of physical ability and military skills — weapons
and grenade assaults, land navigation, crossing streams with
rope bridges and 10-kilometer road marches in full gear.
Segelhorst
rises before dawn to prepare his team for the 24-hour nonstop
competition. Each morning, he directs them through two hours
of physical training that includes push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups,
chin-ups and running with rucksacks. Then they practice again
in the evenings.
A senior majoring in history with
minors in military
science and sociology,
Segelhorst also scores well in academic challenges. He’s
ranked in the top one percent of all ROTC cadets nationwide,
and he’s the winner of the 2003 Ridgway Military History
Research Fellowship, making him the nation’s top cadet
majoring in history.
The fellowship supported Segelhorst’s
summer research at the U.S.
Military History Institute in Carlisle Barracks, Pa., where
he compared the results of mechanized and infantry operations
in the Vietnam conflict.
In his crisp dress uniform, this young
man from St. Peters, Mo., looks every bit the military scholar.
Outside of class, he devotes 20 hours a week to planning and
conducting training for MU’s
Tiger Battalion.
As operations officer, Segelhorst leads the
cadets in soldiering skills: moving under fire, weapons care
and marksmanship, marching drills, and field conduct. Such leadership
earned him the Curators Award for Excellence in Military Science
and the Department of Army Superior Cadet Award.
“Ken is an outstanding cadet, student
and individual,”
says Lt. Col. Mark Ayers, director of the Military Science Program.
“He is the epitome of the whole-person concept and possesses
the attributes we look for in future Army officers as a scholar,
athlete and leader.”
Beyond the laurels, Segelhorst may
be most proud of a set of wings he earned after finishing airborne
school and mastering the art of jumping out of airplanes. After
graduation, he’ll
take officers’ training in tanks and operations before
receiving his first assignment. Eventually, he wants to command
an armored battalion.
“I really like the military,” Segelhorst says. “I
know I’m not going through life on easy street. I like
having it harder than others. It’s the challenge.”
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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