July 7, 2020
By KEITH RYAN CARTWRIGHT
Rutherford County Schools
Growing up, Caleb Cooper was taught to make decisions for himself.
He recently made the most important decision of his young life.
Before graduating from Rockvale High School last month, Cooper decided to enlist in the Tennessee National Guard and, on August 3, he will report to basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
“I made the decision on my own,” he said. “When we were younger, as kids, (our parents) helped us make a lot of decisions, but as I’ve gotten into the teenage years, they’ve let me make more decisions on my own.”
Although he talked with them about it, Cooper said, “This was one they let me make on my own.”
It was a major decision for two reasons, it could impact the next 10 years of his life or even 20 years and there’s the fact that his father, J.T., an Army veteran of the war in Somalia, did not want his sons to enlist in the military.
Caleb’s older brother is a pararescue in the U.S. Air Force.
Caleb will be pursuing military intelligence work.
“I wanted to do something that requires a higher score on the (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test), which is your military entrance exam,” Caleb said. “I chose to be an intelligence analyst because it’s not a combat position.”
He explained, “I’ll be looking at a map and I’ll be telling the guys out in the field where they need to go.”
Caleb and his brother are following in the footsteps of their father, who joined at 19 and was deployed to Africa following basic training.
J.T. was involved in a mission chronicled in the blockbuster film “Black Hawk Down.”
An infantryman, Caleb said his father was one of the soldiers who went in to save the Rangers on that fateful night. The unit was awarded both a bronze star and purple heart with one exception. J.T. did not accept the bronze star.
“My dad is a really moral person and if you’re going to get it, you need to earn it,” Caleb explained, “so he did not think he had earned a bronze star that night, so he said he didn’t want it.”
It’s a lesson well-learned and passed on.
Caleb sees his father as a hero and is appreciative of the morality lesson.
“Just from everything he’s taught me growing up,” Caleb said, “I understand we might do really, really amazing, scary, honorable things in our life, but we really shouldn’t do it for the recognition and we shouldn’t do it to get something out of it.
“We should do it because it’s the right.”
He added, “Obviously everybody’s life is different. Everybody’s parents are different, and everybody grows up different, but I’m fortunate I was born into and have grown up in a family that has a very, very strong sense of morality.”
Caleb is expected to finish basic and personal training in March or April and will then enroll at Middle Tennessee State University in Fall 2021. He will participate in the ROTC program and upon graduation will either be a first or second lieutenant.
PHOTO PROVIDED