Multi-sport letterman and Paris Class of 2023 graduate Rachel O’Neal will continue the distinguished tradition of military service that has been the hallmark of her family. Rachel will be the fourth family member to take a distinctively different pathway in her career, but will be another member of her family to serve in the United States Army.
Rachel’s father, Jeffrey O’Neal, is a first-generation West Point graduate in the O’Neal family. Jeff and his wife, Michelle, have lived much of their lives as a military family, most recently living in Hawaii at the end of Jeff’s career before relocating near family in the Paris area. The O’Neal’s son, Jackson, is the most recent West Point graduate in the O’Neal family, having graduated from the United States Military Academy a few weeks ago.
But the O’Neal tradition of service does not end there. Their son Beau, graduated college from Missouri S&T in May of 2021. He enlisted in the Army in May of 2022 and became a combat medic and paratrooper assigned to the 11th Airborne Division at Fort Richardson, Alaska.
And now, their daughter, Rachel, will be the next member of the family to serve in the United States Army. Rachel, a three-sport letterman for three years at Paris, and a two-sport letterman her senior year for the Lady Eagles, will enroll this fall at the University of Arkansas in the Army ROTC program. Upon graduation from Arkansas, Rachel will begin her career in the Army as an officer, a Second Lieutenant.
But Rachel’s plans don’t end there. Rachel’s plan is to serve as an Army officer and train as an Army nurse. At Arkansas, she will become a registered nurse, and will have a bachelor’s degree in nursing when she graduates. She plans to take advantage of the nurse training opportunities in the Army and ultimately become a traveling nurse as a career.
Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Rachel at a local restaurant and visit with her about her post-secondary plans. I recorded her comments for our readers, and I think you will be as impressed with her as I was with her maturity and the thoughtfulness she has invested into her planning for life after high school.
After just finishing high school and with graduation behind her, Rachel commented that “It is nice not to have any schoolwork or anything; it’s nice just to relax.” But after the short break to catch her breath from the whirlwind final days of high school, Rachel will turn her attention to the next goal in her life, and that is to become a nurse.
As I shared earlier in this story, Rachel will take the ROTC officer training route in eventually earning a degree in nursing and moving on in both practice and training in the military. When I asked her about what was involved and the number of years she is committing to her dream, Rachel shared, “My obligated number of years of military service after graduation from the University of Arkansas I believe is three years. I will go in as a second lieutenant. After that, I will get stationed somewhere and then I will get to be a nurse at one of the military hospitals on a base. At first, I will have to go to Fort Sam Houston which is where my brother did all of his combat medic training. I’ll go there for about six months and will do extra training there. I will get my nursing degree at the U of A, so I will go through nursing school there.” So, in four years, Rachel will be an officer in the Army and will also be a registered nurse. Quite an accomplishment to have so many qualifications in just four years after high school. In fact, Rachel shared that her training at Fort Houston will be excellent…in fact, among the best in the nation.
After completion of training at Fort Sam Houston, Rachel could be stationed anywhere. “I could be stationed anywhere, really.” The clock will begin ticking on her three-year commitment to the military immediately following graduation from the University of Arkansas. The training that Rachel will receive will be part of that three-year service requirement. When I asked her if she thought at this point if she would re-enlist and continue to serve beyond the required three years, Rachel answered by saying, “I think that would depend on how I feel about it at that time. I will probably stay in longer than that, because three years is really just one move (relocation). If I want to travel and do things like that, I will probably stay in longer. And I think I will enjoy it. I know what it is like for the most part, so I think I will want to stay in.”
To say that Rachel’s family is proud of her is an understatement. We talked about Rachel’s family influence in her life, and she openly shared, “I know my dad mentioned something to me about how I could go to the University of Arkansas, and I could get a really good scholarship and go, and the way to do that was to go the ROTC route. Before that, I was thinking about nursing, but I was just thinking “maybe nursing” and possibly the Navy, but then I thought I really didn’t want to just hang out on a boat all of the time, so I really didn’t think about it much anymore. Then, I started taking medical classes at Paris High School from Mrs. Fawcett and then I started to think about how this could be something I could do. My dad did more research and found out about the national ROTC scholarship and about how I could get either three- or four-year scholarships to go to the University of Arkansas for free. So, that is basically when we decided that it would be good for me. I am already used to how the Army is, so it wouldn’t be a big shock to me about the way they do things.”
Rachel has always considered the military as her family has had such a distinguished legacy of service. Rachel added, “Anytime we would go visit someone after my dad retired and we would not go to a base, I would miss it. So, I always knew I wanted to do something like that (serve in the military.) But I wasn’t sure because the military is so different. I wanted to be a marine biologist, and I always wanted to research a way that I could do something like that in the military. The only thing was environmental engineering offered at West Point, and I thought about that. But then I decided that I didn’t want to go to West Point; it’s just different. I saw my brother going through it and he really enjoyed it. But it is different, and I wanted more of a college experience like I will have at the U of A.”
Rachel’s family has always been very supportive of her, and that support included not pushing her to follow in the family’s West Point tradition. Rachel described her family’s support by saying, “My dad wanted me to make sure that it (West Point) was something that I wanted to do. It was not his decision, but it was a very sound decision (to go the University of Arkansas) for me because I have everything laid out. I’m very certain about what I want to do, and that is a nice feeling.”
Rachel and her family lived in Hawaii for five years before relocating to Paris after her father’s retirement as a military officer. The family relocated to Paris in Rachel’s fifth grade year of school in 2015. I asked her what it was like living in Hawaii, and Rachel said, “I liked it. I really enjoyed it, but the downside was seeing people move away a lot, and that is the kind of sad thing about it. But I do have friends that are everywhere; I have a friend that lives in Pennsylvania, Washington, DC, California, Florida…just like everywhere. I still keep in touch with them and that’s nice. Like if I ever see them, I just have this bond with them forever, which is really nice. But, I liked it a lot (living in Hawaii) living on a base. I always felt really safe, and I always got to…like my mom always said that we had summers in the 80s and we got to just run around. Just hang out, play, do whatever we wanted to do. So, I really enjoyed it…it was very good years in my life.”
The future career that awaits Rachel is virtually unlimited. She will have the opportunity to go as far as she wants to go, and / or go in any direction with her career that follows her interests. “When I get out of the military, I definitely want to become a traveling nurse. That would be just a really good opportunity.” In this writer’s opinion, it is so exciting to visit with young people like Rachel who have their entire lives ahead of them. And Rachel’s hard work has put her in the position that she enjoys today, and the sky is the limit for her. How exciting and heartwarming is that!
And part of that hard work now includes getting herself ready to report for Army ROTC in August. I asked the soon-to-be freshman cadet what she was doing to get herself in shape for her reporting date, and she said, “I have been going to the gym every day; I do need to go on more runs because we are going to be running a lot. But I have been lifting weights…it has just been nice to relax a bit, but I have been working at the pool (Paris municipal swimming pool). We have been doing our lifeguard certification, so I am now Red Cross certified as a lifeguard. I am also CPR certified now, and I am not sure if they will want that when I first begin nursing school, but at least I know that I have that too.”
Rachel graduated from Paris High School in May with High Honors. Her final grade point average at graduation was 3.80 on a 4.00 scale. As a result of her investment into earning not only a high grade point average, but a grade point that included several challenging classes such as pharmacology, Rachel is now the recipient of the Arkansas Challenge Scholarship, the National Artillery Scholarship, and the National ROTC Scholarship.
As time draws near, Rachel is excited about going to school in Fayetteville. She will move into her new residence in mid-August and classes will begin August 15. She will take an academic load of general University classes her freshman year along with some nursing school prerequisite classes that year, as well. She doesn’t plan on participating in the Greek system or in fall rush, but she thinks she will play intramural sports with her ROTC fellow cadets. The time commitment for ROTC would all but prevent her from having time for sororities. “I think I will want days to rest when I have them available from ROTC. I think I will be too busy (to be in a sorority). I think I will make all of my friends through ROTC anyway. It is like a big sorority or fraternity anyway.”
Rachel’s plans reflect upon a mature, young adult who not only has her priorities in their proper perspective but is also refreshingly exciting to see and listen to a young adult think ahead to goals that have been set and plans that have been made to see her to the fulfillment of those goals.
Anyone who knows or has a military member in their family knows all too well that travel and relocation are just part of being in the active military. Rachel and her family have lived all over the world, and adapting to change and meeting new challenges is certainly not new to the O’Neals. Now that Rachel as symbolically closed one door on her high school education and another opens when she reports to the University of Arkansas, I asked her about her feelings during this time of transition. She responded by saying, “I think making the change to being more independent, because, you know, that you go from being with your parents and there is a lot of structure there to being on your own and having to make sure that you do everything yourself. I have to make sure that I have my priorities straight and I make and manage my own schedule. Nobody is going to be forcing me to go to school, so it will be interesting to see that I force myself to go to class and make dinner at a certain time and make sure that I do the other things that I need to do. It’s kind of making the transition from being a kid to being an adult.”
So I will suggest to our readers that Rachel O’Neal is well on her way to becoming the adult that she aspires to be. In many respects, she exhibits more maturity than many, regardless of age. She is a tribute to herself and to her loving family who have supported her and have given her the guidance and tools to be successful.
RNN Sports would like to say congratulations to Rachel O’Neal for her success in high school in both academics and in athletics, and we wish her all of the best when she starts college at the University of Arkansas this fall. We can’t wait to follow her career and see just how far this outstanding Paris graduate will go!
