FORT KNOX, KY. – Red lights turned on, shining through the darkness of the night. The 3rd Regiment Cadets had begun the land navigation course. The night before, they did the same, but were unsuccessful. Tonight, they were trying again. 

The sun went down and Cadets’ nerves went up as it was almost time to start the exercise. Since she didn’t pass the night before, Cadet Haley Rheno, University of Dayton, was feeling anxious, but she wasn’t going to let that get the best of her. 

“Now I have to exact revenge against the course,” she said. 

Rheno used her failure to motivate her. She admitted that she wasn’t the best at land navigation and the day before the heat started to get to her, clouding her thoughts. She was determined that tonight would be different. 

“I’m ready to fight back,” she said. 

She had a plan of how to do it. Instead of focusing on the course and overthinking it, Rheno thinks about other things. She thinks about her pet bunny, Panda, that’s back at home. She thinks about how proud she will be on graduation day. She focuses on things she can look forward to.

“I try to think about my next meal because I’m always excited for that,” she said. 

Rheno has a hunger, not for her next meal, but for her future. She has big goals for herself, inside and outside of the military. 

“I just want to be part of something bigger than myself,” she said. “So I’m aiming high.”

Next fall, she plans to attend graduate school to study forensic psychology. Eventually, she wants to work for the FBI, CIA or any three-letter agency, but before that, she wants to work in jails and make a change in the prison system. 

Approximately two-thirds of people that are held in jail have not been convicted of a crime. They’re people who were arrested and cannot afford bail. Meaning, they have to wait in jail until their trial. 

“They’re treated worse than prisoners are and research shows that it actually breeds more aggression and makes them more likely to commit crimes,” she said, “I want to break that cycle.”

Rheno is passionate about ethical treatment of prisoners. 

“I think everyone deserves to be treated like a human, regardless of what they may have done,” she said, “or what it’s alleged that they have done.”

She wants to help prisoners learn from their mistakes and make use of the time they are in jail. When they get out of jail, she wants them to be set up to have a better life than they had when they were brought in. 

“I really want to make things better for them,” she said. “I want to try to turn them into people that they can be proud of and that their families can be proud of, and that we as a society can support.”

Through ROTC and CST, Rheno has learned traits that will help her reach her dreams one day: discipline, perseverance and compassion.

“It’s just forcing me to look at things from other perspectives,” she said. “I think the more hard stuff you go through, the easier it is for you to sympathize for other people, even if you are completely different from you.”

It’s not been easy learning those skills, but, to Rheno, the payoff will be worth it. When things get hard, she thinks about all she will achieve one day because of what she is going through now. The night land navigation course is just one small step on that journey.