FORT KNOX, KY. – Filled with excitement and nerves, Cadets assigned to 1st Regiment, Basic Camp approached the firing line. A M240B machine gun, M249, M320 and .50 caliber rifle all sat on the range, ready for Cadets to fire. 

Most had never handled weapons with so much power before, Cadet Kathryn McKinney included. But, she was ready to try.

“We’ve been carrying these M4s around for a week and a half now,” she said. “So, it’ll be cool to get hands on some bigger weapons and see how they work.”

The Clemson University student comes from a military family. Her dad and two older brothers served. One brother also did the ROTC program and just commissioned at the end of the past school year. McKinney was inspired by her family’s service to join herself. 

“I thought the stuff he (her brother in ROTC) was doing was so impressive, so cool, the stories he would tell,” McKinney said.

But, when she was younger and pictured what her life would look like, it was not that. McKinney did not plan on joining her family’s legacy of service.

“I was envisioning just doing something other than what my family had done,” she said. 

McKinney joined a sorority at Clemson and just felt like the military was not going to fit in with her lifestyle. She wanted to go to law school and be a lawyer. 

“I decided that that’s not the life for me,” she said. “I think I want to go off on my own path.”

Then, she learned about the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. JAG is the legal branch of the military. McKinney realized she could continue her family’s legacy, give herself a challenge and still be a lawyer, if she aimed to be a JAG officer. 

“I’m so glad that I pushed myself past the limits that I thought I had to get myself here,” she said.

With branch day approaching, McKinney is considering her other options besides JAG.

“I’m still learning so much,” she said. 

McKinney is excited to learn more about the other branches toward the end of Basic Camp, but today, she learned about high-powered weapons systems.