The Army and Navy branches of the Reserve Officers’ Training Crops (ROTC) will commission 18 cadets in separate ceremonies at 2 p.m. on Friday, May 16, at Fordham’s Rose Hill campus.
The Army will appoint 16 cadets as second lieutenants at the Fordham University Church, while at the same time two Naval cadets will receive their commissions at the University Commons in Duane Library.
The Army ceremony will include remarks by Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, and Robert W. Rodriguez (FCRH, ’71), principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army. The event will be streamed live. (www.fordham.edu/media)
Several of the new Army officers will go on active duty throughout the United States and Germany; others will serve in the Army Reserve and National Guard in the New York City area, said Jefferey K. Hansen, commander of the Army ROTC’s Ram Battalion.
The guest speaker for the Navy ceremony will be David Sanders, a captain in the Reserve Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps.
Seniors and Ensigns Carl Comasco and Gerard Dimone will accept their Naval commissions in the surface warfare division and aviation division, respectively, said Capt. James P. Driscoll, commanding officer and professor of naval science at the State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College.
The Army ROTC program qualifies students for appointment as officers in the U.S. Army, Army Reserve or Army National Guard. Fordham has long been the host institution for the Army ROTC in New York City. Its ROTC battalion, which has been recognized by the Army as being in the top 15 percent of its 272 ROTC units, has produced several notable graduates, including four-star general and former vice chief of staff Gen. Jack M. Keane (FCRH ’66).
The Navy’s ROTC program educates and trains men and women as officers in the Naval Reserve or Marine Corps Reserve. The Navy ROTC unit in New York City is physically located in the Bronx at SUNY Maritime College, but serves Fordham students at all of the University’s campuses.
