Athens, Ga–Uga’s R-O-T-C unit is awarded the annual MacArthur award. Reporter Hannah Patrick has the story about one of their outstanding cadets in this program.

The MacArthur award is given to 8 out of 273 ROTC units nationwide.This award came right after Kayla Lechance became the only female from UGA to complete the mountain warfare course.

Kayla Lechance is not just the only UGA female to complete this 2 week course, but she is the only cadet, male or female from the UGA ROTC program to complete it successfully.

Kayla said, “I think it was the mental part to get over the physical part, cause there were a lot of mountains and hills.”

As a cadet you can put an interest into this course, but ultimately they choose who they think is qualified to complete the course. Kayla also said, “those are the females that are going to it through, are the ones that are going to come.”

Kayla is widely respected by her fellow cadets. Orry Young said, ” She’s been through a lot of adversity over the years, a lot of personal and things around training that she’s overcome the last couple years and she’s done very well getting over those humps and doing well.”

Kayla does a lot of planning and training as a senior cadet. She says the course isn’t just going to give her excellent skills and points for future promotions. She says, ” really the main thing, it can get you a lot of respect, especially being female that you could make it through something like that.”

Kayla’s dad served in the army after highschool. She also says she has a family full of police officers. She will be following her family’s footsteps and going to the military Police Corps when she graduates in May. I’m Hannah Patrick, grady Newsource.