Meet LTC Rebecca D'Angelo: Class of 2002

Posted: February 17, 2023 by Orla Fennell

US Army Lieutenant Colonel Rebecca D'Angelo's story shows that following your gut puts you right where you need to be!

Rebecca was born in Atlanta and raised in Stone Mountain, GA. While planning to attend the University of Georgia on a swimming scholarship, she missed the state meet due to the flu and with three months until graduation, looked for other more affordable schools — where she found North Georgia College & State University (now UNG). After she noticed a poster in her high school's hallway, she was immediately drawn to the golden steeple and decided to follow her gut and enrolled.

As she did not join the Corps of Cadets until her junior year, she was often busy working a variety of jobs as she paid her way through college. She involved herself in various extracurricular activities; most notably she explained, was her position on the academic integrity board. Reflecting back on that opportunity, she noted that the position helped her later as an officer in the Army where she was required to sit on many disciplinary boards.

Rebecca recalls the moments she had her first two years before joining the Corps where she had

physical sensations when watching the cadets around her and seeing them at PT in the mornings. She remembered thinking, "I belonged over there, wearing those clothes, singing those cadences…"

and leaned into her gut and joined the Corps in 2001. Alongside her major shift to the Corps, she also switched majors from chemistry to political science, following her instinct and interests which were supported by Dr. Armstrong Williams, one of D'Angelo's favorite professors.

In 2002 she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and commissioned as a Quartermaster Officer and assigned to Ft. Bragg, NC as Assistant S3 of the 530th Supply & Services Battalion. While initially her response was disappointment, she explained that the head of cadet

recruitment at UNG gave her encouragement, saying that one day she would be the most important person in the room. While she did not understand it at the time, she expressed that now after years in the military, she learned that logistics is one of the most integral parts of campaigns.

Her military career flourished after graduation and in 2005, she deployed to Iraq for OIF III as the Executive Officer, HHC 2d Corps Material Management Center. In 2019, after completing a six-month strategic fellowship with the newly formed Army Futures Command, LTC D'Angelo was selected to serve as the Executive Officer to MG Maria Gervais, Director of the Synthetic Training Environment Cross Functional Team in Orlando, FL. And now, as of May 2021, LTC D'Angelo has assumed command of the 841st Transportation Battalion, North Charleston, SC.

Rebecca has some advice for prospective cadets seeking a career in the military. "Ask yourself, 'What's the worst that could happen?'" and push outside their comfort zone to try new things. She advises students to sit with their intuition and when they have a burning feeling, choose the path that would alleviate that feeling and bring them peace. Without pushing herself to trust that feeling, she explains that she would have missed out on an incredible career.

[Author: Gabriella Bartlett, IA '23]

[Editor's Note: This article is drawn from an interview with Rebecca by UNG's Alumni Association. The interview was part of the Association's 1873 Alumni Speaker's Series. To see the entire interview visit our YouTube page at: youtu.be/OKiLqJNdKsU. The Political Science & International Affairs Department thanks the Alumni Association for making the original interview available to us so we can share it with you in this format here.]