Ben Smith Video Transcript

[Interviewer] Welcome to the University of North Georgia Political Science & International Affairs Department's YouTube channel. In this segment of our "Meet Our Students" series you'll have the opportunity to meet Senior Strategic and Security Studies major Benjamin Smith.

When Ben came to UNG from Decatur, TN to join the Boar's Head Brigade, little did he know that three years later he would have the singular distinction of being named the Number One graduating cadet among 5,538 ROTC cadets from across the entire United States.

We caught up with Ben recently to chat about his time at UNG with the PSIA Department and the Corps of Cadets and his justly earned recognition.

Good morning, Ben.

 

[Ben Smith] Good morning.

 

[Interviewer] To start us off, would you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Who is Ben Smith, really?

 

[Ben] Yes, sir. So I'm from a small town in East Tennessee, Decatur. It's the middle of nowhere. It's in between Knoxville and Chattanooga. I went to Meigs County High School, played football. That was really my first love. So I thought I wanted to play in college. I played since age of four until senior year, but then found out about University of North Georgia through my Dad.

Believe it or not, I'm only two, two and a half hours north, but I didn't know about the school at all until my Dad did some research. And at that time, I decided I wanted to be an Army officer. I'd actually pinned that down from a pretty young age, like probably eight or nine. I decided I want to be an Army officer. I want to be an infantry officer specifically.

 

So I wanted to play football and wanted to be in the Army and go to school and do ROTC. That's about all I knew. And then my Dad did some research, and  took a visit, decided that my football time was over, and I ended up coming here, and it's been the best decision I've ever made.

 

[Interviewer] What got you into our Strategic and Security Studies program as an undergrad, and why that degree? And, maybe related maybe not to what you just said but why here at UNG?

 

[Ben] So I really I was initially looking at it I had no idea what I wanted to major in. I, I knew I was, I've always been interested in military history. Big reader in military history; geopolitics. So I knew that was my interest but I didn't really consider majoring in it because I didn't know that I didn't really know it was offered until I started getting online with my Dad and looking at the majors. And I saw this one and I was going between Strategic and Security Studies and I think Finance, which I really had no interest in. But at the time, I thought it sounded practical.

But then I really thought about it and I'm going to be an infantry officer. I want to I'm going to be an officer. It's going to be my first profession. So may as well do something that, one, I enjoy and two, it helps me be a better officer. So I started looking through some of the classes in the program and I mean I fell in love with the idea of of doing something that I enjoy. I enjoy reading about, reading military history and studying geopolitics so it was a pretty easy decision once I found out about the program.

 

[Interviewer] Awesome. Well you just received special recognition from the U.S. Army's Cadet Command and I mentioned it a little earlier in the Introduction, but tell us in your own words Ben what this recognition was.

[Ben] So the recognition is, so I was the Number One cadet on the national OML – so the OML is the Order of Merit List and pretty much from the second you come in as a freshman you start acquiring OML. It's based on several factors. There's a big spreadsheet --  changes every year -- but the big ones are: your grades -- GPA is a huge one. Your camp ... so in between your junior and senior year you get a, we call it "camp" but "Cadet Summer Training" is the term, the official term for it. You'll get a leadership grade and a PT grade and  all that will come from camp. So that's I think the single biggest factor along with GPA. And then there's also your PT score is a big factor. So I had a perfect AFT Army Fitness Test score which is a, which helped a lot. And then there's another extracurricular leadership block. So, I'm involved in some specialty units and been on Ranger Challenge and commander of a specialty unit now -- Mountain Order of Colombo.

So it's pretty much a culmination, a bunch of evaluations on grades, fitness, leadership, how you do at camp, if you've been to any specialty schools, you know during the summer. So they rank that. Rack and stack everybody from one to whatever 5,500 or 5,400 or however many there were in my class, so I ended up having the most accessions points. And that goes, directly goes into branching.

 

[Interviewer] That's quite an honor. Did you know you have a predecessor from the Boar's Head Brigade that's also a member of our extended PSIA family? Jonathan Strickland, our 2014 grad.

I have another question on the topic. And most importantly, maybe from a more personal perspective, Ben. What makes this recognitionspecial for you?

 

[Ben] This may sound superficial, but truly the recognition doesn't mean a whole lot to me personally for my ego or my pride or whatever. But, what it really means to me is that I can reflect – it reflects well on the school, first off, and the units I'm in, the special unit I'm a part of. And I think it will outlive me. So even when I'm gone, people are going to forget my name. But what makes me happy is knowing that it reflects well on the school, on the program. It gets us national recognition. And then I can leverage that into, into resources and good things for the school and the people I'm around. So honestly, for me, I may just sound like I'm trying to be humble, but it really doesn't mean anything. It's, it's just a reflection of the program that I've been blessed to be a part of. And I've surrounded myself by people a lot smarter, smarter and better than me. But what makes me happy is knowing that it's going to outlast me. And in 10, 20 years, they may not know my name, but they'll know that the number one guy came from UNG. He came from the Mountain Order of Colombo, et cetera. So that's the honest answer.

 

[Interviewer] Yeah, well, awesome, Ben. Going back to the classroom and looking back at your time here with the PSIA family and the department up to now, is there any particular aspect of your three-plus years here that have been particularly enriching or that you would love to do again if given the opportunity?

 

[Ben ] I'll say the first thing is the internship I did through the program. So in between my freshman and sophomore year, I got super lucky to get an internship in Latvia. And then attached to that was a Polish mountaineering course. So I spent eight weeks in Latvia and Poland. I got to live and train with the Latvians. We got to do a three-week field exercise; got to shoot everything in the arsenal; work with the Latvians and Spanish. And that was a pretty incredible experience. Someone who had never, never been out of the country to spend two months, my first summer here, you know, living with a foreign military. So first off, that's got to be the highlight.

 

And then second, I've taken a few really good classes. One that stood out was Global Issues with Dr. Miner. Super basic class. Intro level class, but one that I really liked a lot and opened my eyes. And then Dr. Beall, I've taken American Military History and War and Society. Dr. Beall is rough, rough on your GPA, but no doubt you learn a lot. So even though he's taking a hit on my GPA, I've learned a ton from Dr. Beall. He's a top-notch professor.

 

[Interviewer] As a follow-on, and you've touched on it a little bit, I think, but what's on the immediate horizon for soon-to-be Second Lieutenant Ben Smith? And in that regard, what experiences from our program here at UNG have been most meaningful up to now? And I guess maybe you mentioned it with your time in Europe, but which do you anticipate being most meaningful to your future career?

 

[Ben] So what's on the horizon for me is, so I will commission in May and I'll go in, I'll go to my Basic Course and then hopefully I'll, I'll get my branch in December and I'm hoping for infantry. But I've,  you rank every branch so I'll get what they, what they give me, but I'm hoping for infantry. And then I'll go to my Basic Course and I'll go to Ranger School and then I'll go off to my unit. And what I think translates the best towards that or what's helped me prepare me for that I think the internship no doubt. You can't replicate living with a foreign military for two months and, and getting to see how they do things. So I get thrown in, I'd only been here a year and knew very little and then I got thrown into that and I learned a ton so I think that's an experience that not many of my peers will get, have gotten and has been afforded to me because of the program.

And then I guess, second I would say it's the, the breadth of understanding of of both how the U.S. military works on the larger scale and then how foreign, how we interact with foreign militaries. You know you get all the tactical, the smaller level stuff here and everyone gets that, but doing Strategic and Security Studies you get a broader understanding of how both our military works, but also other militaries work.

 

[Interviewer] In closing, Ben, what do you have to say to our viewers who are either prospective students, as you were several years ago, or former students, as you will be come next spring, at both the undergraduate and perhaps even at the graduate level?

 

[Ben] To the cadets I would say "pay attention and get the most out of the major" because it can have a direct impact on making you a better officer. I think it translates extraordinarily well to being an officer, even being a lieutenant. Even though most of the stuff we look at is high-level stuff, lieutenant you're a platoon leader, still I think it teaches you how to analyze battles. It teaches you how to analyze military history, and it definitely makes you a better officer.

To the non-cadets and to everyone in general, I would say similar sentiments. I think it's a blessing to be able to have a degree like this and have an area of study that not many schools offer. It's one that I've enjoyed a lot. It doesn't seem like a chore to me. I'm not a big fan of of school -- the whole – I there are a lot of things I'd rather be doing. I definitely enjoy the major and I enjoy a lot of classes I've taken.

 

[Interviewer] Okay. Well I want to thank you for your time Ben, I know you're a busy man especially as we're taping, video, recording this and coming towards the end of our of your second to last semester here at UNG. I wish you, on behalf of the Department all the best as you continue your life journey and your Army career. I sincerely hope you will continue to #experiencemore with the help of your time with us here in UNG's Political Science & International Affairs Department.

 

[Ben] So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you very much.