Scrambling for nine years: a profile of Charity McCright

Fort Worth, TX

4/12/2008

While most students worry about how to balance school, extracurricular activities, a social life, and the occasional job, Charity McCright added “potential deployment to Iraq” to her list during her time at TCU. McCright is on active duty in the Army. During her college career she was deployed once to the War in Iraq, and almost deployed a number of other times.

McCright’s life has been unbelievably complex and colorful throughout her many attempts at completing her degree, and expects it to only grow more complicated as she prepares for her second tour in Iraq.

When asked where she calls home, she just laughed. “You need to have a notepad for this one,” she responded.

McCright grew up and lived in Cortez, Colorado until completing middle school, where she moved to Redmond, Oregon until she graduated high school. But here is where McCright’s life became so confusing: she began college at the University of Colorado, but because her parents could not afford the cost, she dropped out and moved to Las Vegas with her aunt. After one year in Las Vegas, she decided to join the Army in order to pay for college. McCright immediately moved to Vilseck, Germany and served there on active duty until 2002.

McCright eventually returned to the U.S. after she joined a military program to allow her to attend school while in the service. She enrolled at the University of Northern Colorado in August of 2002 and majored in kinesiology—following a life-long goal of becoming an athletic trainer after participating in her high school program.

On April 6, 2004, she was told that her unit would be deployed for Iraq within one week. McCright scrambled to withdraw from classes and pack and move her belongings to her mother’s house. McCright returned from Iraq in May 2005 and eventually completed her degree in December of 2007—9 years after beginning her college career. Not without a few almost-deployments throughout her time in college.

During her time at TCU, McCright was active in the athletic training program in football, cross-country, volleyball and track and field. She was also involved in the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). She said she would have liked to be more active in the ROTC program, but athletic training consumed most of her free time.

After graduation in December, she was required to become certified by both the state and nationally before deployment. In April, if she waited until returning from her tour, the next opportunity to take the exam would have been in December 2010, which could have proved difficult due to the length of time between graduation and the exam. Luckily, McCright passed the exam and is now both nationally and state certified.

McCright will use her certification within her unit while on tour. The 1835th Medical Detachment (Combat Stress Control) provides mental health services to soldiers in combat. The specific purpose of her unit is to prevent the results of Vietnam by dealing with soldiers’ mental health.

McCright performs critical stress debriefing in order to help soldiers in country– before they return home. She is able to prepare soldiers for civilian reactions to the war and to veterans as they return home and receive aide in the U.S. McCright is also a Drug and Alcohol Counselor for her unit. Although the majority of her work will be within mental health, she will also be called to work in physical therapy.

This deployment seems to be slightly routine for McCright; after all, her unit is returning to familiar areas. They are replacing the same unit from before, and many of the unit members already know one another from the previous tour. She jokes, “we will fall onto the same equipment they left behind.”

While on tour, McCright will finish her contract with the Army in July, but she will not officially finish until her return home. When she returns home, McCright hopes to work for the military as a civilian, in the physical therapy of soldiers and veterans.