GCU roommates make room for military service

They're 3 of the university's 17 newly commissioned Army officers

Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow / Livestream

Corinne Marceau and her team made it to the second round of the grueling, no-joke Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Ranger Challenge.

The challenge serves up a 10-kilometer road march, the brutal Army Combat Fitness Test (deadlifts, power throws, push-ups, sprint-drag-carries and a 2-mile run), a grenade assault course, obstacle course and the like.

It was the perfect competition for Marceau, the most recent Grand Canyon University ROTC battalion commander who was commissioned into the Army on Friday at Ethington Theatre alongside her roommates, Meredith Estrada and Abigail Oletski.

Marceau, who graduated with her bachelor’s degree in government, was eyeing a military career in combat operations and combat arms, in which soldiers engage the enemy in direct conflict.

But after a herniated disc and a microdiscectomy in her junior year – “I was pushing myself a little bit too much,” she said – Marceau will serve her country in the Military Intelligence Corps, which provides intelligence and electronic warfare support to tactical, operational and strategic-level commanders.

“I like how you use it to help people that are actually on the ground,” said Marceau after the ceremony, one steeped in honor and tradition and that symbolically transitions a college student from their civilian to their military life.

She was among 17 cadets appointed to lead enlisted personnel as officers in the Army.

Their families gathered at Ethington Theatre to watch the cadets recite the Oath of Commissioned Officers, accept the gold-bar rank on their uniform during a pinning ceremony, and receive their first salute from an enlisted service member who’s usually a mentor or someone who influenced their journey.

And they listened to the guest speaker, retired Army Maj. Troy Merkle, former professor of military science at GCU congratulate the group and allow them a few minutes of celebration before telling the cadets, “That’s enough. I need you all to recognize something. This position you’re about to enter is not about you. It will never be about you again. Your job from this point forward is to build environments for others to succeed.”

It's about serving others as a leader, like Marceau, who thrived as battalion commander.

“I’ve always been, I think, kind of naturally driven to leading. But this just exemplified it.”

Despite her injury, Marceau was honored as a distinguished military graduate.

“But she probably won’t bring that up,” said Oletski.

So her roommate brought it up for her.

It means you’re in the top 20% of all ROTC college graduates in the country, recognized for your exceptional academic achievements, strong performance on the Army Combat Fitness Test, and for your leadership abilities.

Marceau, who’s from Parker, Colorado, and is headed to Fort Huachuca in southeast Arizona, might have been knocked off her military path if not for the people in the program, she said.

No one in her immediate family has served in the military and could guide her along the way.

But her GCU family did.

“You’re going full time to college, but you’re also waking up early in the morning for PT (physical training). You’re on the field, you’re doing all that stuff at the same time, so it’s like everybody wakes up together and everybody goes to the field together – just those experiences combined,” said Marceau of the family she found in ROTC.

Meredith Estrada is every bit a part of that family.

She, Marceau and Oletski met each other their sophomore year and became roommates their senior year.

Joining the military wasn’t even on Estrada’s radar when she first came to GCU from her hometown of Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Like her roommate, no one in her immediate family served in the military.

“I definitely wanted to be a worship leader at first in the church,” said Estrada, a vocalist on the university’s worship team who belted out inspiring worship music onstage in front of thousands of students in Global Credit Union Arena at Monday Chapels for two years of her college career.

She majored in entrepreneurial studies and minored in military science, melding her worship life and military life, though ultimately, both parts of her life have been about service.

Merkle, in his talk to the cadets being commissioned, confirmed that a life of service in the military is more than a job.

“Don’t be mistaken, this position you’re entering is a calling. You’ve been asked not only to lead men and women in this great Army but to care for them, be with them,” he said as he advised the new offers to go to the rifle range with their soldiers, go through PT with them, be miserable with them and “they’re going to follow you and care for you by doing their best.”

Estrada grew up in the church and always has done mission work, volunteering 100 hours annually.

Still, “I think God called me to do Army,” she said.

While Marceau is headed to combat operations, Estrada branched active duty into aviation, something she said she just happened to stumble across in her research. She’s going to become a pilot, and there are nerves.

“Of course, I’m real nervous, yeah,” she said.

Estrada and Marceau’s other roommate, Abigail Oletski, is the one of the three recently commissioned officers who comes from a military family. Her father, retired Marine Sgt. Joshua Oletski, honored her at the commissioning ceremony with her first salute as an Army officer.

“They were all Marines,” she said of her family, “and I kind of wanted to take my own path.”

Oletski, who graduated with her degree in health care administration, is headed to Fort Knox to help with cadet summer training then will make her way to Fort Gregg-Adams in Adams, Virginia, to start her career in ordnance, the military branch responsible for managing weapons, ammunition and other military equipment.

“I’m excited to meet people because it’s a family,” she said of going into the military, then remembers the family she’s already made at GCU. “They’re like my lifelong best friends, I guarantee it. I believe they’re going to be with me forever, the people that I’ve met here,” she said.

Her roommate, newly commissioned Army 2^nd Lt. Corinne Marceau agrees.

“It’s, honestly, the community,” Marceau said of making it through all the hard times she’s had in getting to commissioning day and why she stayed on the military path. “The people is what makes it.”

GCU Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at lana.sweetenshults@gcu.edu or at 602-639-7901.

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Newly commissioned officers

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