|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
Army honors grad student as top NCO
Passersby have no clue Montalvo shipped out for Kuwait weeks after the World Trade Center fell and spent six months in Afghanistan. In May, the Army and Air National Guard named him national noncommissioned officer of the year. Montalvo was honored for his work teaching pilots survival tactics and for his civilian pursuits. He said his superior officers urged him to apply for fighter pilot training, but he opted to finish his doctoral studies in physical therapy. “I’ve always been an athlete, my whole life, and I’ve hurt everything. I broke my right leg twice. I sprained both my ankles. I’ve torn my calf; I’ve broken fingers and hands, and all that good stuff. And, I know what it’s like to go through rehab and get better, and I want to provide that for other people,” Montalvo said. “People have been throwing around the words ‘hero’ and ‘patriot,’ but this guy does everything,” Joseph A. Lucca, associate professor of physical therapy, said. “We’re so proud of him. He’s quite an achiever.” On campus, Montalvo is a University graduate scholar, one of the top students selected for a scholarship program aimed at increasing diversity on campus. In the Maryland Air National Guard, he is a technical sergeant with the 104th Fighter Squadron. His job is to train pilots to survive crashes on land or water and to ensure that ejection seats, parachutes, oxygen masks and other survival aids are maintained. Joining the Air National Guard “wasn’t a route to college,” he said. “It was just that I knew that I wanted to do something in the military. This might sound corny, but I knew that this country is the best place to live, and I didn’t mind doing my time.” He said he doesn’t consider the national award all his. “It’s Dr. Lucca’s award and Dr. [Paul] Mettler’s award and Dr. [Stuart] Binder-McLeod’s award and the P.T. program’s award, and the award for the people I work with in the military, because I’ve been fortunate enough to be trained by them,” he said. During his tour of duty, Montalvo said he would e-mail Lucca or Paul F. Mettler, associate professor of physical therapy, or Department Chair Stuart Binder-Macleod from the field to keep up with his graduate work, and they’d encourage him to do what he was doing. “The support that I got from them saying, ‘Just go and don’t worry about things here,’ and ‘We’ll find a way for you to make it up’ made it a lot easier to do my job over there,” he said. Article by Kathy Canavan To learn how to subscribe to UDaily, click here. |
|
|
