For the first four years at Rutgers, Rachel Rogers had a three-hour commute – each way – from her home in West Point, New York. It was not unusual for her to hop on the train at 5 a.m. and return home as late as 10 in the evening. For most people, this alone would be a game changer.
But Rogers, 28, is not like most people. Petite with a pleasant smile and an outgoing personality, Rogers, who graduates this month from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, still looks like the cheerleader she was in high school. Looks, however, can be deceiving. And like the old adage about not judging a book by its cover, Rogers has a story that is still being written.
Before coming to Rutgers, Rogers served five years in the U.S. Army, starting her military career on September 12, 2001, a day after the terrorist attacks. For the first 63 weeks, she spent eight hours a day, five days a week, immersed in learning Arabic at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. When she tackled that, she decided that she wanted to learn how to jump out of planes. That accomplished, she knew that the 82nd Airborne Division in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which began sending paratroopers into war during World War I, was where she should be. She felt the same when she chose the pharmacy school at Rutgers over one closer to West Point.
“I never would have thought that my life would have turned out quite like this,” said Rogers, raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi, 40 miles from Jackson, the state capital. “I was a cheerleader, a girly girl, so I can definitely say that I didn’t think any of this would have been part of my future.”
Life, however, takes strange turns. Although Rogers served two deployments with the 82nd Airborne Division – a five-month tour in Iraq and 11 months in Afghanistan – as a 17-year-old high school senior she was afraid to leave Vicksburg for the University of Mississippi, a three-hour drive from home.
Since her parents could not afford the tuition at a private college closer to home for more than a year, Rogers decided to face her fears head on, join the Army and have the GI Bill help pay her tuition when she was done serving.
She gives credit to military discipline and a leadership program that taught her that you often have to complete tasks you might not think you are either up to or won’t like doing in order to achieve your ultimate goal.
“I took the same attitude when I decided I wanted to go to pharmacy school,” said Rogers a veteran army staff sergeant. “Even though I didn’t think I liked science classes, I knew that my end goal was to become a pharmacist so I knew I needed to do whatever I had to in order to get there. What I found out in the end was that I really did enjoy the science classes that I once feared taking.”
In the meantime, she spends whatever free time she has available raising money for good causes and volunteering where she can. For the past two years, Rogers has run in the 26-mile New York City Marathon and raised money for brain tumor research and to help wounded warriors returning home.
Last month, she left her daughter and mother, who lives with her while her husband is in Afghanistan, and spent a week volunteering in the Dominican Republic on a medical mission treating underprivileged men, women and children who have limited or no access to medical services.
“When I was asked whether this was something I would do, I jumped on it,” said Rogers, who also volunteers at an HIV/AIDS clinic at Saint Michael’s Hospital in Newark and wants to someday specialize in infectious diseases. “I feel better when I’m busy. I really can’t see myself slowing down.”
