FORT CAMPBELL, KY--On a windy Wednesday morning last week at Fort Campbell's Sabalauski Air Assault School, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Hawkins, division chaplain, 101st Airborne Division, delivered his invocation with energy and zeal, as the latest class of graduates stood motionless in formation.
He spoke intimately, at times, about the many tasks and obstacles overcome by the graduates during the grueling 10-day course--like the final 12-mile ruck-march that began at 4:30 a.m. that morning. The audience, which contained dozens of family members and Soldiers, listened intently.
Occasionally they laughed as Hawkins joked about "rains of near biblical proportions" on the first day of the course. As his prayer ended, the graduates sounded off with a loud and thunderous "amen!"
Upon completion, Hawkins returned to his position behind the graduates because today he wasn't a guest speaker at the ceremony. Instead, the 50-year-old Hawkins was one of 85 graduates of Class 01-13, standing tall and prepared to receive their Air Assault Badge.
"You come to the 101st, and it's what we do," stated Hawkins, after the ceremony.
After arriving at Fort Campbell late this past summer, Hawkins, who calls Monticello, Ill., his home, said he decided to attend the course because it was the right thing to do and the commanding general, Maj. Gen. James C. McConville, is Air Assault qualified also. "It was good to try and lead by example," Hawkins stated. "Speed of the leader, speed of the team. . ."
McConville announced in July his orders to train 70 percent of the division's Soldiers--or approximately 14,000 in number--to be successfully Air Assault qualified within the next three years and to reinforce that the "Screaming Eagles" are highly trained, disciplined and fit.
Although historical data at TSAAS doesn't track age at the time of course completion, Hawkins is likely one of the eldest to complete the course, according to staff at the school.
Hawkins entered the military initially in 1982 and as an enlisted Soldier in military intelligence and later as Special Forces. Then, in 1986, he left the military to prepare for a life in the ministry. In 1993 he re-entered the military as part of the Chaplain Corps.
During air assault school, Hawkins quietly went about his business and was largely unnoticed by the instructors because he was doing the tasks to standard, according to instructors at TSAAS.
"I think he's a really good representative," stated Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Crawford, a team senior instructor, "Not only for the Chaplain Corps, but for the 101st."
Crawford, a native of Durant, Okla., also mentioned being impressed with the way Hawkins handled the obstacle course during less-than-desirable conditions on the first day of the course--also called Day Zero.
"Day Zero was a memory maker," Hawkins stated. It was unbelievably rainy and frigid, he continued, and it made for a great and everlasting Air Assault memory.
With day-after-day of strenuous events like the obstacle course, rappelling, fast-roping, slow-roping and daily physical training, Hawkins said the course tested his mettle at times, but he kept exercising his faith and soldiering on.
"It's not about how big your leg muscles are necessarily, it's about how big your heart is," Hawkins said.
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