Many people spend a lot of time thinking about their future careers when they are young. They want to be a doctor, a teacher, or even a garbage man. Some people have no idea what they want to do, and at one point, senior Jace Rogers was one of them. “Going into high school, I never knew what I was going to be,” Rogers said. He is in the final steps of being accepted into the United States Naval Academy (USNA). He has received nominations from Senators Ben Sasse and Deb Fischer and Representative Adrian Smith. “To get those congressional nominations was a huge deal for me,” he said, “with all of the hours of dedication and putting my nose into every little piece of information, this was the greatest thing to ever happen to me.”

Rogers remembers stories of his grandfather from his childhood, who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. His grandfather went into Nuclear Power School right out of high school. He was one of three that went in as soon as they graduated high school. Although Rogers’ grandfather was close, he didn’t maintain the mandatory 93% grade and was dropped by the school. “That’s why I want to major in uclear engineering or aeronautical engineering,” Rogers said. Alongside that, Rogers is also helping out his parents because now they don’t have to pay his college tuition. “I couldn’t go to college because my parents don’t have enough money for three kids to go and be paid for in full. So that’s when I started looking into the military,” Rogers said. He struggled with deciding whether to go to West Point or to the USNA. At one point, he thought he might want to go to West Point to train and be part of the infantry that fights on the front lines. In the end, he just wanted to continue the family line and join the Navy. If he does get accepted into the academy, after he graduates he will become an officer and he would be the first officer in his family line.

Rogers had already begun training, but now that swim season is over, he intends to train even harder than he was. “I just got done with swim, so a big part of my training was getting better at swimming and getting more comfortable with the water,” Rogers said. “Soon, I’ll be hitting the weights hard and getting ready for the hundreds of miles we will have to run.”

There were many hard steps to getting to where Rogers is right now. Not only has he had to get recommendations from the congressmen, he also had to apply for an application and then fill out the application. “As well as a paper about why you think you should be a good Midshipman and why you think you want so serve a commitment to your country, “ he said. “As your doing your application you have to be nominated by a Senator or a Congress member.” All the steps took quite a bit of work all on a deadline. Through all these steps though he had the help of the counselors at his side. “I’d personally like to thank the guidance office because without them I would have been lost, they have helped out more than anything,” he said.

Rogers is very excited to enter the final few steps of this journey and is hopeful that he will get into the Naval Academy. He can’t wait to serve our country with everything he’s got.“There are people that we have never met and yet they are sacrificing their lives for us,” he said.