Alena Rhoades-Werb has a plan for her future and she’s enlisted in the Indiana Army National Guard to help her bring that plan to fruition.
Rhoades-Werb, 17, a student at Warsaw Community High School, said she joined the Guard “because it is going to help me with my career choice because I want to be a police officer. And it helps toward my college.”
She plans to attend Ball State University in Muncie to earn her associate’s degree in criminal justice and criminology.
Officially, she signed up to be in the Guard on Aug. 31, she said. She leaves for her first training Jan. 16. In the Guard, she will be a combat engineer.
Her recruiter, Staff Sgt. Bryan Kunz, said as a combat engineer Rhoades-Werb will “supervise, serve or assist as a member of a team squad section or platoon, provide combat engineering support to combat forces and operate combat engineering vehicles, armored vehicle launch bridges and armored combat earth movers. So, effectively, destroying things that the enemy builds with explosives, usually, and having machinery or building of our own light defenses overseas in combat zones.”
The daughter of Gary Werb and Amanda Rhoades-Werb, she said she is the first person in her family to join the military.
“It’ll help me with what I want to do,” she said.
The best way to contact Kunz for more information on joining the Indiana Army National Guard is on Facebook under Staff Sergeant Bryan Kunz or call him at 574-904-8639.