George Clark

George Clark isn’t your typical cadet in Central Ohio Technical College’s Peace Officer Basic Training (POBT) academy. This 46-year-old army veteran just completed the academy as part of the law enforcement technology degree program and is awaiting the state peace officer examination this month.

Clark was a combat medic in the U.S. Army from 2008 to 2014. He was stationed in Italy with two deployments to Afghanistan where he received two combat medic badges. Once his service was complete, George was left with a void to fill. That’s when he discovered COTC.

“I met Commander Sowards. I was really impressed that the commander of the program was willing to sit down and answer any questions that I had. I had a lot of hard questions — why I would want to go to your academy, what’s great about your instructors — and he had a lot of really great answers,” said Clark. He enrolled in autumn 2017. The instructors have exceeded Clark’s expectations. “They’re truly teachers. They treat you with respect.

Enrolling at COTC was seamless, said Clark. He thought using his G.I. Bill benefits would be difficult, a commonly held belief by veterans. He found that the opposite was true, but he has faced other challenges: the academic challenge of going back to school after more than 20 years; the physical challenge of fitness tests required for Ohio peace officers; the social challenge of relating to students half his age. He had to learn how to be a student, something he learned from his classmates.

“I’m learning about myself through this program. I don’t want it to be over. It’s fun,” said Clark when considering graduation. “I’m looking forward to the achievement because it wasn’t a sure thing.”