Amy Sitler: Female ROTC Extraordinaire

Sophomore Amy Sitler, center, leads her ROTC detachment during Physical Training on Tuesday, November 24 in the Curry Hicks gymnasium. Sitler is one of only a handful of women in the Air Force ROTC at the University of Massachusetts, where she is a nursing major on track "to be a Flight Nurse... in an evacuation medical crew," she said.


"Being a girl doesn't really change anything for ROTC. I guess it makes me feel kind of butch sometimes," Sitler said with a laugh. Above, she and a group of other sophomores lead the detachment's exercise. Next year Sitler and a few others from her detachment will be going to Field Training, which is "the boot camp for ROTC cadets... it's basically torture," she said. She and the other sophomore are learning to lead exercises in preparation for Field Training, where they will each be given a different job. ROTC is preparing them for every job, Sitler said.


The rest of Detachment 370 waits for Sitler to grand them permission to stand at attention after she leads them in an abdominal exercise. At ROTC, "we're trained to be leaders," she said.


Sitler served as a flight commander during a drill competition at Boyden Gymnasium last week. "It's a competition between the flights [at the University, where there are three]," she said. Sitler led her flight in a parade, which was "for the Cadre. They're the active members of the force [on campus]. [The parade] was basically to show them how we've improved this semester," Sitler said.


This semester, Sitler has been given the job of webmaster for the Air Force ROTC. Above, she works on the ROTC website. She works on the website at least twice a week but has been doing so "more lately because I revamped it," she said. Her brother, Paul, was a webmaster during his time in ROTC when he attended the University.


Sitler looks over a small book her teacher passed around during her poetry class last Friday. She writes poetry in her spare time, in addition to "playing guitar" and "going to metal shows with [my boyfriend]," she said.


Sitler works on a collage for a project in her German class. "I already speak German so it's not a big deal," she said when asked how difficult the class is. She is also wearing dress shoes "to stretch them out because I don't normally wear heels," and will be wearing them this weekend to a formal event with her boyfriend, she said.



Sitler tucks her hair behind her hair to show off a few piercings. She has eight in total, and "I plan on getting at least one more," she said. "When I'm in uniform I'm only allowed to wear studs... I take [the others] out for ROTC things," she said. She also has a tattoo on her stomach with a surface piercing in the middle of it.