A life-threatening car crash was just one of many obstacles that Erin Cole, a senior in Brigham Young University’s Army ROTC, believes has shaped who she is today. Now she sees herself as someone who has accomplished mental and physical feats she once considered too difficult to achieve.
Cole grew up in Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. Her aspirations for her future stemmed in part from her childhood role models: Her parents worked for the government, and one of her Sunday School teachers worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). These examples inspired Cole to aim big—even as a kid. “I’m going to be the director of the CIA,” she recalls thinking. “I’m going to do it, and nobody can stop me.”
By the time she was accepted to BYU, Cole had considered her options. She still hoped to work in the government someday, but she also knew she’d need experience for that to happen. She decided to pursue a degree in psychology, but one idea—joining the United States Army—kept coming back to her mind. “For a year I kept having this thought in the back of my mind that I am able-bodied, I am healthy, and I should join,” she explains.
But it wasn’t until she was listening to Sunday School lesson that she was ultimately convinced. After learning about the nature of God, she felt inspired that men and women need each other to be complete. Cole believed this applied to the army as well. “I remember thinking that our government has the power to end the world with nuclear weapons,” she describes, “and we might need both men and women to work together.”
Cole joined the ROTC in the winter of 2020, but she quickly felt overwhelmed and out of place. “I was small and female and weak, and I was just a clueless freshman,” she explains. She began to doubt herself, and she remembers some of her peers telling her to look elsewhere, too.
“I didn’t think I could do it,” she recalls. “I went to my leader and said that I was going to quit after one semester.” But her leader encouraged Cole to give it one more chance, just to be sure, so she signed up for the fall semester ROTC classes.
But matters only got worse. Nearing the end of the semester, Cole rolled her car in a disastrous accident. “I almost died,” she says—she suffered a concussion and needed seven staples in her head.
In a moment of desperation, Cole received a priesthood blessing that she feels changed the trajectory of her life. As she listened, she remembers a distinct thought coming to mind: “I saw an image of me jumping out of planes,” she explains—she immediately interpreted it as parachuting with the army.
Cole’s desire to participate in ROTC was reignited, and she felt her objective was clearer than ever. One month after her recovery, she enlisted in the Utah Army National Guard and requested to join their airborne school.
However, people in the Utah Army National Guard cautioned her that she was fighting against the odds. The school was considered extremely competitive—but Cole didn’t allow the doubts to stop her. “If this is what God told me to do, then I’m going to give it everything I got,” Cole remembers thinking. She trusted in herself and believed in what she hoped to accomplish.
And she achieved her goal: “I was the first person that our particular team was able to send in several months,” Cole explains.
Cole has parachuted 15 times since being selected—including jumping out of C-130 Hercules and C-17 Globemaster planes and even Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters. In the ROTC she has taken on various leadership positions, including cadet battalion commander—the highest ROTC cadet ranking. She credits the influence of others within the program and her individual studies for her progression over the years.
Set to graduate and commission at the end of the fall 2024 semester, Cole will soon begin her active duty with the army as a quartermaster officer, responsible for preparing equipment and systems for missions to help field services, aerial delivery, and material management.
Wherever she goes, Cole is focused on helping others who may feel as if the odds are against them—in many ways, she’s inspired by those who encouraged her to keep chasing her dream, and she wants to help others chase their dreams, too. “I’m passionate about taking care of others,” she says. “Even if it’s really uncomfortable or hard, I think that is ultimately what Christ would do."
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Written by Nicholas Day
