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Photo By State Journal/Kelly MackeyWestern Hills High School JROTC teacher Col. Joel Payne congratulates Amber Ratliff at the end of the JROTC awards ceremony.

Photo By State Journal/Kelly MackeyAmber’s uniform is decorated with insignia.

Amber Ratliff claims that her start in her school’s JROTC “really isn’t much of a story.”

The Western Hills High School senior had two empty slots on her freshman year schedule, and the Army training course happened to fit. It was the first time her school had offered the program.

“It seemed OK,” she said. “I figured, why not?”

Now Ratliff, 17, is graduating high school and heading to Western Kentucky University on a full ROTC scholarship. After graduation, she plans to enlist in the Army, setting out on a career that wasn’t even on her radar until two years ago.

“Her real story is that she came along from a very shy freshman to being a leader as a senior,” said Col. Joel Payne, who leads JROTC at WHHS.

“I think the program did a lot to help her with that, and she matured and came into her own.”

The teenager, a computer enthusiast who works part time at Kmart, didn’t consider joining the Army until her junior year.

Enlisting was something that other people did, she said.

“I knew the military as a concept, but not as an actual entity I could join,” she said. “That’s how I thought of it. Back then, I wanted to be the first woman president.”

But she started liking the curriculum, which includes military history and leadership, drill and other physical activities.

“It turned out that I liked it a lot better than my other classes, because I got to stand up and move around more,” she said. “I learn a lot better just by actually practicing and doing it.”

Now she wears her hair pulled back in a tight, Army-style bun. She spends her lunch period working on the JROTC cadet database, drawing up promotion and awards orders. She serves as captain of her school’s six-person rifle team, which travels the state for weekend marksmanship competitions.

Amber applied for a scholarship a few months ago, even though she knew it could be competitive. Her uncle and stepbrother, who served in the National Guard, encouraged her, she said.

The Army pays for tuition, books and a living stipend, and the university pays for room and board, Payne said.

“I was starting to get worried about college, and I’d heard that the military would pay for college,” she said.

“I wanted to go to Western Kentucky more than anything, but I probably would have been stuck at the community college or something. I would have had so many student loans.”

Amber’s scholarship requires her to serve in active duty for four years after graduation, something she hopes will give her a chance to travel abroad. She says her mother is supportive, but worried about the chance she’ll enter combat.

“I’m more excited than anything – I’m not worried about losing my life,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I’m a teenager.”

Payne said Amber is the first member of the school’s JROTC to get a scholarship in the field. He’s happy to see one of his students pursue a career in the military, but emphasized that it isn’t the focus of the program, which has grown to include 50 students this year.

“It’s gratifying, but it’s not what we’re here for,” he said. “We’re here to make them better citizens, but if they show an interest in the military, we certainly help them.”

Payne sees his role as a teacher of citizenship and leadership. He says he serves as a counselor too, helping students develop plans for their lives, apply to colleges and find jobs.

“If we don’t leave them with anything else, we want to help them be a better citizen and a better American,” he said. “The country is better off for every kid who goes through this program.”

He said Amber’s success could inspire other students to work toward the same. After she won, her classmates started talking about applying for the scholarship too.

“It makes me feel really good, because it makes me feel like maybe I’ve influenced somebody to further their education and do something better with their life,” she said.

Amber plans to study computer science at Western. She says she likes to pry computers open and fix the hardware inside.

“We got a computer at home, and I started playing with it,” she said. “The rest is history.”

“Frankfort Faces” is a series that highlights people from within the Frankfort and Franklin County community. Each feature follows one of the city’s most unique personalities and includes a story, photos and video, which can be found by clicking the TV icon attached to the story online at state-journal.com.