An Orem woman will be part of the first class of females to receive Infantry training for the U.S. Army.
Tara McCaig enlisted for the Infantry on April 29th, the first female to do so in the state of Utah. She is scheduled to attend the very first coed Basic Infantry Training at Fort Benning Georgia next year. The 25-year-old Utah Valley University student says she didn’t set out to make history.
“Never thought I would be one of the very first ones to do something,” McCaig says, but she’s always wanted to join the Army. She has deep military roots, with her father and her brother serving in the Navy and both her grandfathers in the Army. McCaig wanted to defend her country like the men in her family. As soon as she found out that women could enlist, she jumped at the chance. “I’m a firm a believer that as long as we feel we can do it, we can.”
McCaig says she’s heard training will be brutal, but she’s not afraid. She’s most looking forward to “jumping out of airplanes.” She heads out for training on January 30th.
