Law student receives Commandant's Trophy

When Kevin McCann was deployed to Sangin, Afghanistan in 2010, his role as a combat engineer required him to walk ahead of Marine platoons to "clear" the area of booby-traps and Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).

"The best way I can describe it is kind of like when you get a new car," McCann said. "And now that you have that car you start seeing it on the road everywhere. Once you know the signs of a buried IED you can see them all the time pretty easily."

During halftime at the Spiders' football game this Saturday, McCann, a University of Richmond School of Law student, received the Commandant's Trophy for achieving the highest overall GPA at Officer Candidate School (OCS), a 10-week program for aspiring Marine Corps officers, that he completed this summer.

The overall GPA during OCS comprises academic excellence, physical fitness and leadership ability, and it is assessed throughout the 10 weeks. McCann earned the award out of roughly 340 men and women at the start of the program.

"There are people [at OCS] from very prestigious universities and people who are already enlisted," said Capt. Mark P. Cowles, the executive officer for the Marine Recruiting Station in Richmond. "So winning this looks very good for him and very good for the university."

"My biggest concern was just graduating and not getting injured," McCann said of OCS. "Because if you get injured and can't complete the 10 weeks, you don't graduate. I was 27 and a lot of the people going through it with me were around 20, so I had a lot of aches and pains and the scar tissue in my hip gave me a lot of knee pain."

The scar tissue in McCann's hip developed after he took shrapnel to his leg from an enemy grenade in 2010. In Sangin, his platoon was knocking on doors of farmers' compounds to offer food and water in return for information. The tactical premise was to "clear the area" by learning about the Taliban's whereabouts in these neighborhoods.

"On the 10th day of this particular mission, we knocked on a door and immediately after, a grenade came over and I got hit then," McCann said. "There was a wire coming from beneath the door and I was looking in the sand to make sure it wasn't a booby trap. We heard a pop and thought we were getting shot at, and then we saw the grenade come over." McCann earned a purple heart and a combat action ribbon for injuries received from the grenade attack.

To become a Marine Corps officer, candidates take one of two paths. The traditional road is the Naval Academy. Young men and women who know early on that becoming a Marine Corps officer is their goal, take this road. When McCann entered college at University of Virginia in 2004, he was unsure about his professional aspirations.

As a sophomore at U.Va., McCann learned about and began the application process for the Marine Corps Platoon Leaders Class Program--the other path to becoming an officer. Hoping to further his chances for acceptance, McCann enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves.

"I wouldn't call it a calling; I'd just say it's wanting to do something worthwhile," McCann said. "I also wanted to finish college and I could do that if I joined the reserves,"

After graduation, McCann went to job school where he trained for a basic engineering position in the marines. That summer he finished an eight-week training course as a basic engineer--largely choosing this program because it was in Roanoke, near his home. Upon completion, he was considered a combat engineer.

"I came back after graduating from job camp and there was word that there would be a deployment," McCann said. "They were going to send a platoon of 30 to 40 Marines out of our unit of around 150. So I volunteered for this and got selected."

The deployment was scheduled to begin six months later, but was pushed back for three more months. McCann took a temporary job leasing apartments in Charlottesville, and after nine months, began premobilization training in 29 Palms, Calif.

During his deployment, McCann met several judge advocates, lawyers for the Marines. Their job was to deploy on missions with American soldiers and make certain that the rules of war were being abided. "Seeing what they did when I was deployed and learning about what they did back home, I knew it would be a great transition from being a Marine back to civilian life, and I decided it would be a route that I'd like to take," McCann said.

McCann applied to take the LSAT while he was in Germany healing from the grenade attack. Upon his return, he passed the LSAT and enrolled in University of Richmond School of Law. To become a judge advocate, McCann needed to be a commissioned Marine Corps officer, which is why he applied to attend OCS this past summer.

"The Commandant's Award is a traveling trophy, so it really just goes to U of R," McCann said. "The biggest thing is that I've had such a great experience at U of R, and that's why I'm really glad that it's a traveling trophy that goes to the university. I'm happy that I've been able to provide this award for U of R."

McCann said he hoped to graduate from the law school this year and pass the Bar exam. He said he then hoped to go to basic school for six months and then on to naval justice school in Rhode Island.

Contact reporter Clay Helms at clay.helms@richmond.edu