Megan Rodgers Military Collection Exhibit

Contents: About the Collection | About Megan | Tech

About the Collection

An exhibit celebrating the military service of Megan C. Rodgers, CTI2/USN.

About Megan

Megan Carol Rodgers was born and raised in northwestern Pennsylvania. At age 18, she enrolled as an undergraduate student at West Virginia University (WVU). She was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in foreign languages and literature from WVU in 2007. Following two years in the workforce in Canonsburg, PA, Megan felt called to serve her country. She is the first female member of her family to serve in the armed forces, preceded in service only by her paternal grandfather who was enlisted for a short time in the US National Guard.

Due to her interest in foreign languages, Megan denied recruitment offers to become an intelligence officer or pilot, and instead enlisted in the US Navy with a contract to be a Cryptologic Technician Interpretive (CTI). Megan enlisted out of the Canonsburg recruiting station and left for Navy bootcamp on April 20, 2010.

Following graduation from bootcamp in Great Lakes, IL, Megan was sent to the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, CA for a 48 week intensive and immersive course to learn Hebrew (modern). She was assigned aircrew orders prior to graduating from DLI. In June 2011, she left DLI for the highly physically and mentally demanding aircrew training pipeline, which consisted of two survival training courses (North Island, CA and Spokane, WA), aircrew candidate school (Pensacola, FL), and a familiarization course for her assigned aircraft, the EP-3E ARIES II, in Whidbey Island, WA.

Upon successful completion of all required aircrew training courses, Megan was stationed at Fort Gordon, GA in March 2012. At Fort Gordon, she was hand-selected to attend advanced, classified training courses which enabled her to fly various missions. During her assignment at Fort Gordon (March 2012-March 2015), Megan deployed twice, earned two warfare devices (Naval Aircrew Warfare Specialist and Enlisted Information Dominance Warfare Specialist), and was awarded various medals.

Megan was then stationed at Fort Meade, MD in March 2015. Despite being on shore duty, she volunteered for a temporary assignment overseas in a high-stress environment. At Fort Meade, she was awarded various medals, as well as multiple letters of commendation for continued high levels of language proficiency. She completed her enlistment obligation in May 2017 and was honorably discharged from service with the rank of Petty Officer Second Class (E5) at Fort Meade.

After her military service, Megan spent two years as a government contractor for the Department of Defense, earned a Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics from Saint Cloud State University, earned a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh, and is working as an archival consultant in her hometown, focusing on preserving the stories and sacrifices of fellow veterans.