Serving God & Her Country ... How This RIC Student is Spending Her Summer

Nicole Feliz Paulino is a cadet in the Reserves Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and a member of the Rhode Island Army National Guard.

Like all ROTC cadets, she is training to be a future officer. This summer she’ll go to Army ROTC Advanced Camp in Fort Knox, Kentucky, where she’ll be tested on everything she’s learned as a soldier. Then she’ll fly out to Alaska to engage in an Army chaplaincy internship.

“I’ll be in Fort Knox for 35 days,” says the 27-year-old. “That’s when my leadership will be tested. I’ll assume the role of platoon sergeant and they’ll assign me a mission, which I will carry out in the field for 12 of the 35 days I am there.”

From Fort Knox, she will spend three-and-a-half weeks in Alaska. She was, in fact, only one of two cadets chosen from all the Army ROTCs in the country for this chaplaincy internship.

“I think it will make me a better human being and help me make better decisions as a leader,” she says.

Above all, she hopes that the internship will increase her knowledge of God.

“There’s a Bible verse – Proverbs 3:5-6 – that says, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your understanding. Acknowledge Him at all times and He will make your paths straight.’ That verse has played out in my life in so many different ways,” she says. “He’s been guiding me throughout my life.” In fact, she KNOWS He led her to her dream job in the Army.

It took a long time to get here, she says. All of her peers in Army ROTC are 11 years her junior, having joined right out of high school. But being a native of the Dominican Republic and landing in Rhode Island at age 15 without the ability to speak English, prevented her from joining JROTC in high school. 

After graduating from CCRI in 2016, she enrolled at RIC in 2019; however, financial hardships forced her to drop out. In 2023 she was finally able to join the Army ROTC program, which gave her the opportunity to return to RIC and complete her degree in social work. Once she graduates next year, Feliz Paulino will be a full-fledged commissioned officer in the U.S. Army.