Sacrifice, service and a determination to succeed led Ph.D. student Maira Patino to Clemson’s parks, recreation and tourism management doctorate program with a focus on outreach
Chicago, where Clemson Ph.D. student Maira Patino grew up, was, in every conceivable way, the opposite of Huapango, Mexico, the village of 600 where she was born. She was 6 years old in 1992 when her family moved into a basement apartment in Portage Park. Patino started first grade that March, not knowing a word of English — she would repeat that year of school after she couldn’t learn the language fast enough.
It was the first of many times her work ethic would push her ahead, and by the end of second grade, she was speaking English and finding success in academics while her parents worked to make a better life for her and her two brothers.
“I knew from a very young age that I wanted to break that generational barrier, where you work and bring money home, and that’s it. I had to do something more meaningful with my life, and I knew I could help others like me if I picked the right direction.”
Maira Patino
Earning a college degree seemed like the most logical way to set out on that course, but poverty was a barrier. Her high school counselor asked how she planned to pay for college, and when she didn’t have an answer, that’s when joining the military first crossed her mind.
Preparing for new challenges
She’s not sure what sparked it — maybe one of those “Be All You Can Be” commercials the Army was airing on every channel at the time, but she started reading everything she could about joining the U.S. military. The more she researched, the more it seemed like a smart option.
The Army offered all kinds of incentives, including many that would pay for college. It meant she would literally be putting her life on the line to get an education.
Her initial goal was to attend West Point, the premier United States Army service academy. She liked what it offered: structure, discipline, camaraderie — all things she was thirsting for. But when she tried to apply, she hit an unexpected wall: She was classified as a “permanent resident,” and to be an officer in the U.S. military, one must be a citizen.
“It hadn’t occurred to me,” she recalls. “At that point in my life, I still had several years to go, and I just couldn’t wait that long.”
That’s when she came across a National Guard recruiting booth at a school fair. They informed her the Guard welcomed permanent residents and 17-year-olds with a parental waiver and, if accepted, they would pay 100 percent of their in-state college tuition.
She was only 17, but she was already brimming with the tenacity that would propel her throughout her life. She convinced her parents to sign the waiver and became a U.S. Army soldier before she and most of her high school classmates were even old enough to vote.
Service that leads to educational opportunity
Patino started her military career as a private, the lowest enlisted rank. Her occupational specialty (MOS) was 88M, truck driver. It wasn’t the most glamorous assignment, but being in the National Guard enabled her to enroll in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign after she graduated high school in 2005.
From the beginning, she wasn’t satisfied to be just another soldier — she wanted to be a leader.
Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population signs up to serve in the military.
After some research, Patino discovered the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which allows people serving in the armed forces to apply for naturalization under special provisions. After a series of intense interviews, she was accepted and became a U.S. citizen before the start of her sophomore year at Illinois, which allowed her to join the university’s ROTC program to become an officer.
It was the emotional culmination of years of determined effort.
“It felt like I could finally become whole,” she says.
Patino graduated from Illinois in 2009 with a degree in criminology. She was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army (the first officer rank) the same week she was handed her diploma, having completed the ROTC program.
Her new MOS was 42B, human resource officer. For her graduation present, the Army gave her a full-time job. She was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to work for the Army’s human resources department, the Adjutant General’s Corps.
Fort Bragg happened to be the “Home of the Airborne,” where the Army’s storied 82nd Airborne Division is stationed. Everywhere she looked were soldiers with silver wings pinned on their chests — the coveted Airborne Badge only worn by paratroopers.
Patino immediately set her sights on joining their ranks: “I’ve always been very competitive, and nothing is more competitive than Airborne school. I had to go for it.”
She attended the grueling three-week course and pinned her jump wings on June 1, 2007, making her one of the few soldiers in the U.S. Army qualified to jump out of airplanes.
Patino grins wittingly as she recalls the experience.
“My fifth jump, I said, ‘I’m never going to do this again!’” she says, laughing. “Fifty jumps later, and I’m jumpmaster qualified, which means I can train other soldiers how to jump out of planes.”
Retired U.S. Army Col. Mark Stock was her commander in the 82nd Airborne from 2010-2013.
“I recall our first tactical exercise together, a night parachute jump, where Maira would be a member of the primary assault command post (ACP) assisting with commanding and controlling the ground tactical plan,” Stock recalls.
To date, more than 10,000 Clemson men and women have served in the U.S. armed forces.
It was Patino’s seventh jump as a paratrooper. Carrying a heavy radio, she was tasked to jump out of a C-130 Hercules into the dark of night loaded down with 70 pounds of equipment, rapidly move to an assigned assembly area, link up with the ACP, help secure the perimeter, and then serve a key role in accounting for every soldier — tracking injuries, calling for evacuations and other personnel actions. Patino is just over 5 feet tall and weighs 100 pounds on a good day, but Stock says she carries herself with strength that defies her stature.
“This was an overwhelming set of tasks for any soldier and would be challenging even for the most seasoned warriors in our ranks. Maira was no exception,” Stock explained. “During our first rehearsal, I watched her struggle to get the radio into action, prep her equipment and describe all the actions and activities for which she would be responsible. She did not quit until she got it right. It was clear from that first jump that she had a hunger to strive for excellence and master the tasks she was given. She tackled challenges fearlessly with an open mind, a sense of humility and a sharp focus on mission accomplishment and taking care of soldiers. Over the next several years, I watched her grow into an exceptional paratrooper and leader.”
Patino was now a certified member of the Army elite, but in 2012, she joined the most exclusive ranks of all when her unit, the 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, received orders to deploy to Afghanistan.
Defending from the front line
The 319th AFAR was stationed at Forward Operating Base Warrior, a medium-sized outpost of plywood “B-huts” and shipping containers arranged inside a 16-foot wall of Hesco barriers in one of the high desert valleys of Ghazni Province, roughly halfway between Kabul and Kandahar.
Former Army photojournalist Sgt. Michael MacLeod, who served alongside Patino in Ghazni, wrote about the position the 319th found itself in his book, “The Brave Ones,” which candidly documents that deployment:
From the altitude of our Black Hawk, in early April, Ghazni was staggering bleakness from end to end. Apocalyptic mountains, dusty plains, more barren mountains. … FOB Warrior was the southernmost base in Ghazni. It was the main NATO presence in Gilan district, just west of Nawah, the district through which all bad things flowed.
“The Brave Ones”
Their mission was assisting the 82nd’s infantry battalions in neutralizing insurgents in the area and making it safe to travel the main road, Highway 1, which was Afghanistan’s only lifeline between its two largest cities: Kabul in the north and Kandahar in the south. The Taliban lurked in every mud hut village surrounding the base and made their presence known. The 82nd suffered a steady stream of attacks, with soldiers injured almost daily, either in firefights, indirect fire or blown up by improvised explosive devices.
Soon after the 319th got settled into their new home, the Taliban fired a mortar into FOB Warrior that blew out the walls of a building Patino was standing next to. Less than three months into her deployment, she already had another silver badge to put on her chest: the Combat Action Badge.
Her job as the battalion S1 — the military equivalent of a chief human resources officer — meant she was responsible for the accountability and finances, as well as the morale, of approximately 200 paratroopers stationed at the main FOB Ghazni, its sister FOB Arian and its three command outposts – Ab Band, Muqor and Giro – scattered around the province. Patino would have to travel to each base solo, hitching rides with different platoons.
Clemson’s proud tradition of military excellence dates to its founding in 1889 as a military school for cadets seeking the highest academic excellence.
“I was a one-woman shop as the only 42B deployed with my battalion, so I had to visit all the sites to see what our soldiers were in need of,” Patino says.
U.S. Army Col. Benjamin Bennett, commander of the Wilmington District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a 2012 Clemson University civil engineering graduate, served with Patino in Ghazni.
“I have known Maira since 2010 when we served together in the 1st Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division. I deployed with her to Ghazni, a very challenging deployment, and witnessed firsthand her toughness and ability to remain calm in challenging situations,” says Bennett. “Her leadership earned the respect of the senior leaders and routinely led to her assignment to positions routinely reserved for more senior officers.”
Eight 82nd Airborne paratroopers lost their lives in Ghazni during that deployment, and hundreds were wounded. Patino says she considers herself fortunate because she survived the deployment unscathed but haunted.
“I couldn’t process it until years later. It still seems unreal talking about it now — that I went to war,” she says. “I look back, and it seems like I’m remembering someone else.”
She stayed in the Army after coming home, serving tours in Italy and Africa, and took advantage of the Army’s education programs to earn her master’s degree from Webster University. She eventually wound up in another airborne unit alongside Bennett, the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
“I intended to get out after that,” she says. “Two airborne units, that’s enough! Peace out.”
But then she was selected for a position at a U.S. Army main headquarters, human resources command at Fort Knox.
“I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’m doing OK in the Army,’” she says, laughing. “But I still felt like I wanted something more. While I was at Fort Knox, I had time to reflect on all of that and gradually realized I wanted to pursue a Ph.D. I wanted to help other young girls like me, and I was starting to see Clemson University as the place I could do that.”
Member of a new family
While they were in the 173rd Airborne Brigade together, Clemson alumnus Bennett put the bug in Patino’s head that his alma mater might be the perfect place for her next chapter. He hoped his love of the place would pique her interest because he saw more than enough promise in her to be a Tiger.
“She is tenacious, a high performer, not easily intimidated, and possesses an exceptional ability to operate in complex environments,” says Bennett. “There is no question she will accomplish whatever she sets her mind to, and there is no limit to her potential.”
Bennett’s prodding was effective. During her spare time at Fort Knox, Patino took a dive into Clemson’s website and liked what she saw, especially in its Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management (PRTM). She was drawn to the idea of outdoor recreation as a means to lift the spirits and aspirations of underrepresented children. Once again, she was sold.
She laughs when she thinks back on it. “I decided it’s now or never, which has kind of been my M.O. my whole life.”
Clemson University is ranked No. 46 Best College for Veterans by U.S. News & World Report, 2023.
With the help of Bennett, other mentors and the administrators in PRTM, Patino was able to put a contract together where she could simultaneously return to active duty as a soldier and pursue her Ph.D. as a full-time student, arguably making her one of the most unique students on campus. She was promoted to the rank of major in March 2021 and re-contracted into active duty during an intimate ceremony in front of Memorial Stadium that September.
She hopes to use her degree to improve the lives of children from places like Huapango.
“My mom and I went back in 2020 to visit family who is still there. Nothing much has changed. The dirt streets are still there and the lake outside of town. There are no parks but one pea-sized playground. Government-funded outdoor recreation is not something that crosses their minds. All the stuff that matters to me now doesn’t matter there, so I’d like to change that.”
Clemson professor Corliss Outley, director of the REYSE Collaboratory and Patino’s Ph.D. adviser, says she’s confident Patino will succeed in anything she puts her mind to.
“I have watched Ms. Patino grow into being a model student, leader and role model that I believe is part of the top five percent of students that I have come across in my career,” Outley says. “She has chosen to pursue this advanced degree to assist young people who come from similar circumstances as she does in the hope that they are able to make changes in their lives for the better. She is an amazing young woman. The ability to achieve both academic and military credentials while maintaining a high GPA and participating in extracurricular activities and community service illustrates her exceptionalism.”
Military Friendly Employer
Clemson was named a 2020, 2021 and 2022 Military Friendly Employer and Military Friendly School, making it the only institution of higher education selected for both designations multiple years in a row.
Outley notes that Patino’s research topic for her Ph.D. is “undocumented youth and their experiences upon arrival to the U.S. by exploring how undocumented youth process assimilation, discrimination and violence and utilizing art as a form of resistance and radical healing.”
Patino has turned words into action during her time at Clemson, making herself readily available as a mentor to undergraduate students and volunteering her time at the Division of Inclusion and Equity’s Women’s Roundtable events, which brings young women from around the Upstate, ages ranging from middle school to college, to connect and hear firsthand stories from accomplished women who know what it takes to reach for greatness.
“It’s very personal for me. My mentors in the Army and here at Clemson have truly helped me on my journey and, in some cases, literally saved my life,” Patino emphasized. “As a combat veteran, when I say someone saved my life, that’s not an exaggeration. If I can have that kind of impact on even one young woman who is doubting herself, then all the battles I’ve fought to get here have been worth it.”
If there’s one thing she hopes to pass on to the young women she mentors, it’s courage.
“We get shut down so often — especially those of us who are minority women — that we don’t take chances. I love showing young women that betting on yourself is the best way to get to where you want to go. I’m living proof that pushing yourself to the line and charging over it pays off.”