U.S. Army veteran Porter navigates life as student

At more than a decade older than most of his peers, Cody Porter is not the typical UNC sophomore.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Porter felt compelled to serve his country and joined the U.S. Army.

Porter was in direct combat for a portion of his army career before being put in charge of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the southern half of Iraq during his last appointment in the country.

After waking up with a massive camel spider crawling up his thigh while trying to sleep against an armored vehicle, Porter decided he wanted to take a different path with his life.

“My squad leader told me not to shoot the spider with my machine gun. So I slung that and pulled out my (9 mm) and decided to shoot the spider with that, and he told me that was not acceptable either,” he said.

“So I attacked the spider with my fighting knife until finally I managed to vanquish it.”

Porter, who was married at the time, had thought being in the army was the honorable, necessary thing to do to provide for his family.

“I put my knife up and went and sat back down and collected my thoughts and that was the first time, I think I was 19 at the time, it occurred to me that I really did not want to be where I was, doing what I was doing,” Porter said.

“I stayed in the army for 10 and a half years and eventually just got so sick of it that I said, ‘I have to get out, come back to school and get smart.’”

“Do smart guy stuff instead of strong guy stuff.”

Porter, who wanted to attend UNC ever since he was in second grade at Frank Porter Graham Elementary School, said his military training helps him prioritize his academics.

“And it also taught me how to be confident,” Porter said.

“I used to be kind of an introvert but the first couple times you have to give a briefing in front of Joint Chiefs or something, it teaches you very quickly that you have to be confident or you’re not going to be listened to.”

Porter was an active participant in class, said political science professor Thomas Oatley.

“From my vantage point, Cody offered the rest of the class a level of operational detail about international politics that my rather dry academic approach lacked,” said Oatley in an email.

Porter, who is now a computer science major, said he is happy that he took on the challenge of going back to school.

“That’s a big inertia for a lot of soldiers to overcome — to actually get back to school,” he said.

Another soldier-turned-college student, Justin Carry, worked with Porter at Fort Riley in Kansas and is a longtime friend of his.

Carry said Porter’s smarts and work ethic set him up well to return to school.

“He just always struck me as the kind of person that would be able to accomplish anything he put his mind to.”

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