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NewslettersBeaufort High School graduate honored with a new command
By PATRICK DONOHUE pdonohue@beaufortgazette.com 843-986-553
Army Lt. Col. Brian Cole said he got a daily dose of Army values growing up in a military home in a military town.
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Cole, 41, a 1985 Beaufort High School graduate, assumed command of the Atlanta Recruiting Battalion in August during a ceremony at Fort McPherson, where he oversees more than 200 Army recruiters in the metro Atlanta area, as well as Athens, Marietta, Peachtree City and Chattanooga, Tenn.
The son of the late Master Gunnery Sgt. Charles L. Cole and Geneva Cole, of Beaufort, Cole said his love for country was a product of his Beaufort upbringing.
"I tell people that our family was a military anomaly -- we stayed in the same place and never moved for 30 years," Cole said from his Atlanta office. "What I really learned from growing up in Beaufort is the importance of service to your nation and the importance of doing something greater than yourself. Growing up, I had friends whose families were in the Corps, and this is such a pro-military town, it's tough not to have some of that rub off."
Cole said his father would serve yearlong deployments in Japan and get reassigned to work at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, leaving his mother, who taught at Beaufort Middle School for more than 30 years, and his extended family in the area to fill in.
"I had a great family support system," he said. "All of my family lives in Beaufort, so when my dad would go overseas, my mom, grandparents, aunts and uncles would come over and really made it easier for me and my brothers and sisters."
A former student government president at Beaufort High School, Cole earned an Army ROTC scholarship to South Carolina State University, a move he said his father, who was stationed with Crash, Fire and Rescue at MCAS Beaufort, backed wholeheartedly.
"My father was very proud and never made a distinction between services," he said. "He wasn't disappointed that I didn't join the Corps. He didn't believe in all of that 'rivalry between services' stuff."
After spending parts of his career in both the training and operational parts of the Army, Cole began working at the Pentagon as a member of Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey's personal staff. His position as Casey's executive outreach officer was Cole's last before assuming command of the Atlanta Recruiting Battalion.
"I wanted to see a different side of the Army," he said. "I was a basic training battalion commander at Fort Jackson and an ROTC instructor, and this just gave me a chance to get a much broader perspective of the Army."
Cole said ongoing military conflicts abroad haven't slowed recruiting, either at his office or throughout the Army. Every day, Cole interacts with recruiters and would-be soldiers, and he said the quality of America's fighting men and women is as strong as ever.
"We are still meeting our regular recruiting missions, even at a time when our country is at war, and there's a good chance that these young people will be sent to war," he said. "I think that says so much about the quality of the people that we have living in our country."
When his Army days are through, Cole said he hopes to come home.
"Beaufort's still home, and in a perfect world, when I'm ready to retire in five to seven years, I'd come back to Beaufort and teach," he said. "I just want to give back to the community."
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