Second Lieutenant Mayur Patel

HOUSTON: Second Lieutenant Mayur Patel, son of Bharat (Treasurer of Gujarati Samaj of Houston) and Daksha Patel of Sugar Land, TX, recently graduated from the Army’s Officer Candidate School (OCS). OCS is one of the commissioning sources that future Army Commissioned Officers must undergo. Located at Fort Benning, Georgia, OCS trains selected personnel in warrior tasks and basic drills, imparts the fundamentals of leadership, and instills professional ethics and the Army values.

As an Officer Candidate, Mayur faced rigorous physical, mental, academic, and emotional challenges. Some of these challenges included foot marches leading up to 12 miles while carrying a 75-pound rucksack, obstacle courses, physical fitness training, map reading, day and night land navigation, small unit tactics, military history, and planning Army operations. All of this culminated into an intense 18-day field training exercise where Officer Candidate Patel was assessed on everything he learned while at OCS as he planned, executed, and led missions.

Prior to attending OCS, Mayur was a Staff Sergeant with 13 years of Army experience and has held multiple positions from Infantryman to Recruiter to Information Technology Specialist. Mayur has been deployed to Baghdad, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom where he was a ground combat Soldier. He has also been to South Korea in support of Key Resolve where he assessed the United States Forces Korea’s networking, knowledge management, and cybersecurity capabilities.

Now, as a Cyber Operations Officer, Mayur has transitioned from being on the front lines on a physical battlefield to being on the front lines of cyberspace. His primary mission will be to conduct offensive and defensive operations in order to prevent adversaries from infiltrating the Army’s networks. Mayur is currently assigned to the Southwest Cyber Protection Center in San Antonio, TX.