From ROTC to JAG: Penn State Altoona grad AJ Fink’s journey of service

ALTOONA, Pa. - It was never a part of AJ Fink's plan to join ROTC when he arrived at Penn State Altoona as a first-year student.

On a whim, he had a conversation with a representative during the college's involvement fair and found himself thinking the program could actually be beneficial to him. In that chance moment, the entire trajectory of his life was altered.

Now, scheduled to graduate from law school in spring 2026, Fink believes it was one of the best choices he's ever made.

Fink graduated from Penn State Altoona in 2017 with a degree in history and was commissioned straight into the Army. He went to Fort Sill for officer training, then to Fort Benning for airborne school. He was stationed as a field artillery officer at the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, from 2018 to 2022. He deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom's Sentinel from 2019 to 2020.

After returning to the States, Fink continued up the ranks as a battery executive officer and a battery commander. Then it was on to Oklahoma for more training before moving to Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.

All of this from someone who had never even considered a career in the Army.

"But it turns out that I love it. I love working with soldiers. I love the camaraderie of the military, the teamwork and mission mindset. It's just unbelievably rewarding."

Even so, Fink began to feel a heaviness pressing on him. After five years of intense service and combat experiences, of losing friends and fellow servicemen to war and to suicide, he was struggling. His mental health was suffering. Fink knew he needed to reevaluate some things.

Part of that process was identifying the things that make him happy. He thought back to his undergraduate days at Penn State Altoona and the goal he'd once had to attend law school. He wondered if that was a place where he could use his strengths in a different way. "I wanted to be a more positive force in support of the Army. I saw being a lawyer as a way to stay in the Army, be a part of the team, and continue to problem solve."

Fink decided to apply for the Army's Funded Legal Education Program (FLEP), a highly competitive program in which the Army pays for the law school education of up to 25 active-duty officers and enlisted soldiers per year. Participants continue to serve on active duty while attending law school and are required to serve in the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAGC) after graduation.

Fink was selected for the program and chose to attend Penn State Dickinson Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Fink was honored and thrilled but immediately faced a hard transition. He says it was often a bit difficult being a 30-year-old law student surrounded by mostly 22- and 23-year-olds, many of whom had little or no work experience.

"I was used to one way of working that's very blunt, very to the point with no hard feelings. That's just how we do it in the Army. I really had to learn how to communicate in a way that didn't alienate those around me."

Looking back to Penn State Altoona again, Fink recalled his leadership role in the college's Student Government Association (SGA). Serving as the association's president for three straight years afforded him opportunities for growth and fulfilled his love of understanding systems, how to identify problems, and come up with ways to solve them through positive relationships with others.

He decided to join the Student Bar Association (SBA), the law school equivalent of SGA. During his first year, he says he noticed unsustainable budget practices carried over from Covid. Believing he could begin to fix the issues, he ran for treasurer his second year.

Under his leadership, SBA found alternate funding sources and made changes to some rules and policies that would minimize the effect of certain budget requests. SBA went from about an $18,000 deficit to a nearly $2,000 surplus that year.

In his third and final year, Fink was elected president. He wanted to continue the work he'd done as treasurer but also lay groundwork for future success of the organization and its leaders.

In both circumstances, Fink drew on his undergrad experiences in SGA to make sure everyone felt included, heard, and valued. "I couldn't just say, 'hey, we need to do this, just trust me.' I had to earn that trust. It took getting buy in and communicating my vision with reason and logic and setting up the system so that everyone understood. We were all working together like a well-oiled machine."

Of course, there were also some low points for Fink throughout law school, times when he doubted himself and wondered why he'd ever thought he could hack it. Each time, he was lifted from the dark by those in his support system. Reassurance came from faculty at both Dickinson and Penn State Altoona-faculty who were more than just teachers, who cared deeply about him and his well-being, who listened and gave advice and offered encouragement.

Reassurance came from his friends, many of whom he met and developed strong bonds with through SGA, SBA, and the Army.

"My best friends are the ones that I've gone through the hardest work and the most amount of problem solving with. They have helped me out more than I can ever explain. They're just amazing."

After Fink graduates next spring, he will head to the Army's Judge Advocate Officer Basic Course in Charlottesville, Virginia, for training. He will then serve as an Army Judge Advocate for at least six years, providing legal advice and services to the Army.

Back in 2017 as he was about to graduate from Penn State Altoona, Fink stated in an interview that he wanted to be an Army officer and maybe attend law school one day. "Now it's like, 'holy moly, I'm doing exactly what 21-year-old AJ wanted me to do. And I'm doing it in a way that makes me happy and in a way that gives me purpose."