Claudia Vargas of Perry enlisted Thursday in the Army National Guard, and the Perry High School senior, who is ranked ninth in her high school class for academics, made the most of her scholarly skills by acing the military entrance assessments.
According to Sgt. Jana DeKoter of Perry, career counselor with the Iowa Army National Guard, Vargas earned a high score of 96 on her Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a widely used multiple-aptitude tests developed U.D. Department of Defense (DOD) that measures a person’s strengths, weaknesses and potential for future successes.
Equally impressive was Vargas’ score of 118 on her Defense Language Aptitude Battery test, used by the DOD to measure a person’s potential for learning a foreign language, thus determining who can pursue training as a military linguist.
“That is phenomenal!” DeKoter said of Vargas’ high marks on the two tests. “She joined the Guard as a 35M Human Intelligence Collector, which is very tough to qualify for.”
Vargas said she plans to pursue a degree at Iowa State University and hopes eventually to realize her dream of joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She is considering ISU’s ROTC program and applying for a National Guard Minuteman Scholarship.
“We’re super proud of Claudia and enthusiastic to see such ambition,” DeKoter said. “Welcome to the team!”
