congrats to former C-130 crew chief Hadi Kamara, who is now a senior at Princeton University, and is one of 36 to receive the Rhodes Scholarship due to his military work
An Air Force veteran whose interest in international affairs was kindled by supporting the urgent U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 is now one of fewer than three dozen Americans to be named a Rhodes scholar for 2026.
Kamara, 25, had been a C-130 crew chief supporting the 86th Maintenance Squadron at Ramstein Air Base, in August 2021 when word came down that the Germany-based outpost would be receiving thousands of troops and Afghan nationals amid a hasty evacuation.
“But being in Europe, being in Germany at the time of these operations, really made this real for me, and seeing the effects that it had on human beings on the ground made it real for me. And so it became something that I became deeply intrigued by and wanted to learn more about.”
Kamara joined the Alexandria-based group The Untouchables, a mentorship organization with a presence at his high school, T.C. Williams. The school, made famous by the 2000 Denzel Washington blockbuster “Remember the Titans,” has since been renamed Alexandria City High. Mentors in the Untouchables helped focus his thinking about his future, resulting in the realization that the military would help him develop the discipline he sought.
He opted for an aircraft maintenance specialist job pipeline out of a desire to gain exposure to work he hadn’t encountered before, including manual labor. He ended up with C-130 transport aircraft, another step that he believed would further his academic and career goals.
“Even before I joined the military, I always had a kind of inclination toward the international community,” Kamara said. “C-130s… we have locations everywhere, both domestically and internationally, and so being a C-130 crew chief also just gave me access to the most locations to be stationed.”
As Kamara wrapped up his final year in the Air Force at Ramstein, he turned his attention to education, first enrolling in Northern Virginia Community College and then transferring to Princeton. He “made a point” he said of making his experience at Princeton as focused on international relations as possible, making two trips to Kenya, learning Swahili and becoming immersed in East African politics. He also spent semesters abroad at the University of Sydney in Australia and at Oxford.
Princeton’s transfer program, he said, brought the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship to his attention, and by then, he had a clear vision for how he’d want to use it: to pursue a Master’s of Philosophy in international relations, focused on U.S.-Africa policy.
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