Maj. Martina Taylor Campbell poses for a photo at the U.S. Army 6th Medical Recruiting Battalion Monday, July 26, 2021.
Friday, July 30, 2021 | 2 a.m.
Army Maj. Martina Taylor Campbell has her eyes on the horizon. As the newly minted executive officer of the Las Vegas-based 6th Medical Recruiting Battalion, she’ll seek out the next generation of Army medical professionals.
Growing up in Culpeper, Va., Taylor Campbell was part of the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps in high school and joined the Army Reserve. After graduating, she enlisted in the Army and set out to complete her training.
Training felt like the cross country, track and cheerleading teams she joined in high school, she said. Enlistees, like her teammates, were striving for a cause bigger than themselves.
“When you feel a part of an organization that does something for you and says, ‘We find enough value in you that we want to invest in you,’ it makes you feel as if you’re part of the team,” Taylor Campbell said.
In 2003, she was selected for a program that lets enlisted soldiers earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing and become an officer.
Taylor Campbell, now 41, said she became interested in the medical field after a woman at her church gave her an autobiography by retired Dr. Ben Carson, who grew up in inner-city Detroit and at age 33 became director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore.
Maj. Martina Taylor Campbell, pictured here during a break at a battalion training session in San Diego, recently became second in charge of Las Vegas’ 6th Medical Recruiting Battalion.
Carson later sought the 2016 Republican nomination for president and served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Donald Trump.
“My dad was actually first generation to this country, coming from Nigeria, and we just didn’t have a lot growing up,” Taylor Campbell said. “([Carson’s story) resonated with me, someone who had the same struggles growing up and then was able to make it. But … his purpose and his passion for being a neurosurgeon is what drove me.”
Taylor Campbell graduated with a nursing degree from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., in 2006, and earned a master’s degree in business management and leadership in 2008 from Webster University in Webster Groves, Mo.
She also earned a master’s in nursing as a clinical specialist in 2012 from the University of Texas at El Paso and a degree in nursing innovations and leadership in 2020 from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo.
Lt. Davin Bridges, commander of the 6th Medical Recruiting Battalion, said Taylor Campbell stood out among the 45 applicants for the job of second-in-command.
“She wants to take care of people, and people are our No. 1 asset in the United States Army,” Bridges said.
Seth Poston, 24, a registered nurse with six years of military service, said he met Taylor Campbell in April, when she was his supervisor in the nurse residency program at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Poston said he admired her confidence, a quality she helped instill in him while they worked together, he said.
“I felt very comfortable speaking with her as a leader and as a person,” he said. “She is a very hands-on person, and it seems like relationships are very important to her.”
