Manchester High School Alum Joins US Space Force

MANCHESTER, NJ — A Manchester Township High School graduate has become the town's first alumnus to join the U.S. Space Force.

Ryan Sogness, a 2020 graduate of Manchester High School, took the oath of office on Wednesday in the auditorium at the high school with his father, Richard, along with Superintendent Diane Pedroza, High School Principal Dennis Adams and members of the Manchester Township JROTC, along with other members of the district's staff looking on.

U.S. Space Force "consolidates satellite acquisition, budget and workforce from across more than 60 different organizations into a unified, efficient, effective service for space operations," with military operations focused on protecting U.S. interests in space, according to the U.S. Space Force website.

Sogness, who was a 2nd lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, became a commissioned officer in the U.S. Space Force after the administration of the oath of office Lt. Commander John Holzer, the Manchester Air Force JROTC adviser.

"I was always interested in space operations," Sogness, 22, said in an interview with Patch. He was an honors student in high school and attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where he graduated in December with a degree in aerospace engineering.

He was a high-ranking member of the U.S. Air Force JROTC at Manchester Township High School and continued in the ROTC while he was at Embry-Riddle, becoming a commissioned officer in the Air Force in the process.

As graduation approached, Sogness said, he was looking at full-time jobs in the Air Force and saw one he wanted, involved with electromagnetic warfare.

"The job I wanted transitions over to Space Force," he said, so he applied. He was offered an interview that he described as different from any other interview he's ever had.

It was conducted online, but instead of back-and-forth with an interviewer, he was presented with a question he had to answer, and a short time limit to answer it.

"The question was on the screen, and once you clicked start, you had to answer it," Sogness said. There was no opportunity to stop the timer, no opportunity to erase your answer and start over, he said. "It was whatever your first thoughts were in answering the question."

Sogness was later notified he had been selected for the Space Force, one of only two members of the December class at Embry-Riddle to be chosen, and only one of 147 cadets across the country to be selected.

He flew to Colorado later Wednesday to begin his Space Force training. Unlike training in other military branches, where the focus is on one specific area, Sogness said the Space Force recruits will undergo training in all the different specialties because it's still so new: there are about 8,600 members in the branch of the military that was created in 2019.

"We're unicorns," Sogness said. Because he was joining the Space Force he was given a new identification badge, and the new badge even confused some of the people he encountered at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, he said with a laugh.

The training program in Colorado is a year long, and from there he could be assigned to stay in Colorado or sent to another of a handful of sites around the country where the Space Force is operating.

There's a four-year commitment to Space Force, but Sogness anticipates building a career in the military, he said.

Sogness said his older brother also served in the military, with the U.S. Army. Their father, Richard, said his oldest son reached the rank of sergeant in the military police and spent time in Poland training Ukrainians how to detain POWs. He served for six years but recently decided to return to civilian life instead of re-enlist.

"When it came planning the oath of office, it was important and symbolic for me to have the ceremony at Manchester Township High School," Ryan Sogness said. "It is at Manchester where I started with the JROTC and decided to move forward with a career in the military," Sogness said. "I am thankful for all of the opportunities that came from my experience here."