Nicole Bishop is the definition of oxymoron.

The soft-faced, long-haired girl that does not even like to wear pants will soon be near the front lines of war, stocking her fellow soldiers up with ammunition.

Nicole Bishop did not even wait to graduate from North Hall High School before she headed off to boot camp to be trained for the U.S. Army Reserves. She spent the summer following her junior year at Fort Jackson, S.C., marching — sometimes as much as 10 miles at 3 a.m. — toward her dream job.

“I’ve always wanted to do it, and as soon as I turned 17 I was like ‘OK, let’s go. Sign me up now,’” Bishop said.

After she completes her training as an ammunition specialist this summer, Bishop will begin studying music education and theater at Brenau University in the fall.

“I’m just a musical theater, singer, all-around kind of person,” Bishop said. “... A lot of people don’t see how really that goes together, but its just things that I love to do and that I’m passionate about.”

Bishop, the four-year veteran of North Hall’s theater group, said musical theater is the biggest part of her life. But she feels compelled to work to show her appreciation for the freedoms she has enjoyed as an American.

“I think that if you’re going to ... take advantage of a lot of the stuff that we can do here and that we have the rights to do, then you should be willing to go out there and try and ... defend what you believe in and your country,” Bishop said. “If you just take advantage of things, like, you know it didn’t take thousands of people dying to get here then you’re just ... saying you don’t really care about what other people had to do to get our nation where it is, whether its military or business or anything.”

Though her peers think she might be crazy, to Bishop it’s simple — service is just something she believes in and she does not mind talking about it.

“I really like that I can ... just kind of spread my passion around with other people,” Bishop said.