Institute for Corean-American Studies, Inc.
| February 10, 2011 |
Sean Halpin
ICAS Intern
commissioned
2nd Lieutenant Military Intelligence Officer
We are pleased to share with you that Sean Halpin was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant Military Intelligence Officer.
Sean Halpin, ICAS intern , spent his childhood up until the age of twelve living in Korea, Taiwan, and mainland China while his father was a Foreign Service Officer for the US State Department. During the spring and summer of 2004, Sean assisted in congressional lobbying and research in passing the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 which passed unanimously in the House of Representatives. In preparation for North Korea Freedom Day, he helped coordinate and assist in the promotional operations for gathering volunteers in lobbying for the North Korea Human Rights Act. Additionally, Sean interned on the Congressional International Relations Committee, during the summer of 2004, where he worked directly on assisting staffers with the passage of the resolution. Following his 2004 summer internship on the House International Relations Committee, Sean served again as a committee intern during the summer of 2006 where he continued to work on issues pertaining to US foreign policy on East Asia. Sean was first introduced to ICAS during the ICAS 2005 Summer Symposium when he entered the ICAS Youth Fellowship Award Contest Invitational and won the Honorable Shinae Chun Award for Excellence in recognition for his essay on "What I learned from the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights." In August 2007, Sean was appointed as ICAS Intern. During the summers of 2007 and 2008, he concentrated on improving his Mandarin Chinese language proficiency by enrolling in the University of Virginia’s Summer Language Institute in Mandarin Chinese and by participating in a US State Department Critical Language Scholarship program in Harbin, China. While in Harbin, Sean conducted a research project on Unit 731, the covert Imperial Japanese biological and chemical testing facility during World War II, where the Imperial Japanese military committed atrocities on Chinese, Koreans, Russians and Americans. In May 2009, he graduated from the University of Virginia as a Phi Beta Kappa scholar. Between October 2009 and July 2010, Sean worked at the RAND Corporation as an administrative and research assistant in the National Defense Research Institute (NDRI). During his time at the RAND Sean assisted in the publication of RAND research documents, such as Afghanistan’s Local War: Building Local Defense Forces and Counterinsurgency in Pakistan.
In August 2010, Sean enlisted in the US Army and attended Basic Combat Training at Fort Benning, Georgia. Soon after graduating from Basic Combat Training in November 2010, he attended the US Army Officer Candidate School also located in Fort Benning, Georgia. Out of the 183 candidates who started in Sean’s Officer Candidate School class, 109 candidates were successfully commissioned as 2nd Lieutenants. Ranking 27th in his class overall, Sean graduated from Officer Candidate School in February 2011 as a 2nd Lieutenant Military Intelligence Officer.
Thank you. Thank you.
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Sincerely, Sang Joo Kim Senior Fellow & Executive Vice President ICAS |