Years active 2001 to present Television Nashville Role Veteran | Employer Department of the Army Name Melvin Kearney TV shows Nashville | |
Occupation Military advocate and actor Awards US Army Achievement Medal for Civilian Service Alma mater North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University Profiles | ||
Melvin Ray Kearney II is an American military veteran, Veterans advocate, and actor.
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Early life
Kearney grew up in Tarboro, North Carolina, and attended Tarboro High School, graduating in 2001. His father served in the US military. In the time between his two tours of service in Iraq, Kearney graduated Cum Laude in 2007 from the North Carolina A&T State University, where he majored in Criminal Justice and minored in Political Science while completing a double internship with the US Marshals Service. He is also a member of Omega Psi Phi.
Military career
Kearney began his service with the North Carolina National Guard in the summer of 2001. His first tour of duty as a part of Operation Iraqi Freedom was in 2004, where he assumed a role with the military police at the FOB Caldwell near Kirkush (on the Iranian border) as a part of the 30th Brigade. His second tour of duty was as a squad commander of the 95th Military Police Battalion’s 1132nd Military Police Company at Rustamiyah, commanding thirteen soldiers and four gun trucks in Baghdad hot zones. During his deployment he gave an interview to the Stars and Stripes, describing the increased danger that soldiers faced during his second deployment versus the first, due to the changing tactics of the enemy. He ended his second tour of duty with the rank of Sergeant.
Military advocacy
Upon his second return from war, he began helping those he had served with during the war as they recovered from injuries at the Walter Reed medical hospital. Soon after he was approached by the Army Wounded Warrior Program, and took a job with them in October 2008 located in Michigan. By 2010, Kearney became the head of the Army_Wounded_Warrior_Program for the state. In this role he has helped to establish the AW2 offices of both Ann Arbor and Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He has also worked as a motivational speaker for military veterans, including providing keynote addresses for Veterans Day ceremonies. For his service, he has received the achievement medal for civilian service from the US Army.
Acting career
In 2012 Kearney was cast in the role of Bo, the bodyguard of character Juliette Barnes, in the ABC television series Nashville. Input from Kearney into the show’s scripts led to them featuring US military troops as background characters. Kearney has appeared in seventeen episodes of the series over its first three seasons.