During the 26 years he served in the Army, Cecil excelled at every task assigned to him, even those that he had no prior experience in dealing with.  As a result, the Army continually promoted him and assigned him to positions of ever increasing responsibility.  In the end, he personally supervised a specialized staff of over 120 soldiers and civilians, and managed annual budgets of $300+ million dollars.  He was evaluated, however, on how successful he was in accomplishing organizational goals with the resources available.  His extremely high rate of success was evident in his promotion to colonel (less than 15% of officers entering the Army attain that rank) and in the award of some of the Department of Defense's most prestigious performance awards.  Cecil carried that same work ethic and level of performance into a civilian career as well.

1976-1981

Cecil was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry.  His first assignment was with the 1st Battalion 506th Infantry Regiment of 101st Airborne (Air Assault) Division at Fort Campbell, KY.  He successively and successfully served as infantry platoon leader and company commander, where he perfected his combat operations and leadership skills while directly supervising 150 soldiers.   Upon his departure in 1981, he was awarded the Army Commendation medal for outstanding performance of duty. He had also been promoted to the rank of captain.

1981-1990

Given his excellent academic and military record, Cecil was specially selected to teach engineering to West Point cadets at the United States Military Academy, after obtaining a master's degree in engineering from Texas A&M University.  He served as an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanics, where he taught engineering courses in statics, dynamics, strength of materials, and vibrations.

After being promoted to the rank of major, Cecil served as a combat developments staff officer for technology insertion at the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, VA.  There he identified and analyzed future technology needs of the Army and when/how to incorporate those capabilities into developing systems for soldier use.  Due to his exceptional service, he was twice awarded the Army Meritorious Service medal.

1990-2002

By 1990 Cecil had become an expert in technology development.  And he had passed a series of rigorous engineering examinations, enabling him to be licensed in Virginia as a "professional engineer".  Due to these special skills, all of his future assignments would be in the highly technical and specialized Army Acquisition Corps - a small cadre of officers whose primary responsibility was to research, develop, test, evaluate, procure, field, and maintain all the equipment needs of the Army.  Cecil's expertise was in the acquisition of missile defense systems, both tactical (battelfield) and strategic (intercontinental).  In line with those assignments, he rotated between assignments at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and various organizations in Huntsville, AL.

These assignments were supplemented with a one-year tour of duty in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada as the U.S. Army's representative to the Canadian Land Forces for research, development, standardization, and interoperability activities.

Subsequent to these assignments, Cecil was awarded numerous military medals for exceptionally superior performance of duty in critical areas, including four (4) additional Army Meritorious Service Medals, two (2) Army Legions of Merit, and the Department of Defense Superior Service Medal. 

When he retired from the Army with 26 years of service in 2002, Cecil had been promoted to the rank of colonel, had managed 100s of military and civilian personnel on a daily basis (and indirectly 1000s), oversaw annual budgets of $300+ million dollars, and assured the technical performance of his acquisition systems.