When 21-year-old Andrew Gomez opened an official letter announcing he was ranked second in the nation out of 5,536 other Army ROTC cadets, at first he didn’t believe it. The moment felt unreal, and warily he waited for somebody to wake him from this marvelous dream. On a recent afternoon, training cadets outdoors at a University of North Georgia facility in Dahlonega, the young man from Cumming recounted the memorable moment of opening the letter. He laughed, recalling: “I said (to myself), ‘that’s not me. Then, I read the letter again and thought, ‘Well, yeah that’s me.’” In order to all but top the national list, Gomez, a cadet 1st lieutenant at University of North Georgia, had to outrank thousands of others from around the country in the areas of academics, physical fitness, leadership and training performance.