Military Bio

I grew up surrounded by men in my family who had served in combat and in peacetime. From my grandfather in WWII to my uncles and Dad in the Korean War to more uncles and cousins in the Vietnam War. I knew from a young age the true meaning of patriotism and service above oneself. But I did not grow up dreaming of joining the military.

That all changed my senior year of high school. I had been applying to colleges across the country, and as acceptance letters came in, I worried about how I would pay for college. Student loan debt terrified me. And if I was being honest with myself, college itself terrified me even more.

At the same time that I was working through my internal struggles about what to do with my future, my older sister was being recruited to join the military. She told the recruiter that there was no chance the Army would want her, but she had a 17-year-old sister who fit the bill for what he was looking for in a new recruit. Once the recruiter discovered my need for college money, well, let’s just say that was all she wrote.

I left for basic training on July 28^th, 1998, and flew for the first time to Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I celebrated my 18^th birthday in basic training with additional push-ups for the influx of mail I received that day. After graduating from basic training, I completed my AIT (Advanced Individual Training) at Fort Lee, Virginia. My training was in the petroleum field, where I became a 77F10- Petroleum Supply Specialist.

After graduating with honors from AIT, I was assigned to Fort Lewis, Washington, for my first active-duty station. I was a Private assigned to the 528^th Quartermaster Company on North Fort Lewis. Our mission was to manage and operate the fuel station for all post military vehicles and the airstrip. We also ran support missions for the Army Ranger unit stationed at Ft. Lewis. My time at Fort Lewis will always hold a special place in my heart. Not only was this my first active-duty station, but this was also where I met my husband, who was also in the Army. During our time at Fort Lewis, we got married and had our first daughter born at Madigan Hospital.

In the summer of 2001, both my husband’s and my contracts were ending. We both decided to leave active duty in the Army and return to Michigan, where he was originally from. Within a month of returning to Michigan, I decided to re-enlist in the Michigan Army National Guard.

On the morning of September 11^th, 2001, as our country came to a screeching halt, my contract was signed, and I was officially back in the Army. I knew that tragic morning that my enlistment in the National Guard would be more thanone weekend a month. Just one month into my enlistment, my unit, the 1432^nd Engineer Company, would soon transition to the 1463^rd Transportation Company. This would come with reclassification for most of the unit to become 88M, also known as transportation specialists. We trained to drive all sizes of vehicles in all sorts of terrain.

I spent the next eighteen months going through training as an 88M and we all knew it was a matter of time before we would be deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. In the fall of 2003, I was notified that a unit of Howell, Michigan, the 1462^nd Transportation Company was in need of additional soldiers to deploy to Iraq. A majority of my unit at the 1463^rd would volunteer to deploy with the Howell unit.

We left for Fort McCoy, Wisconsin shortly after Christmas and did our desert training in the dead of Wisconsin winters. We shipped out for Kuwait on March 17^th, 2004. Our mission was to drive M-915’s (essentially semi-trucks with a forty-foot trailer) all over Iraq, delivering supplies, ammunition, personnel and whatever else was needed of our unit. Little did we know that we would become moving targets to the insurgents. On our initial convoy into Iraq, we were attacked multiple times and incurred several casualties. From that first day on, we would be involved in some form of small arms fire, IED and RPG attacks almost daily.

On May 25^th, 2004, I was driving the first M-915 in our convoy behind gun truck one. As we approached an on-ramp, my truck was hit by an IED. My A-driver was injured, suffering the loss of his right eye. I continued driving through the smoke and debris until I could safely park the truck at the top of the bridge to create enough space for the entire convoy to pass. I got my A-driver out of the truck and safely secured him in our box formation. He would be medevacked out of the country and would not be able to return to combat. I sustained injuries from shrapnel to the right side of my skull and ear. I continued to serve the remainder of my deployment, not learning until I was stateside that I had incurred a traumatic brain injury.

I completed my combat deployment to Iraq in February 2005. I finished the remainder of my National Guard enlistment and left the National Guard in September of 2006. I served a total of eight years of combined Active Duty and National Guard Service and was an E-5 Sergeant. My medals and honors include the Purple Heart, the Army Achievement Medal with Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal with M Device, Army Service Ribbon, and Army Lapel Button.

Since leaving the military, I have spent the last 17 years advocating for mental health awareness as well as breaking the stigma around Veterans and PTSD. From 2015-2017, I hosted a free 24-hour run/walk event called Upward Spiral. The primary mission of Upward Spiral was to give everyone a safe space to seek assistance from the mental health community partners and learn how exercise can help with mental health. This event helped hundreds of local Southwest Michigan residents.

Most recently, I wrote and published my first military fiction novella titled Always Forward. It is the first in a series of three books that follows a female sergeant through her years in captivity as a prisoner of war, as well as follows her family back home. Although the books are fiction, the traumas and emotions that the female NCO and her family go through are quite real. My goal with this series to shed even more light on PTSD and the military community.