“I was a week over 21 years old when I went to boot camp. I was a truck driver in the Army, became a master driver and trainer. I was deployed to Iraq. I was there a year when I suffered a traumatic back and brain injury from a Humvee incident. We crashed into the back of another 5 ton Humvee in our convoy. The dust came up and we couldn’t see. We hit the back end and I went through the windshield. Because of that injury I am now unemployable.     I’ve always loved to cook so I decided to go to online school and become a chef. I…

“Somehow, when I was 8 years old I got it in my head that I was gonna start a boy’s home.  That is my long term goal, that’s what keeps me movin’. If not I’d be sittin’ on a beach in Mexico or dead. Years ago I worked for a place where people were stealing from the company, I could see that was a dead end so I quit. I bounced from there to work in a feedlot for a dairy and that was how I was gonna finance the boy’s home.  I wasn’t going to ask for the money from the government, I was gonna earn it. Life happened,…

“I was born in the hospital at Elmendorf AFB when my dad was in the Army. I grew up on a farm; there were 5 kids in my family. We grew alfalfa and we had horses and animals. I showed sheep and cattle at the fair growing up. I had the grand champion heifer in 1963 and 1964. In 1966 I was reserve champion. I showed sheep at the same time. The one I remember the most was a 93 pound lamb that I sold for 39-1/2 cents per pound, ended up with $36. But boy I was rich. After high school I went into the Marine Corps where I…

“I went into the service when I was 17 years old; my Dad had to sign a waiver for me to join. Spending my 18th birthday in a fox hole, my superior officer put a gas can on a stick and sang happy birthday to me and gassed the entire platoon. What more could a girl want, right? I was active for two years and inactive reserve for 6 years, only traveling to South Carolina for basic and Georgia for AIT. Then I was stationed pretty much back home at Fort Lewis in Washington. My duties were Record Telecommunications. It was my job to transfer information and messages from one…

“I had to put myself out there for other Veterans. We were losing a lot of guys to suicide and drinking. About 5 years ago, I went through a dark spot myself and that’s when I had to get involved in the VFW. I had to put myself out there and open up. I was helping those who served and helping myself at the same time. It has been therapeutic for me. The VFW needed officers so I became the chaplain. I did a 22 mile walk for Veteran Suicide Awareness. That was hard. I carried an American flag and had a friend shadow me in his jeep. I had…