When I looked out over my 6th-grade class, I was reminded of the journey that brought me to where I am today. Twenty-eight years ago, I walked into the recruitment office in Inglewood, California and joined the United States Army.  I was at a turning point in my life. I had made some bad decisions […]

  Growing up in a small town in Northern California, I did not have many options after high school. My parents were on the brink of a separation my senior year, leaving me feeling like I needed to disappear. My father’s influence as an Army veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars made my choice […]

  I was seventeen and still in high school when I joined the Marine Corps. After boot camp, I was assigned to drive large military trucks in the Transport Pool, a challenge for someone of my stature. I discovered being a Marine was hard, but being a female Marine was a hundred times harder. I had […]

  I was born in the small, conservative, southern town of Troy, North Carolina in 1933.  My curiosity as to what was on the other side of the mountain drove me to become a nurse so I could enter the military as an officer. I graduated from nursing school at Charlotte Memorial Hospital School of […]

  I am the first female, as well as the first member of my family to join the military. I served in the U.S. Army from 2008 to 2012. Before joining, I was unsuccessfully attempting to attend college and work full time. I was not sure what to expect from the military, but I knew […]

  When I graduated from California State University with a degree in economics, my plan was to go to law school, but then I happened upon an article in the newspaper that captured my adventurous spirit about women becoming military pilots.  After reading the article, I knew what I wanted to do. I was young, […]

  Originally from Oakland, California, I am a wife, mother of two, and avid community supporter. A United States Air Force Veteran, I served as a Clinical Lab Technologist at Travis Air Force Base between 1998 and 2004. In addition, I served as a Senior Core Lab Technician, Blood Donor UTC member, Clinical Laboratory Phase […]

  My name is Jaclyn Kirkwood. I grew up in Southern Illinois on the outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri. When I graduated from high school in 1997, I was seventeen. My mother offered to pay for college, but instead, I decided to join the United States Marine Corps. At the time I wasn’t sure why […]