Knowing what I needed to do. Having a plain for life.

I wanted to travel the world and adventure and I met some wonderful people alone the way. Staying in the Army means guaranteed pay and I could support my family and I had a quality of life.

Staying focused on I why I became a soldier and why I had decided to stay in the Army after I had completed my initial tour of duty. I could sum up my motivation for staying in the Army with a single thought from an old 1980's West Point recruiting tape. It helped me think of the good times during the bad times and vise versa. it went something like this..."I realized somewhere between wet feet and cold coffee that I would never become wealthy as an army officer...but at the same time I knew that I would always avoid the frustration of irrelevance"...from my first day as a private to my last day as a major in the Army I always believed that everything that I was doing made a difference and was important in some way even if in that moment I couldn't see how it made a difference or was important...that's how I got through the bad day(s) in the US Army...Thanks for the opportunity to share

It is a great experience but you have to be humble and not a hothead because thete is a lot to learn.

The biggest mistake I made as a Soldier was being very out spoken when thete were times when I should have just listened to constructive criticism and humbled myself.

The most stressful day was when I got injured became real sick and lost my ability to care for myself this was a life changing and very stressful experience because my family was stateside and I was overseas.

I was in basic training and being the oldest one of my class and older than my subordinates it was an adjustment because I was already a mother to grown children and a grandmother. I had to learn to humble myself.

The job was demanding but I always learned something new. I loved the experience of working in diffetent countries.

The discipline and responsibilities , the combat experience and been able to become an instructor for new soldiers .

I would say the most stressful day that I ever had was, the day I came back to Iraq from coming home to see my daughter born. My convoy was hit by an IED, while we were down and assessing our situation and getting all injured that we could out of harms way, we started to take fire from a group of about 20 terrorists. I had to just take a breath and keep calm and keep moving on keeping everyone that I was able to safe.