Women of the Military Amanda Huffman

I thought it would be fun to hear from women what their military service means to them today. I wasn't sure what to expect, but as usual the women who shared blew me away not only by their responses but how much each woman's answer resonated with me. I think we can feel like we are so different but it is truly amazing to see how similar we are.

Necole served in the Royal Canadian Air Force for 35 years and achieved the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. In this interview she shared her road to joining the military as a military police officer, the challenge of being gay in the military, and gives powerful advice and tools to help you in whatever life stage you are in. She is also the author of Pride amid Prejudice available on Amazon.

Brittinie was inspired to serve after watching Cadet Kelly, a fictional drama about a young girl at a military academy. It wasn't anything like what the military would end up being like but it was where the idea of military service came from. She decided to join the Air Force and after initially looking into the Reserve went active duty. Today she is working to become Physical Therapist and is currently going to school. She is also the host of Women Serve Too.

I really enjoyed Kurtz by John Lawson III that highlight the story of a female Marine Annie Kurtz. In this week's episode I had a chance to talk John about his novel. John is a Marine Corps veteran and journalist/military analyst. He wanted to write a novel about some of the ideas he had been hearing from friends or learned about through his work and has created Kurtz to help get people to think critically and even create discussions about their own experience. I throughly enjoyed Kurtz and highly recommend it.

This week we are diving into mentorship. Being a mentee or a mentor is a term thrown around a lot in the military and I wanted to dive in and learn more about how to build mentee-mentor relationships. My guest this week is Sabrina Dalton. She is the Deputy Executive Director for Military Mentors (MM). She shares about the science and art of mentorship while also giving helpful tips to help both those looking for a mentor and those who want to be mentors.

Silver is currently serving in the Montana Army National Guard. She shares her story of joining the National Guard as a medic and then learning about ROTC and serving both in the Guard and working toward becoming an officer through ROTC. It was a challenging road to service but she grew from the experiences she had and today is working to help teach and inspire the next generation to serve as an ROTC Instructor at the University of Montana.