 When I was growing up I actually wore my dad's BDUs and played in the field. Me and my brother and me and my dad all with little boonies on and big old BDUs pretending that we're shooting rifles and I still shoot like that to this day. My name is Sergeant Laura Montgomery. I'm the supply and CO for Alpha Battery, two to three hundredth out of Wyoming. I grew up with parents. I'm an Army brat, so I grew up with parents. You kind of whispered my ear from crib to now that I was either going to join the army. I was not going to go to college, so I kind of was set up to pursue this career. In the Wyoming Army National Guard, I'm the supply sergeant, so it's my job to make sure that soldiers are taken care of, the mission is taken care of, and everything's planned and prepared so you can have successful readiness. It's everything from food to lodging to ammo to any supplies, equipment. My career field in the Combat Arms Unit in High Mars opened up in 2015 and I remember being a little private out in the field watching the High Mars crews roll in thinking that it was the coolest thing ever, so as soon as they opened up these positions I was all in. I wanted to be out there. So when I was deployed in 2019-2020 with Alpha Battery as their supply and CO, my primary duties of work had to do with ammo specifically, making sure we had the right quantities for the kinds of missions that we were running. It was an honor to be a part of the first female High Mars team from Wyoming to run successful fire missions overseas, especially unique for me being the supply and CO because I primarily am on the front end and the back end, so I'm sending everybody else up for success, so it's really interesting and an honor to see the mission run through with people like Sergeant Abel Sath and Sergeant Bohannon. So to be able to join a Combat Arms Unit and go on a deployment like this was definitely an experience for all of us and to have them with me by my side the whole time created a kind of unity that not a lot of people understand unless they're in that situation. I enjoy being a female in this career field because of the fact that nobody else has done it before. I love being able to be a part of the foundation that's going to create the path for everybody else behind me, but being able to be in the National Guard and being able to serve has given me an abundance of opportunities. I serve in the Wyoming Army National Guard for my brothers and sisters. I serve for the camaraderie and for a sense of purpose. The bonds that you create while you're serving and that execution of this task and the missions that you get to do the opportunities you get to take and the places that the Army takes you is incomparable to anything else. So I have a lot to give to the Army and the Army in return. It has a lot to give to me, so it's a relationship I don't want to die.