 I knew that I wanted to do something bigger than myself. I wanted to do something outside of me. I wanted to help people. My earliest memory of military was when I was a little girl. I saw a convoy of military vehicles driving by on the road and I remember that and never forgot that. I remember going to the recruiter's office and saying to him, I want to be in and I want to drive trucks. My job in Iraq was a heavy vehicle operator. So I drove a PLS truck. It was the second biggest truck that the military has, which I think is pretty cool. While I was in Iraq, I started to have several health issues. I started having a lot of spine pain, back pain and I started to get really extreme migraine headaches. And I'd never experienced anything like that before. I had all kinds of weird things happening to me that affected every literal part of my body, my bones, my joints, everything. And I kept going to doctors and trying to get answers, trying to get results. In the meantime, I had a full-time military job that was my dream job and because I was put on a med board, I lost that. It can go from mental health. It can go to inflammation in her body. She's got skeletal issues. There's 125 different things that Kim deals with on a daily basis and you would never know. Even with line of duty determinations from an army, accepting responsibility for medical conditions, I could not get my medical conditions approved. So I went through a long battle. Of course there's going to be moments of ups and downs, but for the most part the family was shielded from it because she didn't want the kids to feel any of the pain that she was feeling through that. I researched and found DAV and I contacted the office and I was in such a desperate situation and they handled me so respectfully and so kindly. Claims can sometimes be very difficult and this situation with working with Kim, we unfortunately hit quite a few snags. It took multiple times and multiple attempts to get her to where we got today, but overall I would say Kim is a fighter and there's no doubt about that. Leaving the military against my will, when I wasn't ready, I was a lifer, I was a leader, I was good at it, it was something that was meant for me. So having to be ripped away from that was like losing your entire family overnight and I never knew what to do to fill that hole in my heart and I found a way to fill that with DAV and I had my family back. Kim has really taken hold of our women veterans program here in the state. It supported a couple different events, a retreat, a stand up event and then obviously she is one that I go to for those veterans that walk through this door at our office that are in our need of a veteran mentor. There is definitely not a lot of active female members. We have a lot of members, but not a lot of active members in our state and that's something I've tasked myself with working really hard to change. She's got big plans and because of her can-do attitude, it will get done. DAV is fortunate to have Kim. I mean, I look at her leadership and second to none. I guess I look at the programs that she's helped initiate. You know, she's one of the first to meet a volunteer. When we need volunteers, we look at Kim and yes, I'm in, I'm in for the whole hall. Good girls, look at that site, isn't that cool? What you don't see is her volunteering her time, not in the spotlight. Somebody will call her, we've had several instances where there's a veteran that is on the edge of not wanting to be here anymore, they're suicidal and she will devote whatever it takes to make sure that they're okay. That has happened several times. She's amazing. She is so generous with herself. She takes care of other people more than she takes care of herself. She's now the chapter commander of the largest chapter in South Dakota and that's a big responsibility. A huge time commitment and in addition to that, she's also been elected as the junior vice commander for the department. So she's taken on two roles within our state and that says a great deal about her commitment to EAV. Because of Kim, I see bigger and better things for chapter one for the state of South Dakota and for the national organization. I don't think things are gonna slow her down. I don't think anything's gonna slow her down. She represents everything that I feel a veteran should be. There's two things that matter to me. One is leaving a legacy for my children so that they know to never give up. I actually have a quote that I came up with that's in our house and it is, I will, watch me. And the other thing that I wanna do is as much good as possible while I'm here.