Jennifer Rice joined the military at the age of 18, right after graduating from high school. Coming from a small town in Ohio, the military provided Rice with an opportunity to go to school and travel the world.
“I was looking for bigger and better things. I didn’t have money for college, so this gave me that opportunity.” Rice explained.
Her first assignment was as a light-wheeled motor transport operator when she began her Army service in Fort Hood, Texas. She was reassigned to Klitzengen, Germany as a heavy-equipment transport operator in September of 2002. In 2004, she was assigned to Camp Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq where she delivered supplies and retrieved unserviceable tanks from the battlefield. Either the tank was out of commission on the battlefield, or they just needed transport to the next battle.
Rice earned combat honors, even though she was not supposed to see combat.
“I earned my combat action badge because my vehicle hit an IED. I wasn’t injured, but it resulted in damage to my vehicle,” Rice says. “I was a truck driver, so I was involved in a lot of different situations.”
In Rice’s six years of service she received the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal and the Combat Action Badge. Rice then got out of the military in order to further her education. She graduated from Troy University with a degree in Business Administration and is working on her MBA in Human Resource Management at Western Carolina University.
Rice just couldn’t stay away from the military and came back as a recruiter for the National Guard in 2009. “I just missed the camaraderie, the way of life and the military. It’s really rewarding getting to help change lives.”
She worked as a Recruiting and Retention NCO in Savannah. In 2011, Rice relocated to Atlanta and is continuing her work as a recruiter.
Her main reasons for joining the service were to travel and find a way to attend college. The military gave her the opportunity to serve her country while traveling to different parts of the world, and it also provided Rice with the G.I. Bill to help her achieve her goals of graduating college. Rice has served for more than a decade and is now helping young people find the means to accomplish their own goals through the military.
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