{"id":1451,"date":"2025-11-11T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/?p=1451"},"modified":"2025-11-07T19:40:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T19:40:04","slug":"soldier-mother-survivor-graduate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/2025\/11\/11\/soldier-mother-survivor-graduate\/","title":{"rendered":"Soldier. Mother. Survivor. Graduate."},"content":{"rendered":"
Andrea Gray never expected to join the military.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea<\/p>\n

She was a high school track athlete, raised in a military family, but she was convinced her life was headed in a different direction. College was the plan, maybe even law school. But the Army? That wasn\u2019t on the list of options.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad was in the military for decades, but I didn\u2019t grow up wanting that life,\u201d said Gray, who currently serves as an executive administrative assistant to Marshall University President Brad D. Smith. \u201cMy mom actually made me watch\u00a0G.I. Joe<\/em>\u00a0because I was such a girly girl. After high school, though, I was burnt out with school. So, at 18, it surprised everyone \u2014 including myself\u00a0 \u2014 when I enlisted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t It surprised everyone \u2014 including myself\u00a0 \u2014 when I enlisted. <\/span>\n\n\t\t\t- Andrea Gray<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Gray took her ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) test the morning of the September 11 attacks in 2001. She was sworn in two days later, and her family, understandably, was more than a little worried. That enlistment decision led to over a decade of active-duty service in the U.S. Army, followed by service in the Army Reserves.<\/p>\n

While Army life was demanding, the structure, the relationships and the sense of purpose were shaping Gray into something she didn\u2019t yet realize: the kind of person who could endure and succeed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learning to lead \u2014 while learning to parent<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI became a mother while on active duty,\u201d Gray said, \u201cand it all happened while I was still growing up myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later, as life led her to be a single mother to four, she found herself working three jobs to keep it all together \u2014 teaching in the school system, working in a coroner\u2019s office and serving in the Army Reserves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard,\u201d she recalls, \u201cbut the military gave me the tools to be mentally strong. I had a mission-first mentality. People were counting on me \u2014 so, every day, I showed up for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while she was showing up \u2014 between deployments, drills and diapers \u2014 Gray discovered something unexpected: a passion for pageantry.<\/p>\n

\n\t People were counting on me \u2014 so, every day, I showed up for them. <\/span>\n\n\t\t\t- Andrea Gray<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Gray\u2019s first competition was\u00a0Ms. Veteran America \u2014 <\/em>a platform that raises awareness of the thousands of homeless women veterans in the United States. Out of hundreds of contestants, she placed as first runner-up.<\/p>\n

That same year, she was featured in the documentary\u00a0\u201cServe Like a Girl,\u201d which was created to amplify the stories of women in uniform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was never really about a crown or attention,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was about confidence, growth and telling stories that matter, especially for the women who don\u2019t get heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A different kind of fight<\/strong><\/p>\n

In May of last year, after testing positive for two breast cancer genes, Gray made the proactive decision to undergo a double mastectomy.\u00a0\u00a0Six months later, she discovered another lump.<\/p>\n

\"\"She was diagnosed with stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer, which was aggressive, fast-moving and a type that had affected other members of her family. What followed were months of chemotherapy, surgeries, radiation and immunotherapy.<\/p>\n

Through it all, she kept doing what she\u2019s always done \u2014 show up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some days I didn\u2019t even feel sick,\u201d she said. \u201cThen there were days I\u2019d look in the mirror \u2014 no hair, no eyelashes \u2014 and it hit me. But I refused to sit in the \u2018Why me?\u2019 space. I just kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she did keep going \u2014 right into graduation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>After years of stopping and starting college while raising kids and serving her country, Gray finally made space for something she had always delayed: her own education.<\/p>\n

\n\t I\u2019m proud to finally be doing this for me. <\/span>\n\n\t\t\t- Andrea Gray<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

She earned her associate degree in May, and this December, she\u2019ll cross the stage again \u2014this time to accept her Regents Bachelor of Arts degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud to finally be doing this for me,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a perfect tie-in to what I think Veterans Day is about \u2014 honoring real, authentic stories. My story is that I\u2019m still growing. I\u2019m still serving, just in different ways now. I want to help people be seen and heard. I\u2019ve come to believe you don\u2019t have to be perfect to be impactful. You just have to care.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrea Gray never expected to join the military. She was a high school track athlete, raised in a military family, but she was convinced her life was headed in a different direction. College was the plan, maybe even law school. But the Army? That wasn\u2019t on the list of options. \u201cMy dad was in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1451"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1466,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1451\/revisions\/1466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}