My greatest strength is that I am determined to survive and thrive! I have survived more hardships in the forty-three years I've been alive than most people will face in their entire lifetime, and I have rebuilt my life from nothing more times than I care to count. From having only the clothes on my back, I have found a place to live, I am attending a trade school, pursuing my Associates of Science in Business Technology and Accounting. From 8 years of physical abuse, mental, and emotional abuse during my first marriage, on top of four years of service in the United States Navy, deployed overseas (including one deployment in an active warzone) to the following seven years of mental abuse and manipulation during my second marriage while serving another four years in the United States Army (including an eighteen-month deployment in Iraq). Following my second marriage, I was homeless for a year and a half - literally living on the streets and trying to survive after losing everything. Even when everything was against me, I kept going - and I kept rebuilding.