I am a soon-to-be second generational US Army soldier, but I have never seen myself as “generational”. I feel like when people talk about being "generational", a hint of obligation is tied to whatever career field they’re attached to. This is not the case for me at all. My parents serving in the Army never made me feel like I HAD to join or that it was up to me to carry the torch. If anything, my mom begged me to not join, or at least join the Air Force (which, respectfully, was never going to happen). I decided to go down this path because I felt inspired by them. I felt inspired by their stories, pictures, and the people they met along the way that made this career choice feel like something i want to be apart of. There have been many careers I have considered, a lawyer, a doctor (especially when I was in my greys anatomy phase), I even considered being a flight attendant, but none of those paths made me feel the way I do now as I prepare for my career in the Army.
My mom is the best person on this Earth. I have yet to truly write down the extent to our relationship in a blog entry, but trust me when I say that we are extremely close. My mom, glenda, was the first person in our family to join the Army. Long story short, she joined Army ROTC at the University of Puerto Rico as a sophomore in college to satisfy her elective credits. She had just changed university campuses, and the new campuses she had moved to required her to pick a new elective and this small requirement changed the fate of her family-to-be. Before commissioning, my mom had my two older brothers, Ariel (better known as Yun Yun) in 1989 and Yadhier 1991. I’m in college right now, about to turn 20 in a couple months, and thinking about my mom balancing being a new mom, being a cadet, and full time student at 21 makes me admire her all that much more; lord knows i couldn't do it. Glenda commissioned into the US Army in 1993 as an Adjutant General officer and went to OBC after commissioning.
After OBC, my mom returned to UPR to do her masters (she's literally one of the smartest people i know). After her masters, she went to her advanced course in ft. Jackson, sc and started her army career and then stationed in ft. benning in 1998. In 2000, my mom was stationed at Ft. Shafter in Hawaii. Hawaii is where my mom and birth farther spent the majority of their marriage, and my mom disgustingly tells me all the time that i was conceived in Hawaii (she thinks it's so funny). In 2003, my mom got stationed in ft. Buchanan in Puerto Rico and I was born shortly after her move. I find my timing comedic when I think of where my mom was in her life and career. She was a mother to a 14 year old and a 12 year old, and she was in the middle of her career; it's very safe to say i was not a planned baby.
As a pregnant captain, my mom was cadre at her alma mater, UPR, for Army ROTC, so Ive always said that I was born to be in ROTC. Growing up, my mom always loved the name “Taina”, and it just so happened to be the same as the ROTC Program she was at, the “Taino Warriors”. These two things inspired Glenda to name me Taina, so I also make the joke that I was named after an ROTC program.
I love hearing stories from when my mom was a ROTC instructor, other than her stories from when she was deployed, I could sit and listen to her talk about her “kids”, as she used to call them, all day. Theres no leader that will care more about her people or help you reach your goals than Glenda. While she was pregnant, she would tell her cadets that if she was getting up early in the morning, nine months pregnant, so were they. She would tell me how she told them that they were going to hate her because of how hard she was going to push them, but my mom mentored some of the best soldiers I know to this day. I am blessed enough to have met a couple of my mom’s cadets in my life. Summer going into my sophomore year of high school, my mom had started at a new job that required her to take a training in Washington DC for a little over a month. After my mom being in Virginia for a couple weeks, I visited her and she had made plans for us to have dinner with one of her old cadets who ended up being her Company XO when she was a Company Commander during her tour in Iraq. I had heard of Roldan my entire life and my mom always talked about him great fondness and respect. I sat at dinner, watching my mom and Roldan talk about their time together on deployment and catching up; I watched their faces light up every time an old memory was reminisced on and the connection they had was everything I had imagined it to be. My senior year of high school, I received a senior blue letter from another one of my mom’s cadets, Jossymar Lamar. I had never met Jossy before reading her letter, but she had watched me grow up through my mom’s facebook page. As mentioned before, my mom was pregnant with me while she was cadre and I was born while she was still cadre. Jossy had told me that she had known me as a baby, knowing well that my mom would bring me with her to work after I was born because all her female cadets loved to hold and watch me. In Jossy’s letter, she told me about how much of an impact my mom had made on her and that changed the way I saw my mom forever. Of course I see my mom as a role model, but reading a letter from a woman I didn’t know have as much respect as I do for my mom humbled me…made me realize how many people my mom has been able to impact during her career. At the end of the letter, Jossy left me her phone number and told me to text or call her at any time. I didn’t write her back or texted or called for the year following. I guess at the time, I didn’t know that right words to say. But one night over the summer, i was writing ethan a letter and i had stumbled upon her letter earlier that day. i had written ethan that i wanted to reach out to her but i was embarrassed and ashamed i had waited over a year to respond back to her letter. i thought on it the rest of the night and crafted a text to send her the next morning. Ever since we first started talking, i knew jossy was a good person to have in your corner. a couple weeks after first talking, we were able to meet in person in puerto rico at a cheesecake factory. my mom, jossy, and i sat at a booth for hours and i probably could have sat their longer listening to both of them talk about their careers. having female leaders to look up to is one of the biggest piece of advice i could have for any female soldier. this career can feel lonely and isolating as a woman sometimes, so it's important to see strong female leaders in a male dominated career field. I still talk to jossy on a consistent basis now, and knowing she was my age when she met my mom is surreal!
We lived in Puerto Rico from 2003 to 2010, but my mom had been deployed and we moved to ft. Benning for my mom’s Command staff general college for a year in between those years. I thank god and the Army for their timing in giving my mom and i the opportunity to live in Puerto Rico for the amount of time we lived there; blessed that I was able to be born in Puerto Rico and be raised and surrounded by family is the best thing that could’ve happened to me as I was growing up. Two months after I was born, my mom was promoted to major and that’s pretty badass of her if I do say so myself. In 2009, my mom was deployed to Iraq when I was six years old. While she was deployed, I stayed with my grandparents in Puerto Rico while my mom was an ocean away. I don’t remember much of my mom being away, but I will always remember Skyping my mom every night and picking her up from the airport (thinking about it now still makes me tear up and gets me choked up).
After her deployment, we moved to Virginia for my mom to work at the Pentagon. My mom to this day still says that the team she was apart of while at the Pentagon is the best one she’s ever been apart of and I loved her coworkers so much! While in Virginia, I wanted to be geologist and had a deep fascination with rocks and studying them. One of my moms coworkers, Steve, had been told of this new hobby of mine and also had an interest in rocks. He would bring me rocks to start a collection and he would take me rock exhibits. I haven’t seen Steve since we left Virginia but I will always remember him for his kindness and knowledge.
We moved to Stuttgart, Germany in 2012, which is the COOLEST experience of my life. Living in Europe gave me so many opportunities to travel, try new foods, and it is an experience that I will never be able to fully describe. I loved living in Germany so much and I hope my Army career brings me back to it now day. Finally, we moved one last time to Tampa, Florida. My mom decided to retire in Tampa in order to give me the opportunity to go a school all the way through. Thinking of it now, I cannot thank my mom enough for this sacrifice because I couldn’t imagine my life any different. My mom had an amazing Army career and I cannot be more proud of her and her service to this country. As I continue through ROTC, it has open a whole new realm for us to talk about and has brought us closer as I can now relate and understand her better. My mom was able to give me and my brother’s a life full of opportunity and experience, opportunities and experience that we could have never had if we had stayed in Puerto Rico. Glenda was the first person to make six figures in our family and has used all her money and time to take care of those around her and that is what will always set her on the level of respect and admiration I have for her.
Now, my father. I never knew my dad while he was alive, he died of cancer my senior year of high school, but I see him when I look in the mirror everyday. I see him in my face and in my build, I see more him in my physical looks than I do Glenda (which she refuses to believe lol). Taisi Steffany Alosuesuemanogi enlisted in the US Army as an infantry man. I don’t know much about him, and, unfortunately, I will never get to know him in this lifetime but I do know that he was a machine. Taisi went to drill sergeant school, was a drill instructor at air assault school, was a master fitness trainer, went to air assault, went to airborne, went to sniper school, was a drill sergeant in ft. Jackson, was apart of the honor guard, and was a green beret. The man was an absolute unit. A big part of me will mourn the fact that I didn’t get to know him or that he didn’t get to see the soldier I am going to be, but despite never knowing him personally, he serves as a part of my “why”. He may not have been the father I had wanted him to in my life, but as a soldier, I respect his hard work and service, and finding this way of respecting him has brought me a lot of peace.
I may not know the full extent to his career the way I know my moms, but there’s a photo album that sits in my closet at home with pictures of him throughout his career. I sit and look at those pictures a lot, trying to find the answers to my questions in the pictures of him. I look at those pictures and I see myself in his face, i see his strong samoan physical traits that were passed down to me, and that’s going to have to be enough for now. Taisi wasn’t around to see me grow up, graduate high school, join ROTC, but his name will always be attached to mine. I wear my uniform and my “Steffany” name tape will sit on the right of my chest for years to come. I am incredibly proud of be a “Steffany”, and I carry a lot of pride in it because of his accomplishments and dedication he had in his Army career.
I couldn’t have asked for a better mother or role model, and If I am half the woman glenda is, I’ll consider that a win. I wear my uniform everyday, the same way my mom did for 23 years of her life, and the same way my father did for 20 years of his life, and i will see the both of them in me when I wear it. I am a spitting image of them, a perfect blend of a 6'4 samoan man and 5'4 puerto rican woman. I will start my Army career in a few years, and nothing makes me feel closer to my parents than this career choice. I am Army through and through and will spend my life honoring the soldiers that Glenda and Taisi were, serve the way they have served me and this country. Im still young and have a ton of plans and life to live before I want to start a family, but, when the time comes, i will never put the pressure on them to continue this legacy. i will never make them feel like the Army is the end all be all of careers and will encourage them to find their own path. but i hope they understand the blood that runs through my veins, and theirs, is a configuration of America's best and the sacrifices that have been made before their time. maybe one day they will be inspired by me and my stories, the way i was with glenda and taisi. maybe one day they will sit with my mom and sit and listen to all her Army stories the way i have my entire life. and maybe one day they will find taisi's photo album and ask me about him and his life. one day, i might not be taina steffany alosuesuemanogi anymore, and the steffany name will simply just be a nickname i continue to use after it's gone. but i will honor the last names of my parents, both steffany alosuesuemanogi and rivera, as they have also been put on nametapes that have sat on my parent's right side of their chest as they served in the world's best army.
Thank you to all the brave men and women who continuously put the welfare of nation above their own, your sacrifice does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.
with all my love,
♡steff
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