PORT CHARLOTTE — Port Charlotte native Samantha Smay has learned a lot during her 22 years in the military as she rose through the ranks to lieutenant colonel. She continues to grow, learn and mentor those around her.
Eight ways Smay embodies FIERCE:
1.Excellence: Smay was given a congressional nomination and was selected for one spot out of six for a military preparatory school before being accepted into The U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “To be able to get the congressional nomination, to be able to get people to see the holistic view of you and not just what's on paper, I feel really blessed and honored to be able to have that opportunity,” Smay said.
2. Being enough: During her initial years in the U.S. Army, Smay said she worked more than necessary to prove her worth among her male counterparts. “It's taken me many years to kind of realize that, no, I don't have to do what they do,” Smay said. “I can be the friendly, jovial, supportive, optimistic, happy-go-lucky officer, and I can still succeed. I can still be me and succeed in a very male-dominated culture.”
3. Support systems: Finding a person, or a group of people to lean on can make a huge difference. “When you get a group of West Point women together, there is just something iconic about what they have overcome, what they've achieved, what they can do, but also how supportive that network is to just keep picking each other up and keep driving that and keep supporting each other,” Smay said. “You will never get a bunch of better cheerleaders than West Point women.”
4. Strength: “My mom, Dorie, is phenomenal and she is literally my rock,” Smay said. “Strong women grow strong women who then build strong women, and it’s just this great cycle.”
5. Purpose: “There's one of being a part of the United States military and the United States Army, which is like that sense of purpose, that sense of community or family, but like the purpose that you're part of something bigger,” Smay said. “The other part, I would say, is being a logistician, and I tell people all the time, I love solving the Army's complex problems on how to get supplies, troops or build readiness in order to allow our war fighters to continue to fight.”
6. Be yourself: Smay said that women who enter the military are going to face challenges. “They'll call you the B word, they'll tell you that you're on PMS or whatever, but you have to stay true to yourself and whatever your leadership style is,” Smay said.
7. Find your happiness: “Your own happiness is going to drive your health, and it's going to drive how you can have that fortitude to continue on hard days,” Smay said. “This, too, shall pass.”
8. Bounce back: “In order to be resilient, you have to find that inspiration to kind of get you out,” Smay said, referring to burnout. “You have to have something to kind of fight for and you have to have something that drives you.”
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