“I wanted to travel - and experience life beyond my small Wisconsin hometown. Never in my dreams did I envision retiring after a career of military service,” so I was told by Melissa Larson. “I enlisted as an Airman Basic (the lowest Air Force enlisted rank) two weeks after graduating high school in 1990, with no college credit, and 25 years later in 2015, retired as a Major (Air Force field grade officer rank), with a master's degree in Mental Health Counseling.” For the first seven years, Ms. Larson served as an Air Transportation Specialist, where she loaded cargo and passengers on various transport aircraft. She then cross-trained and served as a paralegal for four years before transitioning to an officer role for the remainder of her service. Her assignments took her to Tinker AFB, OK, Hickam AFB, HI, Keesler AFB, MS, Buckley AFB, CO, Offutt AFB, NE, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (where she taught ROTC classes), and overseas to Lajes AB in the Azores, Portugal. Her license plate, SRVCE, was her second choice. She applied for HONOR, but it was already claimed. Interestingly, it's the license plate frame where she chooses to make a personal statement and proudly share she's a female veteran (approximately 16% of those who serve in our armed forces are women). “It's common,” she explained to me, “in conversations where my military service becomes a topic of discussion, I'm not heard, or an assumption is made, and the next question I’m asked is, ‘Where did your husband serve?’” All too often, this is how the women who serve our nation are discounted. Since retiring from uniformed service, Ms. Larson has continued to serve the Air Force as a Federal civilian and works as an advocate for military victims of sexual assault.