{"id":162,"date":"2017-11-08T19:21:13","date_gmt":"2017-11-08T19:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/11\/08\/2017118humans-of-hamden-amanda-herbert\/"},"modified":"2020-09-05T19:51:49","modified_gmt":"2020-09-05T19:51:49","slug":"2017118humans-of-hamden-amanda-herbert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/11\/08\/2017118humans-of-hamden-amanda-herbert\/","title":{"rendered":"Humans of Hamden: Amanda Herbert"},"content":{"rendered":"<div\n        class=\"\n          image-block-outer-wrapper\n          layout-caption-below\n          design-layout-inline\n          \n          \n          \n        \"\n        data-test=\"image-block-inline-outer-wrapper\"\n    ><\/p>\n<figure\n            class=\"\n              sqs-block-image-figure\n              intrinsic\n            \"\n            style=\"max-width:500.0px;\"\n        ><\/p>\n<div\n              \n                style=\"padding-bottom:66.5999984741211%;\"\n              \n              class=\"\n                image-block-wrapper\n                \n          \n        \n                has-aspect-ratio\n              \"\n              data-animation-role=\"image\"\n              \n  data-animation-override\n\n          ><br \/>\n            <noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/amanda-herbert.jpg\" alt=\"amanda herbert.jpg\" \/><\/noscript><img class=\"thumb-image\" data-src=\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/amanda-herbert.jpg\" data-image=\"http:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/amanda-herbert.jpg\" data-image-dimensions=\"500x333\" data-image-focal-point=\"0.5,0.5\" alt=\"amanda herbert.jpg\" data-load=\"false\" data-image-id=\"5a09b9b5652deab98d889313\" data-type=\"image\" \/>\n          <\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n<p>By Angela Varney<\/p>\n<p>Amanda Herbert enlisted in the United States military three days after her 19th birthday. During the four years of her service, she was offered an experience completely different than a job, or college classes, ever could.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cI always look for challenges,\u201d she said, smiling,\u201cI always thought I would regret not doing it far more than I would ever regret doing it.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Herbert is a 24-year-old legal studies major at Quinnipiac from Wallingford, Connecticut, where she juggles a 21-credit class schedule, a part-time job and being the vice president of the Student Veteran Organization on campus. She spends her summers working with elementary school children at a local camp.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cI like working with kids because there are a lot of problems really fast,\u201d she said, laughing,&nbsp;\u201cIt keeps me on my toes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Just a few years ago, working with F-15E Strike Eagles for the United States Air Force in England kept Herbert on her toes. She served two out of her four years at RAF Lakenheath base near Cambridge in Intelligence Operations where she was specifically selected to work with air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Within the two-year time period, Herbert was also deployed to the Middle East for six months \u2014 spending one in Israel \u2014 where she continued her work with Intelligence Operations.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Referring to herself and others working in Intelligence Operations as \u201cjacks of all trades, masters of none,\u201d Herbert and her unit at RAF Lakenheath spent half of her second year in the service working in anti-terrorism operations. She said that they would typically be given an assignment and have to find all of the information necessary to \u201cnegate or destroy the problem.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cAt the end of the deployment, they had a six-month certificate of \u2018most valued players,\u2019 and I was one of the only enlisted people to get it,\u201d she said humbly,&nbsp;\u201cIt sounds like just a little piece of paper you\u2019d get when you\u2019re little, but it meant so much. You don\u2019t always get a lot of credit, especially in Intel Operations, but I liked not getting credit until the end because \u2026 I guess all of my dedication payed off!\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>Above all else, Herbert said that her service taught her the most about herself.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cI learned a lot about myself and my strengths and weaknesses,\u201d she said,&nbsp;\u201cThe hardest part was working with people that misunderstood certain things about myself or the work I was doing, but it only pushed me to understand that there are different ways to do one thing. Now I\u2019m always looking at things with a billion different perspectives.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>While Herbert noted that the military might not be the right option for everyone, she insists that true happiness lies within \u2014 and may look different for everyone. According to Herbert, having a lot on your plate doesn\u2019t always account for happiness.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cSuccess is based on yourself, not external forces. We always mistake happiness for success and success for happiness,\u201d she said,&nbsp;\u201cI\u2019m doing what I\u2019m doing because that\u2019s what makes me happy, but I couldn\u2019t give that advice to somebody else who isn\u2019t made happy by that.\u201d<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>When asked to describe her experience in the service, Herbert smiled wide and laughed.<br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>\u201cThere\u2019s a joke a lot of us say: If someone were to ask if we wanted to re-enlist today versus tomorrow, you\u2019d have two totally different answers,\u201d she said,&nbsp;\u201cI would not be the person, student, every aspect of who I am, I would not be who I am today without it. But, it\u2019s not everything I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Angela Varney Amanda Herbert enlisted in the United States military three days after her 19th birthday. During the four years of her service, she was offered an experience completely different than a job, or college classes, ever could.&nbsp;\u201cI always look for challenges,\u201d she said, smiling,\u201cI always thought I would regret not doing it far &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/2017\/11\/08\/2017118humans-of-hamden-amanda-herbert\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Humans of Hamden: Amanda Herbert<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3208,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162\/revisions\/3208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hqnn.org\/hqpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}