I can't avoid the interest in the fact that I'm an injured female soldier.

When I joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 1992, there were no female four-star generals. I still remember the day in 2008 when a woman first achieved that rank.

My first direct encounter with the military was when I joined ROTC as a graduate student, although my father, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, can trace the military service in our family all the way back to the Revolutionary War.

I'm glad that people know my military service. But, like this nation, we are more than our military. And the rest of our story is the same as the rest of my story.

But I did not find any positive inspiration in my studies until I approached my nineteenth year.

I've always written pop songs. I tend to take inspiration from more experimental genres, like ambient music, but at the root of the song, it's verse-chorus-verse.

I have drawn inspiration from the Marine Corps, the Jewish struggle in Palestine and Israel, and the Irish.

What's interesting is with a lot of the work I do through my foundation, the 'Manifest Your Destiny' foundation, we really encourage people, and we attempt to empower, uplift and inspire people to live out their dreams, live out their destiny.