Private Kericia E. Smith

Basic Training
Fort Dix, New Jersey

Army Service Ribbon
Good Conduct Medal
Overseas Ribbon
Marksman Badge With M16 Rifle Bar
Sharp Shooter Badge With M16 Rifle Bar

Kericia E. Smith was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, for 16 years until her parents divorced. She later attended John C. Fremont High School in Los Angeles, California where she graduated on June 12, 1980. She first felt the call to serve her country in 1981, when she was a medical student at California State University Northridge (CSUN) in Northridge, California. She told her mother she wanted to enlist in the military, at just 18 years old, her mother signed paper work and on September 29, 1981, she left college to join the United States Army. She completed Basic Training (BT) at Fort Dix, New Jersey, then went on to Fort Jackson, South Carolina to finish Advanced Individual Training (AIT) as an administrative clerk.

She started her Army career working with the recruiting office in Los Angeles, California. This involved visiting local schools to discuss career options in the Army. She then went on to serve as the administrative clerk for a 3-Star Lieutenant General and his staff in Kaiserslautern, Germany. She typed military correspondence, letters, other documentation and set up his conference room for meetings with all branches of the military including foreign officers and dignitaries. About one year later, she was transferred to Security Plans and Operations (SPO).

In October 1983, a group of Marines were sent into Beirut, Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission, where they unfortunately found themselves the victims of a suicide bombing in the middle of the night. A total of 239 Marines were killed in the attack. When the bodies were shipped to a mortuary in Frankfurt, Germany, the morticians found themselves unable to handle the workload with their on-site staff, so she was deployed to assist them with typing up the 239 death certificates.

After this assignment, she was overcome with mental illness, attempting suicide before being admitted to the Psychiatric Unit at the Landsthul Regional Medical Center in Germany.

Upon returning to the United States, in September 1984, she was honorably discharged and moved temporarily to Hope, Arkansas with her mother and grandmother. Later she moved to Dallas, Texas and sought assistance from the Dallas VA Hospital in Dallas, Texas for her disability benefits; they were denied, and she is still waiting for her full VA disability benefits from 1984.

She was in and out of the VA Hospital in Dallas in the Psychiatric Unit including day treatment. Much to her dismay, her benefits were denied after the VA doctor diagnosed her with histrionic personality disorder, a condition characterized by excessive need for approval, inappropriate sexually provocative behavior, and exaggerated behaviors and emotions. However, she was admitted as a patient at the Dallas VA Hospital’s Psychiatric Unit, she had conversations with Vietnam veteran patients and they suspected that she was more likely suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition common among veterans.

Despite her illness, she still served in the Army Reserves in Dallas. She had a stint as an extra in the Tom Cruise movie, “Born on the Fourth of July,” which centered around a disabled veteran. Inspired by the film and by Oprah Winfrey’s Big Give, she endeavored to continue to fight for her VA disability benefits and to help other veteran women to do the same.

In September 2004, the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC invited her to speak on the Panel for Issues and Concerns with a theme of “Honoring African-American Women Veterans.” This was her first public speaking engagement, and she received a standing ovation, giving her the encouragement she needed to continue to speak out on veteran women’s issues. Shoshana Johnson, an African-American veteran and former Prisoner of War (POW), was a special guest at the event. Exclaiming to her mother, “I met Mary Wilson from the Supremes, and she autographed my Supremes purse! I was invited on stage by Mary Wilson along with other veteran women, and we sang, “Stop In The Name Of Love!”