Roots and Motivation
For Staff Sergeant Tiquicia Spence, service wasn’t some faraway idea. It was family. Her father served. Her uncles had worn the uniform. Cousins too. When it came time to choose her own path, she followed theirs.
“My dad was in the Army,” she told me. “I have cousins, as well as uncles, that were in the service, and originally that was my motivation to join. I wanted to take after my father, as well as my uncles and a few of my cousins, and experience the military and see what it could offer me, what benefits were there, too.”
What began as imitation became a career – 21 years, two deployments, six MOS roles, and a legacy she never could have imagined when she signed her name to enlist.
The Making of a Leader
SSG Spence doesn’t rush when she reflects. Twenty-one years is a long time, with plenty of ups and downs. But one moment sticks.
She remembered hearing about a senior officer who told his leaders: “If you are in a leadership position and your focus is not on bettering the soldiers underneath you, you are in the wrong position.”
“That changed everything for me,” she said. Up until then, she had taken pride in excelling at her job and enjoying the Army. But suddenly, the meaning shifted. Leadership wasn’t about her anymore. It was about them – the soldiers who counted on her to guide them, to care for them, to help them grow.
Carrying Soldiers, Carrying Weight
Over the years, SSG Spence held six different MOS roles. Some had her buried in paperwork. Others had her lifting artillery rounds that weighed nearly as much as she did.
She learned to adapt, to move between the two worlds without hesitation. That versatility made her invaluable – the soldier who could balance spreadsheets in the morning and fire a cannon in the afternoon.
The lesson deepened when she stepped in as Acting Readiness NCO, responsible for 43 soldiers. It was her first look at the administrative heart of a unit: processing pay, handling packets, keeping the flow of operations steady.
She learned fast that leadership sometimes boils down to two simple rules: “Make sure soldiers get paid, and make sure soldiers eat.” Miss either, and trust starts to crack.
Resilience in Life and Uniform
The Army tested her resilience. Life demanded even more.
After a divorce, while raising her young son, SSG Spence was forced to move back into her flooded home in the Poconos. The house needed gutting. Money was tight. She chipped away at it however she could – paying a little here, fixing a little there. Some days it felt endless.
She kept going. Piece by piece, room by room, she rebuilt. By the time the house was ready, COVID had hit. But timing worked in her favor. When she finally sold it, the value had tripled.
It wasn’t luck, she’ll tell you. It was patience. Endurance. Her mantra through it all: stay the course.
War, Fear, and Lessons from Deployment
SSG Spence deployed twice, once during Operation Iraqi Freedom and once during Operation Enduring Freedom. She was still a specialist when she was assigned to combat logistic patrols – convoys delivering fuel, water, and supplies beyond the wire.
She hadn’t driven a trailer before arriving overseas. But there was no time for hesitation. Missions came quickly. Soldiers rotated on two days, off one, and then back out again.
The danger was constant. IEDs lined the routes. Everyone knew convoys would be targets. And for SSG Spence, behind the wheel at night, the fear was real. “I was scared most of the time we went out,” she admitted.
She was scared. But she went anyway.
Her mission was clear: bring everyone home. Not all of them made it. Some were lost to explosions. That weight still sits with her. But the deployments also taught her patience, adaptability, and the power of focusing on the mission even in the darkest hours.
Soldier Care as a Calling
If there’s one thread that runs through SSG Spence’s career, it’s this: she cares.
As a Howitzer Section Chief, she makes safety her top priority. But she’s also gone further, becoming a Master Resiliency Trainer, Suicide Intervention Officer, and Equal Opportunity Officer.
Those aren’t just titles to her. They’re lifelines. She knows soldiers bring their struggles into formation with them – depression, financial strain, family crises. The uniform doesn’t erase any of that. Sometimes, it makes it heavier.
For SSG Spence, leadership is creating space for honesty. It’s being the person a soldier can turn to and say, “Let’s take the suit off for a minute and talk real.”
Without that, she believes, a unit’s strength collapses. “If we’re not taking care of people,” she told me, “we’re not doing our jobs as leaders.”
Building a Future Beyond Service
Even after two decades, SSG Spence is still planning forward. She’s studying exercise science and working toward certification as a personal trainer. She sees fitness and the Army as connected: both require discipline, consistency, and the grit to adjust when things don’t go as planned.
She is also pursuing certification as a victim advocate. Too many soldiers, she says, face harassment or assault without feeling they have a safe place to go. She wants to change that.
And she thinks about what her career means for her son. Her service guarantees him healthcare for life and education benefits that will cover tuition, housing, books, and supplies. “That’s the generational impact,” she said. “He’ll have opportunities he wouldn’t have had if I didn’t serve.”
Her contract has three years left. She plans to serve as long as her body allows. “I’ll keep going until they kick me out,” she said with a laugh. But the determination behind it is no joke.
Legacy: The Soldier Who Cared
If she could speak to her younger self, she knows what she’d say: stay the course. Those words carried her through deployments, divorce, rebuilding her home, and raising her son. They’d be her advice to the young woman who signed her enlistment papers all those years ago.
She doesn’t hide the hard parts. There were dark moments, financial strain, days when depression tried to pull her under. But she never thought about giving up. Not once.
She explained why. “Putting on the uniform isn’t like a superpower. It doesn’t protect me from depression. It doesn’t protect me from financial challenges. But the tools that I’ve learned, the resilience, the support systems – that’s the superpower.”
She also had a message for those still serving today: “Thank you for your service, thank you for the support, and keep it up.”
And when asked how she hopes to be remembered, her answer came without hesitation.
“That I cared,” she said. “If people were to remember anything, I want them to know that if there’s someone that they knew cared, it was me. You know I cared.”
Staff Sergeant Tiquicia Spence’s legacy demonstrates that true military leadership means creating space for soldiers to be vulnerable, honest, and whole – proving that caring for people isn’t separate from the mission, it is the mission.
Resources for Soldiers, Veterans, and Families
- Veterans Crisis Line
Dial 988, then press 1
Text: 838255
Chat: www.veteranscrisisline.net
Confidential, 24/7 support for veterans, service members, and their families in crisis. - Military OneSource
Phone: 800-342-9647
www.militaryonesource.mil
Free, 24/7 support for service members and their families, including counseling, relocation help, financial advice, and more. - National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Dial 988 (available nationwide, civilian and military)
Confidential support for anyone in distress, available 24/7. - National Domestic Violence Hotline
Call: 800-799-7233 or Text START to 88788
www.thehotline.org
Support for anyone facing domestic violence, with trained advocates available 24/7. - Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS)
Phone: 800-959-TAPS (8277)
www.taps.org
Support for families grieving the death of a military loved one. - National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) HelpLine
Call: 800-950-NAMI (6264)
Text: “HELPLINE” to 62640
www.nami.org/help
Mental health education, support, and advocacy for individuals and families.