- Thank you to Analog Devices
for supporting American Veteran: Keep it Close.
- My mom raised us to be presentable.
She raised us to have pride in ourselves,
and that pride starts at our crown of our head.
Hair has been a part of my journey in life.
- Hi, I'm Shain Brenden.
As a veteran, I understand how objects we brought back
from service can be so meaningful.
They can remind us why we served and what we did
or help us transition back to civilian life.
Today, I talk with a veteran whose object is a reminder
of individuality and sisterhood.
- My name is Andrea Peters,
and I'm a lieutenant colonel in the Army.
I come from a family that has a legacy of service.
My dad served as long as I could remember.
My grandpa was a Naval NCO.
I have a cousin that was a Marine,
and my uncle was in the Air Force.
I remember coming into West Point
as this bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young person
who just wanted to be the best of the best,
the tip of the sphere.
- For those who aren't familiar
with the Army hair regulations,
can you tell us a little bit about what they specified
back in the early days of your service?
- The Army regulation was very vanilla.
For many years, representation of professionalism and beauty
was kind of this long, flowing,
bouncy type hair.
We all conformed
to what we believed was that professional state.
And so, most of the time people would choose
to perm their hair, and so that was definitely what I did.
A lot of races view perms as something to curl their hair.
Well, in the textured hair community,
we perm our hair to straighten our hair out.
But your head is on fire
because this relaxer is burning your scalp.
My second deployment was as a deputy commander
for the Corps of Engineers.
As I was getting ready to go on a deployment,
I'm looking at my baby girl
run around the house with like towels on her head
and kind of whipping it back and forth,
that European standard of having the long, bouncy hair.
I said, oh no, we got to stop this,
because I see the same thing
that I dealt with as a young person
and not being comfortable in my own space
of my own natural hair.
So at that point,
I said, nope, I'm not putting a perm in again.
So I went cold turkey on a perm. Cold turkey.
I decided that I was going to get my hair cut
a little bit shorter just to be able to manage it
a little bit better on the deployment.
I absolutely loved it,
but I was always looking over my shoulder
because I felt someone would look at it as being not proper.
But I think what was beautiful with the deployment, too,
I was actually able to use a pick,
something that I had never been able to do
in my entire life.
It brought me back to Black pride and Black strength
and just embracing oneself and the natural essence
of Black peoples.
- Now this is a pick that you brought with you
on the deployment?
- It is.
Can I show the pick?
Is that okay?
- Sure, yeah. Let's see it.
- Okay.
All right.
So this is my pick.
- Oh, I knew it was going to be that.
- All right.
- I knew it was going to be that one.
- That's right.
That's right.
- There's no way it wouldn't be that one.
- Absolutely.
Now later on in life, I came back into this space
of West Point, and I started working with the P.E.R.M.
Party, which stands for pride, excellence, regulations,
and mentorship.
The conversations really started moving with other leaders
in the Army where we looked at that regulation,
and specifically as it relates to wear and appearance
in the grooming standards, and we pulled it apart.
What do we think it should be saying,
and how would we recommend that change?
What wasn't understood was the stress and the maintenance
that it takes for a woman with textured hair
to keep herself looking good,
and not just looking good externally, right,
but looking good for herself, to feel like she's ready
to go out there and execute the way she needs to.
We compiled this, and we sent this up to headquarters.
Everything that we recommended was adopted.
So now there's a sense of femininity
that has been given to women in the Army.
It's my pride and joy of seeing this regulation change,
because it wasn't just about hair.
It was really about women truly being integrated
into the Army the way they should have been
in the beginning.
- Looking at the pick, does it still hold
the same meaning as it did back during the deployments?
- It does.
And it holds that meaning because of the legacy of hair
that I grew up with and the legacy of hair
that I will continue to perpetuate
through my own actions and my own words.
It reminds me that, hey, guess what?
You can always go back to a natural state,
and I have my pick on standby so I can actually do that.
And it's just a source of freedom to me.
- We'd like to thank Analog Devices for their support
of American Veteran: Keep it Close.
Analog Devices has over 50 years of experience
providing electronic solutions to the Space,
Aviation and Defense Industries.
From electronics designed to survive the harshness of space
or the cold pressures of the ocean,
to addressing mission critical solutions,
when bridging the physical and digital worlds,
Analog Devices has been there to provide support
to those who explore, move us and defend us every day.
Analog Devices, ahead of what's possible.