Mary Beers

Director of Veteran Health and Wellness
Veteran, U.S. Army Aviation

About Me

Mary Beers was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She lived on the east coast until she was about 5 years old. Then, her family moved West where she lived in several states: California, Arizona, and finally settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As a child, her life was disrupted by living in and out of homelessness. They finally settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she went to high school. There, she was part of the Christian Students club, the yearbook staff, and others.
After she graduated high school, she decided to join the Army to get off the streets. She went to Ft. Jackson for basic training. Following basic training, she attended her MOS school at Ft. Gordon, in basic Helicopter Avionics. From there, she went to her special skill identifier school to train for the Apache, AH64. She then attended training for the OH58, Kiowa Scout helicopter. She was then stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas, where she would meet her husband, who was also serving on active duty. During this time Mary was sexually assaulted which ended up in a long, drawn-out military trial. After three years of service, she decided to leave the military and became a military spouse. She was honorably discharged, having served in the Army from August 1992 to December 1995.

Following her service, she started college with the Texas State Technical College, majoring in Computer Programming, but after two semesters she decided that was not the job for her! From there, she and her husband moved to Germany where she networked with other military spouses, and support groups Once she returned to the United States, they were stationed in Grand Junction, Colorado. She worked in a locked Alzheimer’s unit helping with their everyday needs, training as a med tech. It was there that she decided she wanted to get her degree in psychology from Mesa State University so she could apply her personal experiences from her childhood, and the military.

As life happens, she was forced to take a break and they moved to North Carolina to raise their family. Her husband died unexpectedly. From that point on she worked with a lot of counselors to deal with her military sexual trauma assault. Although she did not finish her degree in psychology, she works with many sexual assault victims, military, and otherwise, helping them learn to go back to the basics to rebuild their lives again. She remarried October 1, 2008 to her husband, Keith, who is also an Army veteran. They have two rescued Rottweiler dogs, Dutch and Echo.