Photo By 1st Sgt. Justin A. Naylor | U.S. Army Sgt. Andrew King, an Oklahoma City, Okla., native and geospatial engineer...... read more read more
Subscribe
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. – For as long as Andrew King can remember, he’s had a stutter.
“I’ve had a speech impediment all my life, ever since I could talk,” King said. “My parents noticed it right away. I’ve been stuttering ever since.”
Now, King is a sergeant in the Army and serves as a geospatial engineer with 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 7th Infantry Division. He doesn’t let his stutter slow him down.
“I was in first grade and noticed ‘hey, there is something different about me,’” King said.
From an early age, King experienced difficulties that would be hard for most kids to comprehend.
“I was anti-social, shy, didn’t speak much, wasn’t very outgoing and a hard time connecting with people,” said King, an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, native. “The hardest thing was defending myself. I got made fun of a lot. I couldn’t talk through my problems if I had issues.”
King was 20 years old when he decided to join the military.
“I was broke, I didn’t have a vehicle, I couldn’t continue with college and I was couch hopping and going from friend’s house to friend’s house,” King said.
Although just having a job was a definite perk, King thought the military could help in other ways.
“I wanted to see how far I could go with my speech the way it was,” he said. “I had obstacles and walls and closed doors because of my speech. I felt like I couldn’t do the things that I wanted to do because of my speech. By joining the military, I was challenging myself to find out who I was.”
Although King had been in speech therapy since he was in elementary school, his stutter still caused him to withdraw from groups.
“With my speech, I really didn’t communicate much unless I was forced to do so,” King said. “I really didn’t know myself really well.”
When he joined the military he was put into groups and situations that he might have otherwise avoided.
“Through the military, I was forced into certain situations, and leadership roles and positions that I never had before,” King said. “It was a real learning experience for me. I could see better who I was.”
Being in the military with a stutter hasn’t always been easy on King.
“I can remember some kind of comedic situations,” King said. “As I was going through basic training, I did stutter a lot. It was very severe.”
“I would get injured and had a staph infection on my foot because I had never really worn boots before,” he continued. “I had to go to the hospital to get treated. You have to call staff duty so they can bring a bus to bring you back.”
“I’m, like, real nervous about making this phone call,” King went on. “So I pick up the phone, I call, it rings, the drill sergeant who is on staff duty picks up the phone, and I start stuttering. I hear the phone hang up. I made this call about three or four more times, and I’m still stuck trying to say, “it’s Private King, I need a ride.”
“The drill sergeant on the phone is like ‘quit playing on the phone,’ and hangs up,” King said. “He just thought someone was prank calling him. I’m like ‘forget this, I’ll wait until I see somebody and have them make the phone call.’”
Another big issue for King was making it through his advanced individual training to become a geospatial engineer.
“I was surprised that he graduated the school,” said Staff Sgt. Anthony Hinojosa, the geospatial engineer section noncommissioned officer-in-charge with 3-2 SBCT who is now King’s supervisor. “I was an instructor when he was there.”
“The first night that I spoke with him, I didn’t think he was going to make it,” Hinojosa said. “You have to do briefs at the end of the course that are a majority of your grade. It’s either a go or no go.”
But King, with help from his friends, studied and practiced hard to make it through the briefs and graduate.
“I just try to never give up,” King said.
King attributes some of his success to the support network that has rallied around him throughout his life, particularly his mother.
“My mom, every time I have an issue or anything like that she would just tell me to never give up and that everyone struggles with something,” he said.
He remembers when he was younger and his mother told him the story of a nurse she knew who was very talented at her job, but had a neurological problem that caused her to spasm at work occasionally. Although her condition was serious, she didn’t let it stop her from doing the job she loved. King is determined to live his life that way.
“I try not to give up even if I stutter so bad that I can’t breathe, I try to just keep on going,” King said. “I get misunderstood a lot, I guess. I stutter more when I care a lot. Because if you care, you try to really show that you are trying hard and that you’re passionate, but because you care so much, you take it personally, so then if things start happening you get frustrated or stressed and you start stuttering more because of it.”
King hasn’t let his stutter stop him, though.
“He tries to put himself in situations where it is uncomfortable for him so that he can work on it,” Hinojosa said of King’s stutter. “I think as long as he does that and continues to do that then the leadership will see that and admire him for it.”
Before joining the military King set a goal for himself: he would make it to the rank of specialist. Now, he’s not only made that rank, but has made one more on top of it and doesn’t have plans of stopping his career anytime soon.
“I didn’t think I would make it due to my speech impediment,” King said. “I ended up going to the promotion board for sergeant. I was only going to go once. If I didn’t make it, I was going to get out.”
“I made hundreds of flash cards,” King said. “I knew everything that was there. When I went to the promotion board, I only missed one question. I stuttered the whole time; I stuttered so bad that they made the questions true or false so that I could get through it. I was still very confident in my responses.”
Although King knows that his stutter isn’t going anywhere, he pushes hard to not let it interfere with his life or career. He still goes to therapy and sometimes notices improvements in his speech.
“If I want something, I have to really fight for it,” King said. “It just goes back to speaking with my mom and how she told me to not give up, so I always try to strive for the best.”
| Date Taken: | 07.28.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2015 19:22 |
| Story ID: | 171378 |
| Location: | FORT IRWIN, CA, US |
| Hometown: | CLIFTON, TX, US |
| Hometown: | OKLAHOMA CITY, OK, US |
| Web Views: | 1,486 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Stutter can’t stop stellar Soldier, by 1SG Justin A. Naylor, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT