“You got to go through hell first to get the joy.”

This quote is what helped Carla Lee Samson become such a joyful person and changed her view on life. Carla Lee Samson was 26 years old at the time, working a very boring job and making good money, but she wanted more adventure in her life. Then one day she saw an ad in the paper that said “30 days paid vacation, see the world” and she thought, "Why not go for it?" 

She served in the United States Coast Guard primarily patrolling for drug smugglers from 1986-1991. She enlisted as a seaman recruit and ended her service as an electrician's mate second class. She wanted an adventure in her life and to see the world and joining the military gave her just that.

Carla Lee’s boot camp experience was a bit different compared to others. She went to boot camp at Cape May, New Jersey and spent weeks there. She stated that since she was a member of honor guard and color guard, it wasn't that hard and was actually pretty easy. Her boot camp experience involved lots of marching drills and participation in ceremonial events. She stated, “For me, it was interesting. It was pretty easy because I was in honor guard, color guard, so I didn’t get cranked all the time.”

One of Carla Lee Samson’s first duty stations was the Coast Guard cutter Gallatin out of New York. There she did all of the seaman work; painting, chipping, and scraping. After her first station, Ms.Samson had plenty of memorable experiences. One of these experiences was her first boarding during drug patrol on the Caribbean Sea. During this time she was feeling very anxious and uncertain. She said, “The first experience was really scary because we didn’t know how many were (people) on the boat, we didn’t know if they had weapons or not.”

Carla Lee Samson said her proudest achievement while being in the military was focusing on life saving missions. When she was asked this question her answer was, “The lives We helped save.” She participated in drug patrols and was stationed in Germany for LORAN, Long Range Aid Navigation.

When you're in the military you build very strong relationships and friendships. The same thing happened with Carla Lee Samson. She met many people, but only stayed strong with two. They went through boot camp, training and so much more together. When Carla Lee Samson was asked this question, she said, “We met in boot camp and we did a lot of partying together when we were in Yorktown. We still communicate.”

As we can see, veterans do so much for us and we should always support them. There are so many stories to tell but this is just the story of veteran Carla Lee Samson.