Reaching her goals: Army helps Rogers earn her bachelor’s, Master’s and soon to be Ph.D degree

Abbeville native Tanya Rogers is no ordinary 33 year old.
After graduating from Abbeville High School in 2006, Rogers had a few goals in mind.
She wanted to attend school to further her education, but money was holding her back. Not wanting to be in debt, she decided to join the Army to earn an Associates’ Degree in anything.
“I didn’t necessarily want to join the Army because I didn’t know much about it,” Rogers said, “I had a bad feeling about becoming a soldier then.”
Deciding to go with her gut, Rogers had one goal in mind, and she wanted to do whatever she needed to do to reach that goal.
“I started with a goal to get my Bachelor’s Degree and figured that if I could complete it, I could go back for my Masters,” she said. “And that’s exactly what I did.”
After joining the Army in April 2010 as a private first class, Tanya Rogers obtained her staff sergeant’s rank in six years (2016).
She then completed her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 2017 from the American Military University in 2018, two years after her staff sergeants rank and eight years after joining the Army.
She didn’t stop there. Remembering that she could shoot for the stars if she tried. She went for it.
In 2019, Rogers completed her Masters of Arts in Marriage and Family Counseling from Liberty University, ultimately going back for her Associates in General Studies and earning a Certificate in Family Studies from the American Military University in 2019, working toward her Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Liberty University.
“My goal is to become a licensed therapist and open my practice one day,” she said.
Facing a little adversity as a woman in the military, Rogers said that she has had to work harder than the men next to her to prove that she was worthy of a promotion.
“Nothing is ever given, it is all earned,” Rogers said of her efforts of success and promotion. The experiences, representation and recognition of women in the military was transformed after the ratification on the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The “macho” culture and organization of the military previously had the mind set that the difficult conditions faced in the field required a type of physical strength that is more frequently attainable for the male frame, but, women are no less suited to braving these conditions and have proven to do so in combat.
For those reasons, it took a long time to make the military fully accessible to women, but to Rogers, it was just a stepping stone toward her goal, especially being ‘allowed’ into the Army. Rogers worked hard to get where she is now but reflects on the beginning of her career.
“I was deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 and deployed to Germany in 2019 when I was in the process of completing my degrees,” she said. “On top of having to ensure that my job was done, I joined the Army as a 92G, which is a culinary specialist where we worked very early mornings from 3 a.m. to 9 p.m., some days feeding thousands of people at a time.”
The young, successful Rogers has a long list of places she has been stationed. Fort Drum, New York, Baumholder, Germany (from there she was able to travel to Paris over five times, London, Switzerland, Brussels, Greece, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Rome, Luxembourg, Berlin, Amsterdam, etc.), Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and Fort Riley, Kansas.
“If God allows, I plan to retire from the Army after serving for 20 years,” she said. “I have nine years left.”
These nine years will surely add to her list of places she has been.
Rogers credits meeting her goals to being headstrong and says that although it could be very challenging, there are a lot of good days.
“You know, you meet a lot of influential people in the Army, but what has kept me grounded are lessons that my parents instilled in me my whole life,” she said.
Having a good and strong work ethic aided Rogers’ achievements where she noted that almost everything anyone does in life ultimately comes down to how hard you work for it.
“Had I not been taught how to work hard, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve as much as I have.”
If Rogers could get through to young girls, she would want them always to remember this.
“Society tells you that you need to know what you want to do by the time you graduate high school,” she said. “If you don’t have a clue, you should know that it is okay,” adding that you should take the time to find out what it is and do it to the best of your ability. “Never let anyone tell you what you can not do and be your own biggest cheerleader even when it seems like no one is clapping for you.”