TUESDAY at 2:30 PM: Martinna Young juggles various roles. She's an 8-year veteran of the United States Air Force, an Ascension Saint Thomas employee, a 4th-semester student at MTSU, a wife, and mom to three daughters under the age of 9. This month, she'll add yet another title as she becomes the inaugural member of the Ascension Saint Thomas Nursing Corps. A first of its kind, Martinna's signing ceremony will take place at MTSU's Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center on November 26th at 2:30 p.m.
The military is woven into Martinna's family tree--both her stepdad and her sister served in the army. Martinna was 20 years old when she left school in Huntsville, Alabama, to brave basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Though stress fractures from running delayed her graduation, Martinna fought her way through training and eventually landed at Shaw Airforce Base in Sumter, South Carolina. Martinna enjoyed her job as operations manager for the civil engineering squadron, but something clicked inside her when she gave birth to her first daughter. "Trinnity was a NICU baby," recalls Martinna. "She's a healthy 9-year-old now, but she was born at 35 weeks and was diagnosed with gastroschisis. It was the NICU nurses who made me feel me safe during that scary time. They took such amazing care of my little girl and were the only people I felt comfortable leaving her with. I left that experience determined to become a nurse."
After completing their military service in Anchorage, Alaska, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Martinna and her husband moved their growing family to Middle Tennessee in 2016. Martinna enrolled in MTSU soon after and completed her prerequisites before joining the school's nursing program in spring 2018. Though classes were rigorous, Martinna used them as a way to teach her daughters the importance of education. The lesson seems to have gotten through, Martinna jokes: "Now the girls are always telling me, 'Mommy, you need to be studying' or 'Mommy, we're going to be good today so you can get a lot of homework done.'"
