Washington County Enterprise-Leader
ARMY LED TO COUNSELING CAREER
PRAIRIE GROVE — For U.S. Army veteran Healey Ikerd of Prairie Grove, honoring Veterans Day is a very emotional time of year.
Ikerd tends to stay away from Veterans Day programs because of her emotions, she said.
“I have a hard time going to things because I’ll just cry,” Ikerd said. “People who serve are willing to die for their country, and it really makes me very emotional. It’s hard to grasp that people are willing to do that.”
Veterans Day is a time when she remembers her family members who have served in the military, she said. She’s had family serve in the U.S. Marines, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army.
Her brother is on active duty with the Army, and her father served on an aircraft carrier with the U.S. Navy. Uncles also have served.
“That’s what I try to do on Veterans Day, make sure I say ‘thank you’ to all my family who sacrificed.”
Ikerd served in the Army from 1985 to 1998, attaining the rank of Sergeant/TE5. She was in the U.S. Army Reserves for 7½ years and then on active duty for the rest of her time.
Ikerd admits she didn’t enlist in the Army for the “noblest of purposes,” but it turned out to be the best thing ever for her.
A friend talked Ikerd into enlisting. She was Healey Tonsing at the time, 17 years old when she signed up and 18 years old when she left for basic camp at Fort Jackson in Columbia, S.C., from Hanson, Okla., a small town outside Sallisaw, Okla. Because of her age, her parents had to give permission for her to enlist.
“In the beginning, I didn’t realize what all I was signing up for,” Ikerd said. “I was from a very small town and was a very naive girl.”
As a new recruit at basic camp, Ikerd said she had low self-esteem and little confidence in herself.
“I can see how God used that,” Ikerd said. “I left accomplishing things I thought I couldn’t accomplish.”
Being a member of a military service, “You learn you can do things you set your mind to. It’s a whole encompassing world, a culture.”
After basic camp, Ikerd attended Military Occupational School (MOS) at Fort Jackson and graduated as an administrative specialist. She was assigned to the 978th Postal Unit with the Army Reserves in Fort Smith.
After a year working in a turkey plant, Ikerd decided to go to college. Ikerd graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism from the University of Arkansas in 1991, but coming out of college was not able to find many opportunities in that career. She decided to go active duty because she enjoyed her time in the Reserves and hoped to be able to use her college degree in the Army.
There were not any slots available for broadcast journalists in the Army, but a lot of slots were available for administrative specialists. During her years on active duty, Ikerd said she mostly served as an administrative assistant and also was in charge of postal units.
Her first assignment on active duty was with the Mountain Division at Fort Drum in New York. While there, Ikerd was deployed to Operation Rescue Hope in Somalia.
“The experience ( in Somalia) was a good one,” she said.
Later, she served with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Naples, Italy. Her last assignment was with the Military Intelligence Division where she ran the mailrooms at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
While in Italy, Ikerd earned a master’s degree in human relations from the University of Oklahoma, which would send professors to different bases around Europe. This degree included some classes in counseling and leadership.
After leaving the Army, Ikerd said she decided to pursue a master’s degree in counseling, mainly because of her classes in counseling in Italy. It took her six years, she said, because she was working full-time and was a mother, but she achieved the counseling degree in 2007 from John Brown University in Siloam Springs.
She worked for Ozarks Guidance and opened her own clinic, Hope Life Counseling in Fayetteville in 2010. An added benefit to being a veteran, she said, is that she’s able to counsel veterans or active military in her practice.
She said, “Through my journey ( in the Army), I learned things I was good at and things I wasn’t good at. It did lead me to where I am today.”