Why Would an Army Brat Drop Out of High School?

I dropped out of high school when I was 16. I don’t necessarily start all of my conversations this way and I tend not to advertise it but not for the reasons you would expect. It was 2020 and we all know what was happening in 2020. Prior to that cataclysmic shift of a pandemic, I felt painfully out of place in high school. Not a big fish in a small pond or even a fish out of water, I was a fish on the moon. I am the youngest of three children, a military BRAT, moved nine times, and went to a new school every two years (a trend I still continue to this day). With each move, I took it in stride and didn’t ask any questions when I was placed in each new environment.

Once I hit high school, though, things started to change. My dad was preparing to retire from the Army which meant the next place we moved was going to be more concrete, inflexible, and long-term. As a 14-year-old kid, you don’t think too much about the future. The second you do, that’s when you stop being a kid. I stopped being a kid when we were told to move for the last time. It coincided with me starting high school which I had to plan to be there all four years. I didn’t know it at the time, but I hated that feeling. I did not realize how inconsequential I perceived each school I went to because “I was just gonna leave in a year or two.” Everything had a deadline and a rather short one.

I got comfortable with it. I got comfortable with being the smart kid from out of town who would turn around and leave again. It was my identity. When my family settled down, I realized just how much I made it my identity. With that final move, my identity was stripped. I had to start thinking “long-term” with no move to pull me out when things got rough. These thoughts and feelings reflected into my behavior; I outcasted myself, didn’t open up as much, and struggled to find friends. I hyper-fixated on the fact that all of my decisions now had long term repercussions because I didn’t have a move to save me if I didn’t like a situation. The anxiety and depression quickly fell out of control to the point I sought control in unhealthy ways, particularly with my eating and exercise habits (refer to “Stress” article) .

I say all this because it made the experience of dropping out of high school easy. Way too easy. It was July 2020 and I was coming back from visiting my boyfriend in Virginia with my mom. We were talking about what my junior year of high school was going to look like next month, how everything was going to be online and how the rest of my high school experience went down the drain. I said something along the lines of: “I don’t feel like I had a high school experience anyways” and “I’m looking forward to just starting community college after all this.” There was a pause. I could tell the silence was filled with mom calculating a response. She then said something that I would have never fathomed and will never forget: “Why don’t you just get your GED and start college now?” 

After hearing those words, everything clicked. I felt absolutely no resistance to the idea. No second thoughts or self-doubt. My mom said “just get your GED” so nonchalantly that it seemed too good to be true. And most of all, I couldn’t believe those words were coming out of my own mother’s mouth to her youngest daughter. Regardless, before my mom could change her mind on what she said, I emailed the local community college right then and there on my phone, explained my rather unique situation, and asked what steps I needed to take to get my GED. A signature from my principal and parents, four standardized tests, and three weeks later, I was enrolled in community college classes and starting my college career.  

The email I sent to the community college. 

During the whole process, from getting the paperwork signed, taking the GED exams, and getting my diploma in the mail, I felt profoundly calm. I had a pandemic as an excuse for the radical thing I was doing, but I was able to lean into what I longed for and was comfortable with – a way out. A way out of a change I was not ready to face. A change that was the antithesis of change; settling down. 

Four years later, 2024, I have an associates and bachelors degree and am heading off to start grad school next month. It’s been difficult over the years to feel comfortable sharing my experience, not because I am ashamed of having a GED, but I never wanted to be treated differently than everyone else. I didn’t want to dig myself into another outcasted hole where I was set apart from others. In fact, I made an active attempt to do everything not to mention my age and what I did. If anyone asked how old I was, I told them sheepishly. It’s led to me being called a genius, a prodigy, a one-of-a-kind, all of the praiseful titles, all because I found a loophole in the traditional education system that was highlighted by a shitty pandemic. 

I’m not saying this to be modest or to downplay what I did. I am saying this because what I did dwindles down to embracing opportunity when it is presented to you and following your intuition, not other’s opinions, based on what is being called to you. By being affiliated with the military, it primes you with a tenacious mind that’s constantly being exposed to new environments, new people, new challenges, new everything, for years or decades. This fosters all of us with an inherent gift and advantage of facing these opportunities head on because it’s familiar by nature. That’s how I felt with the GED. It filled my void of having a radical shift every two years with moving, and I already felt separated from peers in school, so the prospects of a GED and starting college early welcomed me with open arms into the unorthodox path that was unique and meant for me. 

We are all unique which offers us unique paths, purposes, and opportunities, and is why we are all meant to be here; to experience the different and exciting offerings life has to give each and every one of us. No one can do what you are meant to do and only you can decide what that is for yourself – which requires drowning out all the noise you hear from others on what you should be doing. While what pushed me towards deciding to get a GED was to escape to a familiar place I couldn’t get back since I was 14, it opened the door, and closed it behind me, for having each step I take after be based on my own decision and no one else’s.

Everyone I knew was still in high school so I physically could not make any decision based on their influence… which was amazing. That’s the biggest reason I have no regret “growing up” or starting college when I did – because it forced me to have everything I do be for me and only me. It’s a beautiful thing living life on your terms, and you don’t need a pandemic to do it.

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on May 23, 2024.

Jenna Warnock earned a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics from Appalachian State University in 2024 and is currently a research assistant at Virginia Tech where she is pursuing a Master of Science in Human Nutrition, Food, and Exercise. Her interest areas include hormonal health, functional medicine, and public health with the intent of becoming a registered dietitian for the veteran population. Jenna also volunteers as the Managing Director for RD2BE [Registered Dietitian 2 BE] and as host and producer of the RD2BE Podcast. 

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.