USAA Media Release – At 12 years old, USAA member Marielos Vega was caring for her father and brothers on a coffee plantation in her native Costa Rica, doing all the household chores before walking to school every morning. At 14, she dropped out to become a housekeeper, and a few years later, immigrated to the U.S. to work as a child care provider.

 

“I did not know any other world, so I assumed that this was what I was supposed to be doing at that age,” she says.

 

Today, at 43, Vega is an active-duty Army officer leading clinical operations at Regional Health Command Europe in Germany. Her story demonstrates the perseverance of service members at home and abroad on the Army’s 241st birthday, which is June 14.

 

Vega’s path to the military began with the help of an early employer. “She understood I had no future in Costa Rica, so she proposed for me to stay with her, and she sponsored me to obtain a student visa,” Vega says.

 

Vega enrolled in a local college and earned a degree in nursing. While working on her master’s degree, she learned about the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, aimed at recruiting people like her — physicians, nurses and language experts — in exchange for citizenship.

 

“I knew absolutely nothing about the military, but as we started the application process, I was able to clear and pass everything that was required,” Vega says.

 

In her current role at the Regional Health Command, Vega supports patient safety, clinical quality management and improvement initiatives.

 

“The odds of me getting to where I am today were against me for the first 20 years of my life,” she says. “But I believe those experiences have provided me with a wonderful toolbox of resiliency skills to overcome difficult situations that come my way, both in my personal and professional life.”

About USAA

USAA was founded in San Antonio, Texas in 1922, when 25 Army officers come together and decide to insure each other’s automobiles. These days, USAA is a Fortune 500 diversified financial services group of companies including a Texas Department of Insurance regulated reciprocal inter-insurance exchange and subsidiaries offering banking, investing, and insurance to people and families that serve, or served, in the United States military. At the end of 2015, there were 11.4 million members