COL(Ret.) Beverly Smith-Tillery grew up in a small town in Kentucky. She worked as a registered nurse for twenty years while raising her three sons. Late in her nursing career, she became a nurse anesthetist. She practiced nurse anesthesia for twenty years prior to her retirement in 2015. COL Smith-Tillery was commissioned in the US Army in 1988 at the age of 38 and served for 23 years, retiring in 2011 at the age of 61. She has joked that she was the oldest soldier serving in the Iraq/Afghanistan Wars. She watched her brother struggle with PTSD for years after his service in the Vietnam War. Her struggles with PTSD led her to treatment from 2008-2013. She moderates her symptoms now with poetry writing. She was a gold medal winner in the National VA Creative Arts Competition in 2018. She currently shares her time between Florida and Kentucky with her husband Mark Tillery