- My mom raised us to be presentable.

She raised us to have pride in ourselves, and that pride starts at our crown of our head.

Hair has been a part of my journey in life.

- Hi, I'm Shain Brenden.

As a veteran, I understand how objects we brought back from service can be so meaningful.

They can remind us why we served and what we did or help us transition back to civilian life.

Today, I talk with a veteran whose object is a reminder of individuality and sisterhood.

- My name is Andrea Peters, and I'm a lieutenant colonel in the Army.

I come from a family that has a legacy of service.

My dad served as long as I could remember.

My grandpa was a Naval NCO.

I have a cousin that was a Marine, and my uncle was in the air force.

I remember coming into West Point as this bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young person who just wanted to be the best of the best, the tip of the sphere.

- For those who aren't familiar with the Army hair regulations, can you tell us a little bit about what they specified back in the early days of your service?

- The Army regulation was very vanilla.

For many years, representation of professionalism and beauty was kind of this long, flowing, bouncy type hair.

We all conformed to what we believed was that professional state.

And so, most of the time people would choose to perm their hair, and so that was definitely what I did.

A lot of races view perms as something to curl their hair.

Well, in the textured hair community, we perm our hair to straighten our hair out.

But your head is on fire because this relaxer is burning your scalp.

My second deployment was as a deputy commander for the Corps of Engineers.

As I was getting ready to go on a deployment, I'm looking at my baby girl run around the house with like towels on her head and kind of whipping it back and forth, that European standard of having the long, bouncy hair.

I said, oh, no, we got to stop this, because I see the same thing that I dealt with as a young person and not being comfortable in my own space of my own natural hair.

So at that point, I said, nope, I'm not putting a perm in again.

So I went cold turkey on a perm.

Cold turkey.

I decided that I was going to get my hair cut a little bit shorter just to be able to manage it a little bit better on the deployment.

I absolutely loved it, but I was always looking over my shoulder because I felt someone would look at it as being not proper.

But I think what was beautiful with the deployment, too, I was actually able to use a pick, something that I have never been able to do in my entire life.

It brought me back to Black pride and Black strength and just embracing oneself and the natural essence of Black peoples.

- Now this is a pick that you brought with you on the deployment?

- It is.

Can I show the pick?

Is that okay?

- Sure, yeah.

Let's see it.

- Okay.

All right.

So this is my pick.

- Oh, I knew it was going to be that.

- All right.

- I knew it was going to be that one.

- That's right.

That's right.

- There's no way it wouldn't be that one.

- Absolutely.

Now later on in life, I came back into this space of West Point, and I started working with the P.E.R.M.

Party, which stands for pride, excellence, regulations, and mentorship.

The conversations really started moving with other leaders in the Army where we looked at that regulation, and specifically as it relates to wear and appearance in the grooming standards, and we pulled it apart.

What do we think it should be saying, and how would we recommend that change?

What wasn't understood was the stress and the maintenance that it takes for a woman with textured hair to keep herself looking good, and not just looking good externally, right, but looking good for herself, to feel like she's ready to go out there and execute the way she needs to.

We compiled this and we sent this up to headquarters.

Everything that we recommended was adopted.

So now there's a sense of femininity that has been given to women in the Army.

It's my pride and joy of seeing this regulation change, because it wasn't just about hair.

It was really about women truly being integrated into the Army the way they should have been in the beginning.

- Looking at the pick, does it still hold the same meaning as it did back during the deployments?

- It does.

And it holds that meaning because of the legacy of hair that I grew up with and the legacy of hair that I will continue to perpetuate through my own actions and my own words.

It reminds me that, hey, guess what?

You can always go back to a natural state, and I have my pick on standby so I can actually do that.

And it's just a source of freedom to me.