Yes, Ihrke had a secret, although she’s now happy to speak about it. She’s opened up about her childhood, too. Talking to Inside Edition in 2019, Ihrke revealed that she had grown up in a “one-horse town” and that she had rarely identified with her feminine side. The future marine added, “For the first ten years of my life, I thought I was a boy.” But Ihrke didn’t have any military aspirations during this period. No, those came out of necessity – at least to begin with.
You see, Ihrke didn’t know what to do when she graduated from high school. And while college seemed the obvious next step, the young woman had no idea what she wanted to do with her life even after becoming a sophomore. What she was sure of was that she was tired of working two jobs and going to school full-time.
So, Ihrke went to see an adviser at her college for help arranging financial aid. But as it turns out, there was a catch. Ihrke would only get free tuition in her home state of Minnesota in one of two scenarios: either she had to be a single mother, or she needed to enlist in the military.
That discussion led to another fateful conversation for Ihrke. She told Yahoo! in 2018, “I decided to research the different branches [of the military], and a Marine Corps recruiter caught me on the way out from talking to an Air Force recruiter.” But it may surprise you to hear that this man didn’t think Ihrke had what it took for the Corps.
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