She was freshly back from Kuwait, her final deployment. She had just retired from a 14-year U.S. Army career. Her master sergeant stripes were gone. Now, to take her uneasy first steps into civilian life, Lisa Stanley picked the safest of safe spaces – her childhood bedroom in West Virginia.
It was early 2022 and Stanley had just enrolled in the Microsoft Software and Systems Academy (MSSA), a full-time training program that teaches military veterans and transitioning service members the critical skills to compete for tech jobs.
