Did Kristi Noem Actually Serve In The Military? Her Career Before Homeland Security

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It's no secret that President Donald Trump's cabinet is made up of people who aren't necessarily qualified to tackle the high-profile jobs they've been handed. While Donald Trump's controversial Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem isn't new to politics, she has been criticized for, as former Fox News host Megyn Kelly put it on her eponymous talk show, "[cosplaying as an] ICE agent," (via YouTube). 

Still, she's arguably one of the more qualified individuals on Trump's team (though that isn't really saying much). Noem never served in the military, but she has served her country in other ways. Noem first dipped her toes into politics in 2006 when she was elected to the South Dakota House of Representatives. It was during this time that she became a state legislative member of the Civil Air Patrol, an organization Noem vowed to protect and maintain when she subsequently ran for governor in 2018. 

Before that, Noem spent a few years in Washington, D.C., after being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. Fast forward to 2016 and the ambitious politician decided that she wanted to spend some more time at home and declared that she would throw her hat in the ring for governor. She won the 2018 race and clinched a second term, which was ultimately cut short when Trump tapped her for DHS secretary.

Since her foray into politics, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has undergone quite the transformation. But, while she's steadily been climbing the ladder to the top, the former governor notably didn't exactly plan it that way. Noem grew up on a ranch and loved spending her days outdoors. Before her political rise, she ran both a ranch and a business. In her book, "Not My First Rodeo: Lessons from the Heartland," she explained why she traded ranching for politics. Noem has weathered several tragedies, and one of them was the death of her father, who died after falling into a grain bin. The taxes her family owed after his death nearly left them bankrupt, and Noem, remembering how her dad used to be a problem-solver, decided that she was going to try and be part of the solution too. 

"It took me 10 years to pay off those taxes and it made me angry. So I just started showing up at meetings and I felt that if I was upset by this law, that was on the books, then I needed to do something about it," she wrote. Before Noem knew it, she was running for office, and the rest is history. Noem's family are still in disbelief that she ended up in politics. "I never have had a filter. From the time I was a little girl, I said whatever I thought without even thinking," she told Elysian. "I am the only person in my family that is involved in politics. They find that humorous today because the person without the filter ended up here."