Andrea Chandler is an American farmer, writer, and retired sailor. After enlisting in the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

in 1998, Chandler worked as a guided missile specialist on various destroyers, serving in

Operation Iraqi Freedom The Iraq War (), also referred to as the Second Gulf War, was a prolonged conflict in Iraq lasting from 2003 to 2011. It began with the invasion by a United States-led coalition, which resulted in the overthrow of the Ba'athist governm ...

, for which they were awarded the

Navy Achievement Medal The Achievement Medal is a military decoration of the United States Armed Forces. The Achievement Medal was first proposed as a means to recognize outstanding achievement or meritorious service of military personnel who were not eligible to rece ...

. Retiring in 2008, they worked on missile systems at a defense contractor before switching to

small-scale agriculture A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technolo ...

, their interest spurred by 4 chickens they had been given as a wedding gift. As a farmer and science communicator, Chandler has worked with

The Livestock Conservancy The Livestock Conservancy, formerly known as the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC) and prior to that, the American Minor Breeds Conservancy, is a nonprofit organization focused on preserving and promoting rare breeds, also known as ...

and been covered in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' and ''The Piedmont Virginian''. As a Navy veteran and commentator on veterans' issues, they have been published and quoted in ''

AlterNet AlterNet is a left-leaning news website based in the United States. It was launched by the Independent Media Institute. In 2018, the website was acquired by owners of '' Raw Story''. Coverage Coverage is divided into several special sections re ...

'', ''

Quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

'', and ''XoJane''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chandler, Andrea Living people Farmers from Virginia United States Navy sailors United States Navy personnel of the Iraq War Year of birth missing (living people)