“Honey, I love you, but tonight, I need you to take over. Dinner, the bedtime routine, all of it. I can’t tonight, I’m busy.”
It wasn’t a sentence Ashley Gesler would have said a few years ago, at least not without hesitation or a hint of guilt close behind.
For most of her adult life, Ashley operated on instinct: serve, support, show up. As a military spouse to a disabled Marine veteran and a mother of two, she had long mastered the humble, relentless art of putting others first. Her days were measured by what everyone else needed, and how much more of herself she could give to meet it.
But over time, that pattern began to shift.
Not suddenly, and certainly not without resistance. The change came in small, uneasy moments: choosing rest over obligation, boundaries over burnout, her own goals alongside everyone else’s needs.
Today, Ashley holds a bachelor’s degree in social and criminal justice from the University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC), a milestone that reflects not just persistence, but a redefinition of who she could be when she made space for her own ambitions. And that decision didn’t just change her daily life. It reshaped her future.
It also connected her to a moment in her past that she had never fully left behind.
Surviving and Reconsidering What Matters
On October 1, 2017, in her hometown of Las Vegas, she faced the unthinkable: the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in U.S. history.
The frenzy of the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting still echoes in Ashley’s mind. How could it not? The way time fractured, how instinct took over before understanding could catch up. The blur of lights. The pressure of noise. The sudden awareness that life could divide cleanly into before and after.
“My best piece of advice is to be selfish. No one else is going to want this degree more than I am. No one’s going to push me as hard. If I want to finish with the goal I set, I need to be selfish.”
For years, the memory stayed with her. Not always loud, but never fully quiet. It reshaped how she saw time, purpose, and the safety she had once taken for granted.
“One of the realizations I kept coming back to after that day is that there are so many things I cannot control,” she expla
ins. “So I had to take control of what I could.”
Ashley had always been someone others could rely on: a daughter, a teammate, a caregiver, a professional. She gave where she was needed, often without asking what she needed in return.
That day, she felt alone in her grief, turning only to herself for solace.
What she didn’t know then was that someone else, moving through that same chaos, would one day become her husband.
From Recovery to Relationship
Growing up, Ashley was a competitive softball player, shaped by the structure and discipline of the sport. She went on to attend Southern Utah University, pursuing athletic training. After her freshman year, she stepped away from the field and into sports health care, but the shift didn’t fully stick.
“I knew I wanted to help people,” Ashley says, “I just hadn’t figured out what that was supposed to look like yet.”
She eventually became a licensed physical therapist assistant, a role that brought her closer to hands-on patient care. During a clinical rotation at a VA hospital in Las Vegas, the path clicked into place. Coming from a family deeply rooted in military service, the work felt meaningful in a way that extended beyond career ambition.
“What’s one way that I can give back to them?” she remembered thinking. “Working there, I was like, you know what? That’s it. That’s my way of giving back.”
After graduating from Pima Medical Institute, she returned to the VA hospital as an employee. It became, in her words, “my most favorite job in the whole entire world.”
It was also where her life took an unexpected turn.
Her husband entered her life subtly, first as a connection through a colleague, a patient navigating recovery as a retired Marine and amputee. Their introduction wasn’t organic. It was engineered. A friend insisted they meet.
“She’s like, ‘I just thought you guys would be cute together,’” Ashley says. “And I’m like, that’s the weirdest, most random thing.”
But the moment they started talking, something settled into place. The conversation didn’t stop.
What Ashley didn’t realize at the time was just how much they already shared, including a moment neither of them could forget. At some point, they discovered they had both been present during the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting. Two separate lives, moving through the same trauma, long before they ever met.
“That realization didn’t feel like a coincidence,” Ashley says. “And I’m not one to ignore messages from the universe.”
Their relationship unfolded quickly, with a kind of certainty that overrode hesitation.
They started dating in August. By September, she had her own place and asked him to help her move. He hesitated, gesturing toward his limited mobility. Ashley met him where he was; directly, without overthinking it.
“You still have two arms, right?”
He did. Two days after she moved in, he moved in, too. By December, they were engaged. In January, they were married. Within the same year, they welcomed their first daughter.
Today, their life is full. Two daughters, five cats, two dogs, and seven years of marriage as of January 2026. Beneath that full life was a partnership built on understanding and resilience and an unspoken push toward growth.
“I built my career in healthcare, but surviving the shooting changed everything,” Ashley says. “It forced me to reevaluate my purpose and left me feeling called to do more, pulling me away from the career I once loved.”
It was her husband who helped Ashley connect the past to her future.
The memory of that night in Las Vegas had never fully settled for her. It lingered, unresolved. And when she began to question what came next, he knew exactly what to say to reignite something she had been holding back.
He encouraged her to pursue a degree in criminal justice, not just as a career move, but as a way to make sense of what she had lived through. To turn experience into purpose.
Through his military service, Ashley was able to attend the UAGC using GI Bill® benefits, an opportunity that made the decision feel both practical and deeply personal.
For Ashley, going back to school required something unfamiliar: choosing herself. Not selfishness in the traditional sense, but a deliberate decision to invest in her goals, even in a life already full of responsibility. As a mother and a wife to a disabled veteran, her instinct had always been to give outward.
But this time, she chose inward.
Choosing a Different Path Forward
When she enrolled at the UAGC in May 2024, transferring in 62 credits, nearly two years of coursework, she made a commitment: if she was going to do this, she was going to do it “all the way to the end.”
That meant doing more than just completing assignments. It meant building something.
In her first year, during GEN 103, Ashley joined the CHAMPS program as a mentee. It didn’t take long before she stepped into a new role: mentor.
Her own mentor, Leandra, became more than just a guide through coursework.
“To this day, we’re still friends,” Ashley says. “I’ve been through a lot with her.”
At the time, Leandra was in the process of joining the U.S. Air Force, balancing her own transition into military life while mentoring Ashley through hers. The relationship became reciprocal, extending beyond the program itself.
But it was one piece of advice that stayed with her most.
“My best piece of advice is to be selfish,” Ashley says. “That’s something she taught me very early on. No one else is going to want this degree more than I am. No one’s going to push me as hard. If I want to finish with the goal I set, I need to be selfish.”
In the beginning, Ashley felt like she was constantly catching up juggling assignments with family visits, daily responsibilities, and the unpredictable rhythm of life with young children. She remembers one summer in particular: her sister-in-law was visiting, plans were stacked, and assignments loomed.
“I felt like I was drowning,” she explains. “I was scrambling.”
The shift came when she reframed her priorities, remembering Leandra’s words.
“People will wait.”
Her sister-in-law could wait until the work was done. Time with her husband could shift to the next day. The routine didn’t have to be perfect; it just had to make space for her goals.
Ashley began treating school like a job.
“As a stay-at-home mom, this is my job,” she says. “If you work full-time, part-time that’s your job. This is your second job. No one’s going to do it but you.”
That structure changed everything. What once felt overwhelming became manageable. What once felt reactive became intentional. And the results followed.
“It doesn’t matter what direction, as long as you’re better than you were the day before. That’s still growth.”
Through CHAMPS, Ashley didn’t just grow, she gave back. She still keeps in touch with the first student she mentored. Recently, she was invited into one of his biggest life moments.
“I was actually able to do his gender reveal for him and his wife,” she says.
Moments like that reinforced what the program had given her: community.
“Without CHAMPS, I honestly don’t think I would have made summa cum laude,” she says. “I probably wouldn’t have finished, to be honest. It gave me that support system, but also that push like, ‘No, you’re not going to fail. We’ve got this together.’”
Now, as a student success assistant and newly elected SVA president for the UAGC chapter, Ashley finds herself on the other side of that encouragement helping others take the same first step.
“I’ve had so many people get excited about it,” she says. “I’ve had people sign up while I’m on the phone with them.”
A Degree, on Her Terms
Her decision to pursue a degree in criminal justice is rooted in something deeper.
The memory of surviving the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting never fully left her. Becoming a mother only sharpened that awareness, the responsibility, the vulnerability, the constant calculation of safety.
“I want to make sure my children, and all children, never have to go through anything that I did,” she says. “I want to make the world safer for young families.”
There were long days when her husband was working extended hours, leaving early and returning late. In those moments, Ashley was the sole line of defense for her children navigating exhaustion, responsibility, and the quiet weight of protecting everything that mattered most.
“I was the only protection for them,” she says. “And I don’t trust my judgment when I’m exhausted and not sleeping right.”
That reality pushed her forward.
Not just toward a degree, but toward purpose.
Today, Ashley’s life is still full of a schedule that rarely slows down. But the difference now is how she moves through it.
With intention.
With boundaries.
With a clear understanding that taking time for herself isn’t a sacrifice, it's a strategy.
“Taking that time to be selfish is how I make sure I go through with my goals,” she says.
Her cap and gown now hang ready in her closet, a visible marker of everything she’s built since starting at UAGC.
When asked what excites her most about the future, her answer is simple.
“The unknowing,” she says. “I would never have said that before.”
Her family, she says, gives her hope. Her journey gives her proof. And, with the help of the CHAMPS program, her definition of growth has evolved alongside her.
“Bettering yourself,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what direction, as long as you’re better than you were the day before. That’s still growth.”
Ashley is raising two future first responders. But right now, she is theirs. And for the first time, she’s responding to herself, too.