Real Life Army Wife: Meet Kristi

We are kicking off the “Real Life Army Wife” series where we feature awesome Army Wives.  Meet Kristi, loving wife and mother of two sweet girls; she’s pretty much your typical Super Woman!

Describe your experience as an Army wife.
I haven’t loved every minute of it, but if given the chance, I would do it again. It’s amazing, it really is!

Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I grew up in a tiny little town in Utah. My dad was in the National Guard my entire childhood (and still is) and that gave me a small taste of what the military was like. I graduated high school, went to college, and decided to join the Army on a whim.  My dad actually said, “No daughter of mine will ever join the military.”

So of course that meant I had to defy him and do it the next day.

I spent three years in the Army, the first year learning Russian and the next two as a chaplains assistant. I was stationed at Redstone Arsenal when I met my husband…and the rest they say is history!

Your husband recently returned from a deployment, can you talk about what that experience was like?

His deployment was harder on the kids than it was on me because I had a much better grasp on the situation and when it would end. The saddest part of the whole experience was when I realized that our youngest, who just turned 3, had come to terms with the fact that dad was gone, but wouldn’t believe me that he was coming back! She kept telling me dad was with Thelma (our bulldog that had died a few months earlier).

The hardest part is not adjusting to them being gone…with kids it’s pretty easy to get lost in taking care of them and the house, but adjusting to them being BACK is a trial.

When it’s just you in charge your schedule changes, your priorities change, and a few of the rules change. When Donnie got home I had a real hard time sharing the responsibility and letting him take over a few of the parenting duties.

A few days after he got home Marlys did something to her sister and Donnie was the first one on the scene. I was so mad at the way he handled it because A: It wasn’t how I would have handled it…B: Who the heck was he to move in here and start disciplining MY kids…and C: For some reason I didn’t want dad to be the bad guy so soon. It was all really stupid now that I think about it.It’s just that it was almost like a stranger had moved in and was trying to take over!

This deployment was easier because he had a cell phone and I was able to call him whenever I needed to get a hold of him, but harder because I didn’t have my family here and I had two  little girls who were more confused than I was. His first deployment was in 2004.

The war in Iraq was still pretty new and I wasn’t able to call him…I had to wait for him to call me. There were times I wouldn’t hear from him for a week or two. Marlys (my daughter) and I moved to Utah and lived with my parents while he was gone. She was only 3 months old so it didn’t really affect her so much. She was 15 months old when he returned though and it took a week or two for her to warm up to him.

How do you keep your sanity when you are the solely responsible for two children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without family nearby?

There were days when I questioned if I had any sanity left! Seriously though, I’ve learned to be pretty independent. I knew that I could wallow in self pity or just deal with it and carry on. I’ve seen the Army wives that choose to be pathetic…and I don’t ever want to be like that!

I worked a lot on our house and I spent a lot of time with the girls that honestly, if Donnie had been home, would have been impossible. It was fun to just be us and act like a bunch of silly little girls.

I talk to my mom and 3 sisters every day, so I was able to vent to them if I had an issue or a complaint, but all in all, it wasn’t so bad. My girls are hilarious and it was a joy to have them all to myself! (And I think they enjoyed having mom all to themselves, too!)

How do you keep your marriage strong when you are separated?

Like I mentioned before, there are a lot of Army wives that don’t handle it well, and I’ve watched them send their husbands off to war and move their boyfriend in the next day.

I have never been able to wrap my mind around that. When my husband is gone, I realize that he is gone for the sole purpose of fighting a war that could very well end his life.

I never missed an opportunity to make him feel loved! When it was our anniversary I had someone else in his office decorate his cubicle with balloons and a love letter I had written him.

Every time we talked I made sure he knew how much I loved him.

But I think that for Donnie, knowing that I was at home doing what I should be doing and taking care of things so he didn’t have to worry about them, took a lot of pressure off. When you love and trust each other as much as we do, a deployment isn’t going to change that.

What is the best advice you could give to a new Army wife?

Until you get the hang of things..it’s not going to be fun. The Army is a completely insane and crazy lifestyle filled with constant chaos. You will never be able to settle in one spot. It is full of goodbyes and heartache. It will determine your every move…where you send your children to school…who your doctor is…and just when you find that perfect neighborhood and get settled in and feel like you’ve finally found your place in this world…SURPRISE! You’re moving.

Your husband will leave for work before you wake up and sometimes not get home until you’re already asleep. He will miss holidays each year..sometimes all of them.

But you will never feel more pride than the day you send your man off to war. You will feel a type of joy that others will never ever experience the day he comes home to you. You will have the honor of being surrounded by America’s finest every day, and your children will grow up understanding what a REAL hero is.

You will learn what is important and what isn’t. You will have friends all over the world that you can call on any time you need them. You’ll cherish your husband more because you know what it’s like to not have him around. That makes the good times even better.

So my advice is this: Not everyone gets this opportunity. Don’t screw it up.

 

How do you maintain friendships and create new ones as you relocate every few years?

I find that I don’t really have the time or the need for a lot of friends at this point in my life. I have my life-long best friend Jill who lives in Utah. Our kids are the same age and we talk maybe just twice a month or so. I have my 3 sisters that I talk to every day, and my mom. I talk to her at least twice a day. Throw my husband in that mix and I’m pretty satisfied!

Most of our other friends are people we meet at church or through our daughters’ activities. We like to entertain and do it quite often. There are a few people we occasionally go out to eat with or something, but my phone conversations throughout the day satisfy my need for “me time.”

The thing about military friends is that they don’t have a lot of time either. It’s different that regular friendships. You don’t want to get too close, but you know they will help you with anything you need.

We have friends all over the world, but they don’t require a lot of maintenance!

Has being an Army wife affected your career options or ambitions?

The army has paid for my college, so that’s pretty awesome, but I don’t have any desire to work outside the home until my babies are both in school. I have always wanted to be a stay at home mom, and the Army has given us that opportunity. There are a lot of programs aimed at Army wives and getting them educations for jobs that will transfer when they do though.

What is your biggest challenge?

I would say my biggest challenge is being so far away from my family. Of course they all can’t understand why we stay in when it means living so far away from home, but then again none of them have ever known anything but living in Utah!

I love Utah and I love home, but I also love this crazy ride we’re on and the opportunities my children have that they wouldn’t otherwise. I like being so independent and adventurous. I do hate that my nieces and nephews barely know me or the girls, and I hate watching all of them grow up in pictures.
What do you want to share that I didn’t ask?

How about my biggest pet peeve! Nothing irks me more than how quickly people change their patriotism. After 9-11 this country was full of pride and they all supported our military men and women. Guess what people? We’re still at war! Soldiers are dying every day. Why doesn’t this matter to some people?

Michael Jackson died and the whole world talked about it for months. What did he ever do that can compare to what any of our military members are doing? Why does he matter more?

I saw a really good quote the other day. It said “America is not at war. The US military is at war. America is at the mall.”

Thank you so much Kristi for sharing your lovely stories and family with us. You can follow Kristi on her blog here. If you are an Army Wife, we would love to hear your story.  Email Amy at amy@clickclackmom.com for more details.

© 2009, Amy. All rights reserved.

October 29, 2009 | Filed under Army Wives,Real Life Army Wife