Welcome to episode 52 a woman of the military podcast this week. I'm talking to a fellow civil engineer who served in the Air Force for five years. We met at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base when we were both serving in the Air Force and if you listen to the episode, you can tell that we were really good friends and even though we don't get to talk very often we still have A lot in common, and I'm just really grateful that Rachel took time out of her day to be on the podcast. It's just share her experience of being in the Air Force as a civil engineer and I really hope you love the show. You are listening to the women of the military podcast where we share the stories of female service members and how the military touch their lives. I'm your host military veteran military spouse and Mom Amanda Huff. And my goal is to find the heart of the story and uncover issues women face while serving in the military. If you want to be encouraged by the stories of military women and be inspired to change the world. Keep tuned for this latest episode of women of the military Rachel and I served at active to team together as civil engineers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and I'm excited to share her experience. I had a chance to interview her for my deployment Series in 2017. In which is where the original idea for the podcast started. So if you want to learn more about her deployments, then what we talked about today, you can go to the show notes where I'll have the linked to both her deployment to Manus and Honduras. She served in the Air Force as a civil engineer for over five years and is currently a professional engineer blood thing manager consultant at Cross Timber Consulting Rancher beekeeper basketball player YF hopefully future mother and boy The green Christian welcome to the show Rachel. I'm excited to talk to you. Thank you. So let's dive in with why did you decide to join the military? Okay church. I graduated high school and I got a nomination to an academy. I hadn't really considered the military or the academy. The only reason that I got those nominations was because I played competitive soccer and they introduced me the coaches saw me play and they introduced me to the academy. And I thought wow what an amazing opportunity. I have some military and my family but very limited with my grandpa and my uncle are or prior enlisted in the Navy. And so we've always had a respect for the military and very patriotic our family. And so when the opportunity arose to attend an academy, oh, I couldn't turn it down. It was a really great opportunity and it was a really unique experience. It wasn't just like the standard College. Type experience and so when I got there, I quickly learned a lot more about the military and I was very excited doing so it really started with soccer and the academy. So let's talk a little bit about the Air Force Academy. What was it like to be at the Air Force Academy and playing soccer, you know, I tell people a lot they asked me about the academy. So I work in a professional environment. A lot of Engineers will ask you like, where'd you go to school? Because they expect you to go to one of the rival schools here in Emma and I always say no, I don't go to. Oh you were OSU I went to the academy and they're always like surprised like what the academy and so I tell them that the academy is I think wasted on the youth I wish that I had been a couple years older when I entered I entered right as I turned 18 and you're young and you just don't take advantage of all the opportunities that is afforded to you. I had some really cool opportunities. I got to go to Guam I got to go to I got to do some cultural immersion. I had an excellent education but you know as a kid, you know, sometimes sleep in too late and miss out on a something that he should have done because all you think about was, you know, taking a nap, you know, and so I wish that I could have done it maybe when I was almost, you know, maybe 1920 starting and then graduated at 24 instead of graduating at 21, but the experience was incredible. I mean you get so many opportunities to do anything. There's a club for Thing you can't compete with the education. You're very very busy. I most students would tell you they go to college and they do, you know, 15 hours or something. I mean, we did 21 to 24 hours every single semester and you have your military requirements you have professional military education. You've got here Intercollegiate Athletics, which is like a huge portion of the amount of time that I spent there was on the soccer field training and stuff. So it's really Tough balance I didn't do very well my first year I had a 2.0 barely and by the time I graduated I had over a 3.0 and I was able to make up all of that and it's just, you know, growing and becoming more mature and how to handle that kind of load but I will say I left there much more prepared for normal life. I would say much more organized and quite a clean freak. So those three things I definitely left with them from Academy. What basis did you go to? To first after you commissioned into the air force. So I was selected to go to Moody Air Force Base and I would just a comment. So those that might be listening that might be attending it Academy when it comes time to enter a base. It can get to enter wish list maybe check and make sure that those bases have military civil engineers or military whatever your career field is because I entered several bases that were completely civilian on the During side. So they put me in a geographical location as close to those as possible, which was kind of the swampland of South Georgia and Moody was really cool at a really great Squadron. It was a cool Mission Special Operations Mission. We are always doing training and always having Opera House exercises and there was always, you know, helicopters flying it was really cool. But but it was definitely hot. It was my first deployment was out of Moody. I was there for two years. I don't think I spent more than Than a year on the ground. I mean it was just really really fast two years. So make sure that when you put in your wish list, you know for sure that you could actually work there at MacDill does not have militaries of ones. Yeah, and that's that's an important lesson to learn because not all career Fields can go to all the bases. And at one time you used to be a civil engineer could go to all the bases, but they've changed a lot and they've been contracted out. So that's important to do your homework. So you talked about your purse. Deployment where did you go for your first appointment? So I was deployed to Kyrgyzstan Transit Center at mehnaz, which is now closed they like to call it the gateway to Afghanistan's. So a lot of troops would come in and spend a couple days and then or deploy out of there to Afghanistan we were pretty small and permanent party, but we could have up to 5,000 Transit there. It was semi permanent construction. So No, Tent City and we we did have a tent city there temporarily for a surge. But primarily it was semi permanent type of Housing and construction. We were there at the Airfield for the capital of Kyrgyzstan. I was one of four civil engineering officers to include our squadron commander our captain and then two lieutenants and we had civilian draftsman and designer so Professional Engineers and we had military Three EA's so engineer assistance and then one civilian. So it was a pretty small group but we oversaw about 50 million dollars worth of construction. Annually though. It was a pretty big load. I learned more there as a civil engineer than probably any other assignment. Yeah, Maness is where I went when I was going to Afghanistan and coming home and there was a nice big from especially coming home. I've enjoyed it a lot more coming home. And I was there I think we were there at the same time. I was there in February of 2010 and know that October 2010. Yeah, I think you beat me there. I was there August 2010 to March 2011. Okay. So I was there in November for a few days. Not that we saw. Yeah, we didn't even know so one of the cool things so as a transient person that I was I was only there for a few days they advertise that you could go off base but Had to be a permanent party. So did you get to do that? Yeah, so let me just preface it by saying you work six hour days 12 hour shift. So you were pretty tired and a really really want to go somewhere and so at the beginning of the deployment, you know, I was like, yeah, let's go. Let's try all these cool things and so I got to go whitewater rafting. I went on this 10-mile Mountain hike which that was a one-time deal very beautiful. But wow. Long trip on your one day off. They did have some where you would just go eat dinner, which were more common as you got far during your deployment because it didn't take as much time and eating there. I was there mostly in the winter and they had excellent soup and stew meals like the best ever. So I will go out a lot and eat those on your day off band trying to think if I had any real other excursions. I mean those were probably had went bowling one time. But yeah, I mean, I went off base and And if I could describe to you Kyrgyzstan and Bishkek, it's kind of like the infrastructure is a remnant of the old USSR like the old Soviet infrastructure. And then the folks that live there are a combination of curd you he's which have an influence from Tibet and the Asian cultures from China and then any blond-hair blue-eyed type Russian influence and then you did have a just a little bit of Middle Eastern influence, but we were on the northern border of Kyrgyzstan. So that was very limited. The primary religion was some sort of Greek Orthodox type of pathology kind of close to Catholicism. Really everybody very friendly. They spoke Russian or Kirk. He's and English was not something that was widely known so you very rarely were able to communicate easily outside of the base. I mean, it was definitely probably a better opportunity than like, Being able to go off base. Let's say in Afghanistan. I mean, that's not that's not even close, you know in comparison my experience there was much different than what yours was. I'm certain we've talked about yourself. So and then you are talking that you are working all the time and that you guys were managing all that money with just a few people. So what were some of the like bigger projects that you have to work on so we had several large Airfield projects the biggest The biggest projects were concrete Airfield construction and they we had a little bit of an aggregate issue. There was some chemical problem with the local Aggregate and the Portland cement and so we actually did projects twice. So we built an apron for large cargo planes troop carriers and then it started to fall like within the first few months of construction. And so we had to tear it all out and use a different aggregate or A different mix of Portland cement because we couldn't bring in aggregate into the country. And so that was a challenge and the Corps of Engineers was involved in that and that was a fake Testing Lab and a lot going on with that red horse came in and did a smaller apron with their forces and that one was more successful after we solve the chemical issue. One of my personal larger projects was the security forces entry gate. We I did some design work on that. And so I was very athletic. Time I couldn't recall it now, but at the time I could almost recall all the AFI specifications on security forces entry Gates like distances and spacing and all of that stuff. I mean it was it was a lot of information and that was pretty fun because you know, we had a huge part in the mission was setting up parking and making sure his saying if and no terrorist activity could take place because you got all these bunkers and everything. So I really enjoyed that. Yeah AFI is an Air Force instruction and there then Structions that you have to follow when you do anything in the Air Force, but Rachel's talking specifically about like the security of stuff and then you also mention red horse, which people probably don't know what that is unless their civil engineers in the Air Force but red horse. It is like an expeditionary civil engineer unit that I do a good job of explaining it. Yeah, but it won't help you understand what All these weird letters that don't mean anything. I mean they mean something but not to me so but yeah, that's cool that you got to do all that stuff while you were overseas in Kyrgyzstan is like one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to I'm not with Gorgeous. Yeah. It's so pretty. Let's talk about your next appointment. The next ployment you went on was to hundra's. Yeah, so I got back to Moody in March and I immediately had Deployment tasking. So I was already assigned to my next appointment and it was Afghanistan and an opportunity came available to take the short tour to Hunter ass and the reason it came available to me as a second Lieutenant was because I had shown an interest in going to Honduras. We're going on a short tour. I was looking to go on a short tour to chart or is about one year and it's typically not a hundred percent expeditionary. It's somewhere between contingency type. Mission and permanent construction. So you're more like the Kyrgyzstan type as far as the way that we build and develop their and it usually allows you to tap into Corps of Engineers support additional funding opportunities and stuff like that. So I wanted to do a short tour. I really didn't want to go on a deployment because I had already gotten a really great deployment and I knew that the odds were that I wasn't going to get a good one and that already been tasked with Afghanistan. So at the time I talked to our functional which assigns You know where you go? And I had said, you know what's going on the short tour and they responded to me and said hey somebody got medically disqualified to take this short tour. Are you still interested? And I said, yes, and so I left I said, yes my squadron commander approved it and I PCS territories a PCS you the permanent change of station? I would not go back to Moody and I left in August of 2011. I think that's right. Yeah, so, it's August 2010 to 2011. Yeah, so yeah kagaz to 2011 and so I was on base from September 2010 to August. Well, I guess it was September 2009 to August 2011. So not almost almost two years and out of that two years I wasn't on base for more than a year at Moody. And now a word from our sponsors It's always important to thank those who are serving or have served in the military their service and sacrifice to preserves our appreciation every day a special Veterans. Memorial is being planned in Luverne, Minnesota a full-size replica of the Vietnam War Monument for 9/11 Iraq and Afghanistan plus an education center will be a great way to honor our vets and educate the public the education center will house displays. Classrooms are restaurant Chapel and more your help is needed to create this amazing memorial for more information. Go to www.fema.gov Ali dot-org. If you're still looking to get one last gift under the Christmas tree consider getting a copy of women of the military. It makes a great gift for anyone especially women veterans and women looking to join the military so they can hear the stories of other women and now back to the show. And then I went to Honduras and it's an it's an army base. It's Soto Cano Air Base. So it's an army base. There is an Air Force function there. They're headquartered out of Arizona or New Mexico. I can't remember the headquarters. It was the 11th something 11th, and there was a small Air Force contingency there and are we were responsible for the only see 5 capable runway in Central America. And so it was the only way to provide emergency aid to Central and South Erica in the event of a natural disaster and their second mission which is probably the larger Mission which drug interdiction. So there was a lot of helicopter type activity a lot of Special Forces DEA type agents, not just you know military but other government agencies that came through there and it was a really interesting base a really a really nice short. Tour things are very time as very different down there. You know, the sun always Rose between 5:15 and 5:45. 5 the sun always said around 6 p.m. You know, everybody showed up to work at like 9 o'clock everybody stop work about six o'clock, you know, so it was just a it was a more of a routine there. There was a lot of local Nationals that worked for the base. The base was run off of four gigantic generators that had diesel delivered to them two or three days two or three times a day. And so you would see at night the city's kind of off in the distance is a little mountainous so You can see some cities like little towns and their electricity would flicker on and off but ours would stay on because of the generators and that was only way we could ensure that we had electricity all the time. It was really nice tour. I did a lot of work with the Army we developed the first. Well not the first book. I was responsible for the planning and programming of all the base construction from 1 to 10 years Airfield maintenance. We did a lot of inspections on the Airfield and stuff like Like that, it wasn't not a lot of planes went through there. But you know always preparing in the event that we needed it but I really enjoyed that short tour. I was able to find my husband out there for holidays two different times. And that was really nice. You don't get to do that when you're deployed short tour allows you to do that sometimes but overall it was it was really good experience. So, what did you do when your husband came out to see you? So we went to a coupon or wenis which is kind of a forest located. Mission for locals and they have some Mayan or Incan ruins. I get those confused. No disrespect to my ends are Incans, but I get that too confused with but they have some ruins there and kind of a tourist area and then we went to Roatan which is an island off of Honduras. And that's a lot of cruise ship stopped in there. And that was really nice and there was a third one we did go on a weekend to Panama City. And so I got to see the Panama Canal and I really enjoyed Panama City was really nice. So those are the three spots. It's that sounds like a really cool application with its deployment. That's kind of cool. It was nice you have four days here for days. There was it was really nice. Did you have any challenges while you were in Honduras? Well, I mean some funny challenges. So even in Kyrgyzstan they have some heavy equipment but in Honduras they had limited heavy equipment. I mean you would have a let's say a house or Base lodging being built and there'd be men out there with shovels digging. Eating and using their feet to Compact and Mixing concrete in you know, wheelbarrows by hand for an entire Foundation you talking about Foundation that's like 30 cubic yards of concrete and they're doing it all by hand in the wheelbarrow. There's a lot of things that would go on like that. I mean that we couldn't eat couldn't really expect in the states that kind of construction when you gets hard to even test, you know, what the results of that you just hope it doesn't sink that was a little bit of a challenge, you know, if we we wanted to go anywhere in the country like on the and you know, it was two and a half hours to the capital and it's not that it was that far in distance. It was that the infrastructure was so poor. It took two and a half hours to get there. We had to ride a bus to and from the city there. It was a little bit of a challenge because I mean it was definitely a third world country. I know some people had a little bit of trouble with mugging. I never had that problem. I never was I never got robbed or anything like that, but I mean not not like real challenges some of the Things I got to do. I got to design a helicopter pad out like away from the base for the drug interdiction stuff. And that was a challenge because I had no soil data. I had no and no information at all about anything. So we just had to just estimate it was just a guess on how we did it and and that was that was kind of a cool challenge. But I mean as far as like really challenging, I mean no it was it was a really good experience a really good Department. That's good to hear and And I don't want to spend all our time talking about deployments because if people want to learn more they can go onto the blog and read them and yeah, it's been fun to hear because you told different stories then you wrote about like 2 years ago. So it's been a fun conversation because I was reading through them this morning besides your deployment and I feel like you moved around a lot or were gone a lot didn't face any struggles while you were serving in the military. Yeah, so I had an opportunity to think about this question. You know struggles I think are pretty typical and I mean, I don't want to speak for all women that I would think that women probably experienced similar struggles and that when you're in the service and you decide that you've want to get married, then you have this struggle of being gone and how you maintain that relationship. So I would say the biggest struggle for me in my personal life was I was married and the the first year and a half of marriage we didn't live together and we were separated geographically and it was a challenge and on top of that, you know, if you're someone like me, I'm I'm a religious person. I attend church. I'm a member of a local church. You can't establish those kinds of relationships when you're all over the map. I mean literally and so, you know, you are trying really hard to kind of establish roots and you can't because you're moving all the time and that that was probably the biggest struggle the That struggle was alleviated when I left Honduras and I moved Ohio and I started working with headquarters because you know, you didn't deploy out of there one-on-one you deployed 1 to 4. So, you know, I was there for nearly two years and didn't get a tasking. And so that was the first time in my military career that I wasn't moving, you know, and so that was really nice. And so that that was really something that ultimately I could tell the difference between their regular operational Air Force and then work Young At A headquarters when I did get my deployment tasking I kind of all rushed back like oh my goodness. I might have to be on the road again. This could be you know, I'll have 2 PCS we're going to talk be talking about being on, you know moving and so that ultimately is what led to my decision to separate was was really just the impact on the family that that I didn't I didn't want to face that anymore and your husband was not in the military. So you guys weren't separated because like you're at two different bases. He's a civilian the whole time, right? Heat while he served in the National Guard but local if it was local. So yeah, he never had to move anywhere. We were not separated because he was stationed somewhere else. It was just that I mean he couldn't go with me on a short story can't go with me out appointment, you know, he has a career too. So asking him to pick up, you know, it was hard that I mean I can definitely understand why people that have spouses like you, you know, you guys both were in I mean that's really challenging to Yep, that's why I left you so you kind of already told us a little bit why you left the military? Was it anything more than like being separated and like having just another deployment and life-changing again? Yo that mean that was it. I mean, I love my job. I loved what I did. I love the people I worked with I love the role. I really enjoyed the professional structure of the military. I mean, I I didn't even know how much I enjoyed it. Until after I was gone, so I really enjoyed it and it was a sacrifice to give that up. Yeah. So when you transition did you struggle like a rest of us up? I mean, you know, like I never I didn't have like a separation anxiety or like who's going to do my taxes problem, but I did have like how am I going to fit into this other operational structure? So when I separated I actually went out of my civil engineering career field and I coach soccer. I had a College level and I got to the college and I was just floored. I was just couldn't believe like I was like, how do they even like work? Like, there's no organizational structure. There's no chain of command like like they don't even know who's doing. What like, how are we going to accomplish this task if people aren't assigned duties like, you know, like it was it was completely eye-opening and you know, and I will say like and I'm not ashamed to say this like the military operates better and I think that a lot of Is civilian organizations could take a few lessons from how the military operates and it was a surprise and I was I was definitely considered abrasive. I was considered a typical personality like from the beginning and I think that you kind of are when you are in the military and a woman you just kind of are like an assertive sort of person and so in the military, there's a lot of you and like a lot of men that way too so you get along easier but like at any of it if you do kind of like rub each other the wrong way Or just like okay, whatever you're climbing like it, but when you go somewhere else where you know, people aren't like that. Yeah, I sometimes you can you can rub them the wrong way. And so I found myself getting a lot better about like talking with people one-on-one before I went to a meeting and started explaining like, you know, like maybe a group task but we were on trying to develop individual relationships to alleviate some of my abrasiveness, but but that was probably the biggest challenge just just my Personality and dealing with non-military and then now you're doing engineering work again. So why did you make the switch from coaching to engineering very simple coaches work a lot and get paid a little engineers get paid a lot more and so I was coaching at this is my second College. I was at they hired me as the campus engineer and so I could get a pay raise and then I was like, yeah, you know this coaching things kind of fun. But like this engineering thing is a lot better. Like I can you know work a lot less make a lot more and so I was surprised I should have got my professional engineering certificate back in 2013 back when we were to be their headquarters combined good not it and I was like, meh yea, I don't want to get it and so then you know in 2017 and I was like, wow, I really should have got it because now I have to get it so I spent 2017 preparing for the test and I finally got in 2018. But yeah it just Auditioning to the engineering was like a no brainer. It's just a better career field for all those ladies in the sending engineering is already created and a professional engineering license. So to become a professional engineer, you have to take first in a tower test that is called the engineering and training but usually you take like out of college or me after you're in the Air Force and then to be a professional engineer and that's kind of like a nationwide thing. So the EIT goes everywhere, but then each state. Has their own professional engineering exam most of the states or the pretty much the same except for like California and Florida and there's probably other ones but I got my professional engineering degree in Ohio right before I think you came and is also another eight hour test. So yeah. I think I only have one more question and it would be I already know this part of the answer. But what would you tell young women considering joining the military? I would tell young women that do it for one because the pros outweigh all the cons, you know, try to go to an academy. If you can't go to an academy go to ROTC in a technical degree because the pay is way better but specifically in the military not Is career field related but you know stick to your principles. I think that that's really critical, you know, you leave your family and you go off on your own and you join the military, which is a huge organization and there's a lot of moving parts and you know, insert your principles and to the organization don't I'm not saying be inflexible. I mean learn while you're there but you know, your principles and beliefs are what your founded on as a child and take those and make the military better with those and be a positive influence. Always greet people with a smile, you know, even if you're having a bad day, it doesn't matter whose fault it is like you show up every day with your professional face on customer service oriented you are going to have a really great a while. You're in the military. I think that's really important AB skin as a woman, you know civil engineering was a male-dominated career field military is a male-dominated organization have tough skin accept criticism with Grace and grow from it, and don't be Afraid to give back criticism as necessary. I think those are really big ones and then the final one I would say is embrace your customs and courtesies. I must say that I work for local government and a consulting firm now when I greet people as sir and ma'am, they're shocked and they really hope it opens up the conversation because they feel like oh you you respect a from the beginning like It just it just makes like working so much smoother. I mean you can disagree with a certain a man and a smile on your face and it is really something important and so customs and courtesies in the military. I think everybody should join the military for that because it just makes life. So smooth, you know take advantage of all that the military has to offer. I mean I am I am completely happy in my career now, I don't have a ton of debt. I Had I've had the opportunity to serve and learn and and those would be the things that I would tell young lady do it. That's awesome. And if you can't tell for lying to us talk, we had a lot of fun. I right Pat and I was really glad and Rachel showed up there. They were there was other women there, but I don't know we just clicked and it was really fun. We didn't know we had a lot of fun. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. It's been great to get to talk to you again and see you since I haven't really sorry it you since my first son was born. On which is a while ago. Oh, yeah. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. All right. Thank you for listening to this episode of women of the military make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the Amazing Stories I have with women who have served in our military. Did you love the show? Don't forget to leave a review. Finally. If you are a woman who has served or is currently serving in the military. Please email me at Airmen to Mom at gmail.com so I can set you up to be on a future episode of women of the military.
Rachael and I served on active duty together as Civil Engineers at Wright-Patterson AFB. And I am excited to share her experience. I had a chance to interview her for my deployment series in 2017 which is where the podcast idea started. So, if you want to learn more about her deployments to Manas Transit Center and Honduras. You can check out both of those stories here: http://www.airmantomom.com/2017/10/manas-transit-center/ http://www.airmantomom.com/2017/10/engineering-in-honduras/ She served in the Air Force as a Civil Engineer for 5 years and currently is a professional engineer, floodplain manager, consultant at Cross Timbers Consulting, rancher, beekeeper, racquetball player, wife, hopefully, future mother, born again Christian. She got an opportunity to attend the Air Force Academy when she was noticed for her talent playing soccer. She was able to get a nomination and accepted to attend the Academy and couldn’t pass up the opportunity. She wished she would have taken advantage of more of the opportunities given to cadets who attend the Academy, but she was young and didn’t realize their value until years later. But she did have a number of great opportunities while at the Academy including visiting Guam and Africa. Her first year she struggled academically, with barely at 2.0, but she was able to figure out how to balance her class load, cadet responsibilities, and soccer and graduated with above a 3.0. Her first assignment was at Moody Air Force Base. It had a great mission and there was a lot of work to do. She deployed to Kyrgyzstan to Transit Center Manas which was the gateway to Afghanistan and many troops would beddown there before and after a deployment to Afghanistan. You can learn more about her deployment here. When she got home from her deployment she was already slated to deploy again, this time to Afghanistan. But the opportunity arose for her to go to Honduras on a short tour (more than 179 days, but typically a year) and she took that deployment instead. You can read about that deployment here. When she got home from her deployment she moved to Ohio to work at Air Force Materiel Command Headquarters. It was the first time in her career where she wasn’t moving and actually got to spend time with her husband. He was not serving in the military and moved up to Ohio so they could live together. She didn’t get a deployment tasking for two years and then when she got her deployment tasking to Afghanistan all the feelings of being gone and not having stability came back and that was why she decided to leave the military. She not only left the military but also left her career as a Civil Engineer and decided to go back to what originally drew her into the military, soccer. She became a coach at a college level. She was surprised by how unorganized everything was and came off as abrasive with her get the mission done attitude and it was an adjustment to civilian life. After a few years of coaching, she went back to her Civil Engineering degree and got a job in her field. The pay for coaching wasn’t a lot and it was a lot of hours. And having a Civil Engineering degree to fall back on especially as she hopes to transition to being a mom was the right step for her and her family. Are you considering joining the military? Check out my free guide: A Girl's Guide to Military Life 