Military Mommy

By Rheanon M. Medina

This book is a sneak peek into my life enlisting as an active-duty member in the United States Air Force. It shares many personal moments as I, at the same time, transitioned into being a single parent. It also gives a positive faith-filled outlook on situations that I have faced over the last twenty years of my life while choosing to be victorious rather than a victim over the things I could not control. My ultimate goal is to plant a seed of hope and joy in others facing similar issues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684983681

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Chapter 1: Life Before the Air Force

Chapter 2: Basic Training

Chapter 3: Systems Analyst Technical School

Chapter 4: Recruiter's Assistance Program

Chapter 5: First Duty Station: Holloman AFB, New Mexico

Chapter 6: First Deployment

Chapter 7: Second Duty Station: Dyess AFB, Texas

Chapter 8: Second Deployment

Chapter 9: Separating from the Military, Transitioning to Civilian Life

Chapter 10: Baby Time

Chapter 11: College-Bound

Chapter 12: Back to the Big City

Chapter 13: The Military Mommy Foundation

Acknowledgments

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Military Mommy

Rheanon M. Medina

Copyright © 2022 Rheanon M. Medina

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-68498-367-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68498-368-1 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To all of the single parents serving active duty across every branch of military.

Chapter 1

Life Before the Air Force

It was November 15, 2000 that I found myself boarding a bus to San Antonio, Texas, on an early fall morning. This day was extremely blurry as I spent most of it in tears having to leave my one- and two-year-old daughters. My heart was broken, and I literally struggled to breathe as I boarded the bus leaving my babies to begin six weeks of basic training for the United States Air Force as an active-duty enlistee. I entered with a reserved position as a system's analyst on a four-year enlistment. All I can say is God was looking out for me because I was totally naive not knowing the details of what exactly that meant or how it would drastically change my future in just nineteen short weeks.

It was an extremely long ride to San Antonio from my hometown of San Angelo, Texas, on that Greyhound. If any of you have ever ridden a bus anywhere, you know it takes twice as long to reach your destination; what should have only been a three-and-a-half-hour ride took what seemed like an eternity. This honestly was a blessing in disguise as it gave me the opportunity to have a quiet moment to reflect on my life leading up to this point and get a nap toddler-free! For once I found myself feeling a sense of accomplishment taking the first step to adulthood at the age of twenty-one. I graduated with mediocre grades and was just not interested in going to college right out of high school. I did, however, complete three years of JROTC in high school that turned out to be a benefit as I enlisted as a senior airman—more pay. This was significant knowing that I would soon be classified as a single mother.

Starting from the beginning of this journey, I come from a broken home like most teenagers in today's world; my stepfather, who I called Dad, and my mother divorced when I was thirteen. I had a great childhood riding my bike down a newly established neighborhood about five minutes from Goodfellow AFB where we lived from the time I was five until twelve. This was a time when it was safe to send your kids on a two-mile bike ride to elementary school at the age of seven, and parents weren't paranoid of all the pedophiles that lived every other block from our house to the school. It was very rare that my parents argued in front of my little sister and me. For the most part, we grew up in a pretty normal home from what our tiny little minds and hearts could understand. Things definitely changed once I turned twelve as my parents separated, and in a blink of an eye, we were no longer a family. I learned that it is impossible to immediately identify the long-term damage that takes place in a young child's heart when parents decide that they have irreconcilable differences, or infidelity breaks one's heart to the point that their soul will never be the same.

My mother, sister, and I would find ourselves moving out of our three-bedroom, two-bath home to sharing one extremely small room in my aunt's house. I am grateful that my mother accepted the responsibility of becoming a single parent rather than letting the situation overtake her with drugs, alcohol, or depression. She did everything she possibly could to keep my sister and me healthy and happy. She turned to the church when my dad had turned to another woman, and this was a pivotal moment in my life as my mother became an avid church attender.

My mother was invited by my aunt to a church group that we were dragged along to. I was very disappointed that my Saturday was going to be wasted on a church group meeting. I went along only because my mother threatened me by grounding for a week if I didn't go. We showed up to a small house with three bedrooms, and the group met in a small garage that was converted into a den. I reluctantly sat down on a metal folding chair, and lo and behold, there was a set of samba soccer shoes in my view from the other side of a tall thin bookshelf that separated us. As the night went on I really didn't hear anything that was said, but I was very curious as to who was sitting on the other side of the bookshelf. It was clearly a younger guy with hairy muscular legs. I really couldn't stand not knowing if the guy sitting in the chair on the other side of the bookshelf was my age or older, and at this point I was actually excited to be sitting there. I am here to tell you that there is such a thing as love at first sight! So we finally were given the opportunity to take a break and grab a drink, and this was the moment that I met the young man who flipped my world upside down and sideways! He had black hair and light-brown eyes. He was wearing black soccer shorts and a purple T-shirt. He had quite a bit of hair on his upper lip, so I immediately thought he was older by at least a few years than me. He had a gold chain on that had a soccer guy charm; there was an immediate one-sided attraction! I have always been very reserved, so I didn't jump to introduce myself, and unfortunately for me he didn't seem very interested in looking my way.

In the weeks to come I would soon find out that he was only a year older than I was and went to a different middle school on the north side of town. I tried really hard to spark conversation with him, but he always seemed more interested in mingling with everyone else. I would also learn that he was an only child being raised by his mother, and they lived on the same side of town that we would be moving to before the summer began. As the months went on I would find myself looking for his mother's van and super-disappointed when he didn't show up to the prayer group meeting because he was out of town for a soccer tournament. Unfortunately, these feelings were all still very one-sided. It was very evident that his life revolved around soccer, and I was at the bottom of his food chain. So every weekend I actually made it an effort to attend the prayer group with my mother, not necessarily to hear the Word of God every Saturday night, but to see his handsome face. I begged my two best friends to come with me on separate occasions, and he paid more attention to them than me. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I took it upon myself to sneak a kiss while he was sleeping one really late night. He acted surprised when he opened his eyes, as if I hadn't been skirting around him like a cat in heat rubbing my tail in his face every chance I got. I think I finally got through to him that night, and as the weeks and winter months went on, we grew closer. By the spring leading up to our freshman year in high school, we were officially an exclusive couple. Every time he walked in the room my heart would literally skip a beat, and I was in love.

As most single mothers, ours worked overtime to support my sister and me. We often found ourselves with minimal parental supervision when it was needed most. By the time I turned fourteen, I was taking full advantage of the non-supervised time I had on my hands while my mother worked overtime to buy those name brand Girbaud and Guess jeans I couldn't live without! Within about three months we moved out of my aunt's house into a very small house with two and a half bedrooms and one bathroom. It was almost too perfect how I got to see this new boy every Saturday and Sunday at church, and he lived three blocks from our new house. With raging hormones, I found myself in love with this young man, and we were inseparable to the point that we craved each other every waking moment of the day. Never trust your teenagers' people, that's how babies show up unexpectedly! Both of our mothers were single moms, and we used that to our full advantage. Living three blocks from each other made things way too easy for us to be doing things we had no business doing, and as soon as my mom left for work every day of the summer leading up to our freshman year in high school, I snuck him into my bedroom window that sat perfectly in the back of the house.

We spent our entire freshman year connected at the hip, but there was one thing that always came first in his life that would take us down separate paths for seven long years. Because soccer was not a sport at our 4A high school he transferred to the 5A high school in our hometown our sophomore year. Our relationship ended quite badly as I looked to one of his very good friends to confide in as he started a new school (scandalous); this was definitely not one of my proudest moments in life! It ended with a knockdown drag-out fight from what I was told. His mom and my mom were arguing about how