A Walk in My Shoes: Military Life

Have you ever wondered what it would like to be to be someone else? To actually see the world through their eyes? That is why we created the documentary series A Walk In My Shoes, and now we present our latest installment Military Life. Because great teaching starts with good listening, we went straight to subject matter experts, military members and their family support rally in Port 11 North and asked what they wish teachers knew about their lives. Stories highlight the dedication, the bonds, the service and the challenges of military and their families face.

It is our hope that by sharing their experiences we can provide invaluable insights for pre-service teachers, learn from each other, and recognize the good that each student brings to our campus, and in a way walk in someone else's shoes. That sense of serving something greater and being a part of something large that everybody has an equal share in, that comrade ring, that friendship is something that you just can't really describe or put words to, but military person kind of understands it. 

And that's why you form such a strong bond with your brothers in arms get to get through it together, and you work for that one common goal, just getting home alive. This is all I've ever known with a military, they're patriotic family, we believe in our country and giving back. Growing up as military kid, I'm glad that I have that background, that way, I'll be able to relate to the students, and know exactly how they feel because I know a lot of times you're looking at the teacher and you're saying, but you don't understand. One of the things that I want my children's teacher to know is that we do have a very unique lifestyle, it's not bad, it's just different, very different, unless you've been a part of it, it's hard to understand some of these challenges.

I think the best part of military life for me as a spouse and a parent has been the opportunity for constant growing and changing myself. I was very surprised to find out the number of our students who are impacted by the military. I didn't understand the sacrifices that those children make along with mum and dad, and their siblings, and their entire family. One thing I wish that some teachers would be is maybe a little bit more empathetic. When you're in the United States, it's not as easy to understand the difficulties of a parent being deployed.

My name is Lacee Sell. I'm the Superintendent of Schools for USD 473 in Chapman, Kansas. I am originally from Abilene, Kansas and I taught for a few years in Kansas before I went to Missouri, and I was an educator and administrator in Missouri for 14 years before coming back to USD 473. We have approximately 1,100 students, and of those around 40% are affiliated with the military. So we have a very large population of our student body that daily is impacted by the military. My first impression of the number of military students in our school district was quite shocking, and I say that because I grew up down the road, and I passed Fort Riley as a child on 1-70 going back and forth, and back and forth, but never once did I stop to consider that students within that area might go to USD 473 or go to a different school district outside of where they were.

I was very surprised to find out the number of our students who are impacted by the military. I didn't understand the sacrifices that those children make along with mum and dad, and their siblings and their entire family, but I quickly learned that I am responsible for identifying our military children. Some of the challenges that our teachers face in teaching large classes with military children is the transition time, that is not a choice that is up to the child and they move as the family does and we know that when a military child moves into our district, first and foremost we want to welcome them with open arms, but we want to find out where they've been, what are their experiences and it opens the door for conversation within the class, it welcomes the child in being able to share that my dad is in the military, and he's deployed at this time and maybe vice versa, maybe it's the mom, but we try to find out all we can of the child experiences. We'd like to think that they are ours forever, but we do understand the transition and the resiliency of these children is just phenomenal.

Prior to my arrival there were recognition and thanksgiving for our service men and women, but not to the extent where we were honoring them in the school, and so we choose to do that through class room visits by any mum, dad, grandparent, maybe a veteran. In each of our schools we have showcases that specifically show the students and their parents. We invite mums and dads, brothers during the deployment, or when they come home in to share about their experiences, and we've broken the barrier of being a touchy subject for the children and their family. We want all of our students to know the importance of the sacrifices that these children go through themselves it's just not mum and it's just not dad or the care givers to let home while the other is deployed.

It's very stressful on the children, and we recognize that we need to work with them and their families and we choose to do that. This past Valentine's Day I was invited to one the schools because we were going to be having a Valentine's Day party but there was a special party planned in one classroom. And mum had coordinated with the building principle and the staff that dad was coming home. I went out to the school and I personally got to witness a time when family was reunited and the kids were absolutely shocked. The little boy even commented you weren't supposed to be home until Saturday and the dad boy that really got a good chuckle. There was not a dry eye in the room I'd seen those on the news and shows but to be able to witness that was just it's a memory that I will never ever forget.

My name is Daniel Potucek. Military life is similar to civilian life, and the idea that you work for the better of the community, community being your brothers in arms or if you are civilian your neighbors, your town as far as how they are different, I would say how close the community is. Certainly in America one more stand offish has as a community of a town, we kind of keep it to ourselves, but in the military we're so close together, we spend so much time together, you form a bond, and it never really goes away, it stays with you for the rest of your life.

I had an uncle that served in the gulf war, desert storm and I also have an uncle who is a Lieutenant Colonel in Air force, and my brother does funerals in Arizona for the National Guard, and my sister is in the Air force, she's a staff sergeant. What's funny is I was actually the first one to go to war, my brother is a year older than me and I never really thought how they felt while I was over there, until I got back, I actually got out of the army my brother joined, and he deployed to Iraq, and I got that experience and it changes you, definitely the worry, the anxiety, especially since I knew what happens on a day to day basis overseas in Iraq.

I explain it to people this way, when I was in high school all I've wanted to do is serve my country, go to war and do my part, but once I've got a taste of it I realized that there's quite a bit of pain and blood, sweat and tears involved and it's not fun at all. And that's why you form such a strong bond with your brothers in arms, we have to get through it together and you are for that one common goal, just getting home alive I was diagnosed with PTSD. 

I never really noticed that I had it until about two years ago and when I was in, you're considered weaker or not up to the task to defend your country. And people say flashbacks and they think that it's like 15 minutes of you thinking you're someplace else but that's not really what it is it's almost like a split second or you're walking and you smell something and it remind you and then you get the feeling of that moment when something terrible happened to you or your friend or someone in front of you, and that this feeling just rush through your body and it just recurring nightmare doesn't go away.

I try to think positive and I did serve my country and I did well and try and honor my comrades who they perished over there. When people think of a soldier, they think of maybe an iron man, a robot, something that, you're handling but we are human and we struggle with emotions every day especially when you are overseas.

A way that teachers can be more empathetic is to maybe have someone come in or a veteran and explain that it's not call-of-duty modern warfare. My personal perspective from being in war that I would share with my students is the culture of Iraq. I would also share the personal experiences that I had that were positive and try not to focus on the other negatives or the politics just the story of human interaction.

My name is Kim Shoffner, I was born in Lander, Wyoming. I moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas three years ago, it is one of many, many moves I've made over the years. I have been married to my husband for almost 20 years we have two children, our daughter is 16 and a sophomore high school and our son is 12 and in sixth grade. My dad was in the Air Force ? he was from Wyoming, so we moved multiple times while I was growing up. This is all I've ever known with the military life, a very patriotic family, we believe in our country and giving back.

My mom worked as a nurse so we never lived on a military base we always lived in the community, so I never went to school with military kids. Because of that whenever we moved, my sister and I would go to a new school where there were no other military children and it's always just the two of us. So it's hard for teachers to understand what it was like to move as many times and constantly transition in and out of classrooms. We joke now were best friends with my sister for the first couple of weeks and months until I can find my own friends again trying to fit in and become part of that group was very hard.

Years ago when I was growing up teachers didn't understand and because I wasn't in that military community, they weren't used to it. So I was going to school with kids who started schools together from kindergarten and literally graduated together 12 years later, and I went to five schools in fifth grade so it was a constant challenge. When we moved from California to Miami Florida I had a very hard transition extremely hard I was in the middle school I think it's hard anyway, but when you take a middle school preteen girl and move her to a different culture, I was in shock. I planned an entire year to move back to California. I saved money I had schemed with some of my friends I was going to live with her which is very common if you talk to some of the experts.

I was very much in denial in the resistance stage of that transition cycle, and I think that's probably the only time my parents wished that maybe this wasn't the best move, maybe we shouldn't have done this. I look back and say no I needed to grow up and it forced me to grow up a little bit and the lessons that I learned were invaluable. I think that every move that we made my parents said it as an adventure. I was able to explore different cultures, different states, different countries that many of my friends only read about in books. I guess when we go back everything was about attitude and they looked at it with a very positive thing for us a great benefit they could give to us that many others weren't fortunate enough to experience and because of that I think I've actually had passed that on I hoped to my children when they've moved I think attitude is a big part of it.

I think teachers are more aware of military kids in some locations, I don't think that it's everywhere, and I think with the job that I do talking with the teachers I'm still very surprised at some of our school districts that have military schools within their venue and their footprint who have been teaching military kids for 30 years that they're not aware of the basic elements, the fact that our children move six to nine times before they graduate.

I work for a company called Military Child Education Coalition, it's a non-profit that advocates for military children with respect to their education. One of the initiatives that falls under its umbrella is their parent to parent program. I have been a trainer for them and I'm now currently a supervisor, and what the teams do we will go and give workshops to parents on how to help their children not just survive, but thrive in the military lifestyle especially with respect to their education.

So when they get ready to move, then when they get settled on the other end how to best talk to the gaining schools so that they're placed properly. Takes up to three months for children to kind of adjust and get settled into that new school, and it's not just from the student's point of view a lot of times it's from the school understanding what records mean from a different state. So if we can give that information to the parents ahead of time and help them to help the school, it will make a difference.

Hey my name is J.R. I live in Wamego, Kansas, and I'm here at Kansas State University pursuing my degree in Biology Education. I was raised at Kansas State, we had no connection with the military, and my wife and I met here in Manhattan she was much closer to graduating than I was and so she looked at me and said one of us needs a job and we decided I decided that hey! military might be a good option. We talked, I joined, and 26 years later we returned right back here to Kansas State University.

When I first joined the military, I asked to be stationed up for Riley because my wife was finishing her degree, and I was given that we got to stay here at Fort Riley for 18 months, and then they shipped us to Germany. I'd never been anywhere outside of the state except for basic training when I went to Oklahoma, and all of a sudden myself and my wife, she just was thrilled, we're going to Germany, she loved it. I'm terrified, I hadn't been out the state of Kansas, and I'm like no, this isn't going to be fun. Well, it was my job to find all the necessary lodgings and whatever wants to stick, get them over so they can come over. So that was tough, I'm in a new country, in a new job, in a new place, without my wife whose been there and it was quite the challenge.

What I found there were guys who had already done that before, and that is where the military culture really took over, I got, given a sponsor is what we call it an experienced individual who has already done it, not the same age as you, but he's already done so he knows what to look for when you're looking for an apartment or you're looking for the housing for your family. So the sponsor helps bring you in to the unit, bring you in and calm you down, and say, OK let' go look here this is a great place I know. He already knew the area, he already knew the surrounding villages, and that was worth my first truly I'm in the most experience with the army culture and how we take care of our own. The military culture is different, but anybody will tell you that if you learn to do what you're supposed to be doing, when you're supposed to be doing it, at the location you're supposed to be doing it at in the right uniform, you're never wrong, never ever wrong, and once you learn that, and that's the basic training with the drill sergeants, that's where you learn it.

But once you learn, that's all I got to do is be where I'm supposed to be, doing what I'm supposed to be doing, it turns out to be a great way of life. To this day soldiers of mine, soldiers that I've run into or I've led or I've served with will contact my wife via Facebook say how's he doing, what's he doing, what's he look like, what's he up to, how's retirement. So that comes that sense of serving something greater and being a part of something large that everybody has an equal share in that comrade or that friendship that's something that you just can't really describe or put words to but a military person kind of understands it.

In 1980 when I came here for the very first time as a freshman, I was a secondary education biology and speech and theater major. I spent two years the appropriate term would be enrolled at K-State before my wife says, honey you need a job. Well, so I've always had the interest in being a teacher. When I started this school in 1980, I started this path now 26 years of globe hopping and seeing other things resulted in me landing right back where I started and I wanted to finish something that I started so many years ago. 

One thing I enjoy about being back at K-State in the age that I am as you know, we always that youth are, youth is when we're still young. I get to relive it, I get to go back to school and how many times have we said, oh! if I only knew what I know now, if I didn't know it then, well I do. I get it to do those things, I know now what I shouldn't know then and I'm getting to do it again. So interacting with professors is wonderful from men's experience, respect for them is immeasurable, I love every one of the professors I'd ever had a class from, because I have been treated very respectfully back, I take my time at K-State as my job, grades are my pay, so if I don't get 100% on my pay, then I reap myself off. And I take that attitude with me into the classroom, I paid for 100% of this class I want to get 100% of this class and I work because that's my pay. As a military child you don't get a choice like my mom she had the choice of becoming a military spouse, but you're just kind of thrown into it.

And it's not something that I would ever trade either because I got to see some really cool places. I've lived in seven different towns, and I've seen so many different places with the awesome things that also comes hard times like when your dad is deployed and your brother has a hard time with that and he's having emotional turmoil and he's throwing fits and acting out, and he doesn't usually do that, but then as his older sister you have to cope with that and say, OK, well he's not usually like that. A lot of times when I meet somebody, they don't even realize what army life is even like. I've had people who don't even realize what a fort is, like Fort Riley Bay they asked me if my dad sleeps in a tent all the time, they don't understand that we live in houses it's just a normal life, but your dad doesn't go on a business trip he goes to war he goes to Afghanistan.

So when I'm explaining it, it is really difficult because some of the things I don't understand, and then it's also hard for them to understand the pain that I'm going through as well as my family. I mean they get excited for me when my dad comes home but they don't really understand how long we've been waiting for this because their dad doesn't go away for a year to this scary place where he could die at any moment, so you just it's just had to explain. I think military families have very similar situations of everybody as Lindsay and I have talked about this and we were trying to think what is really different. And the only thing that we could really think about was that during war time, where the other typical American family might sit around and think about the war we actually really worry about it because our loved one is there.

One thing that sticks out in particular, I think when we were stationed in Colorado, he was deployed twice, and we had two of our close friends lose their husbands and both my older girls they're friends with those families' children, and that was very difficult to see that their families lived in our neighborhood, it was a circle neighborhood, and one was across the street, one was kind of at a corner, and that was a very difficult process to deal with emotionally.

On the heels of both of those deaths, Jason, my husband came home about a week or two later from each of his deployments, and then there's the guilt that you feel that your soldier is coming back. But what we did is we created, we wrote a book, and we took pictures and we wrote a book about what it's like to be a military kid, and we talked about what life is like when daddy is away, and things we do, and he's gone for all of our birthdays and all the holidays, but I write him and I do packages, and I'm hoping that while he's gone nothing happens to him like such and such's dad, and it was kind of neat because the pictures in the book were of Lindsey and her sister Haley, and the other two were little, little so there's pictures. It was neat for them to see themselves in that book.

Hi my name is Sandy Risberg, and I am an instructor here at the Kansas State University College of Education. I am the coordinator of the Military-Connected Student Education Program. It is an organization that is designed to educate both our preservers and our in-service teachers on the culture of the military child and the best ways to meet their unique needs in the classroom. I was born and raised in Florida and unlike being a military family member the house I was brought home to when I was born was the house I moved out of when I got married, and so I had no experience with the constant moving and the situations that causes with families and spouses and household goods and children and school and education.

Raising kids in the military is an interesting journey because of all the transitions and the deployments and all the moving we've done. Our family has moved 11 times and my children have attended seven different schools each. It is interesting when I talk to my boys about what the military life style has done to them or for them, they have actually said, they have gotten to see things and do things that other kids don't get to see and do and it has given them opportunities to meet new people, to try new things, to remake themselves when they start the new school.

My older boy was filling up some scholarships one of the questions was, how has being  military child impeded you as a student, and your academics, and he came to me and he said this is a silly question and it hasn't impeded me in any way, and I said, well when you were a junior at high school you were selected at the end of football season to be the captain for the football team for the rest of the year and for your senior year, did that happen? Well, no we moved both my boys had to move their senior years, so he went from being what would have be the captain to standing on the sidelines on a very large football team in another state, and I said what about student government jobs, and no I never got elected, the kids didn't know me long enough to elect me and things like that, opportunities were just different because of the constant moving.

One of the many issues that military families deal with on a day to day basis is the long work hours often it is not in a control the parents they can't just call in sick, sometimes it depends on the mission and the job of the service member so the non-military parent is often doing some single parenting, so to speak even when the soldiers are not deployed. Some other factors I think that affect the military families are the deployments and the length of the deployment.

The long conflict our country has been in the last 11 years, we have had deployments that range from 9 months to 15 months, right now they've backed down to nine months, but just much much, better for the families, the 15 month deployments they found had a lot of second order effects, the health and the well-being not only of the service members but also of the family members. I think the best part of military life for me as a spouse and a parent has been the opportunity for constant growing and changing myself, everywhere I go, every place we go. It's kind of has become the joke in the family that I never want to go and I never want to leave once I get there, and so I make myself very quickly find a niche and make myself useful in some way purpose for in something usually has to do with education. Sometimes it's elementary student it's been high school students, middle school students, adults family members of the military, and now here in addition to the adult family members training I did I also here in the university training our future educators who will be working with military children since they are in every school district in the United States.

The college of education and Dean Mercer decided to be part of Operation Educate the Educator. In 2011 the First Lady and Dr. Biden under their program joining forces said we need to help our military children in their education, and what could we do about that, and a couple of primary organizations came together the AACTE and the military child education coalition joined forces and they came up with a set guiding principles, that culture of education programs can use to train teachers and so they were looking for universities to become part of the beginning of this new program. 

So we're training our staff or faculty and we're training our students who are here and have had the opportunity to do that in Geary County schools or the Chapman School District and here in Manhattan and do some training with our teachers in the classroom, and not just give them information but gain from them as well we are asking those teachers who've been in the field for their insights and their best practices as well. So we're learning from each other and we are hoping to put together something that we'll be able to share with other teacher preparation programs, in other universities, to better the teaching field across the country.

The role that the classroom teacher can play in helping military students is to be understanding, to be aware of the cultural lifestyle, the military child to maintain structured classrooms and high expectations, nobody is asking teachers to lower expectation for military children, as a matter of fact it's the other way round. Conversation needs to occur in the classroom and in our schools. I think back in the day it used to be that you tiptoe around the child whose mum was in the service or who's dad or maybe was deployed that maybe we don't bring that up or we don't talk about that, but we need to have communication, we need to have honesty and we need to talk with these kids.

My one piece of advice would be, take the time to work with your building principle and your counselor to determine who those military children are in your classroom and then you talk to them, talk to them, talk to them. The advice that I would give teachers that work with students that are in a military family is to be extremely supportive, say if their father came home from deployment they missed two weeks, you definitely had to be flexible with very schedule and not be so concerned with yours. And really take into perspective how much motion is going through that student's mind. I think all teachers should recognize that the deployment process isn't just one year, or just nine months, it's all long process.

The best advice I can give to teachers who will be teaching military children is get to know your students, get to know their family life a little bit I would take a tour of the military installation learn some of the resources that are available, because you may have an issue that resurfaces, that there?s already an organization out the

If I could give one piece of advice to my kid's teachers of yesterday, it would be to have that empathy because if you've never experienced it what it feels like to make friends, your best friend forever. I know by the way she or he is leaving tomorrow, and they're going thousands of miles away. Before Facebook, before Twitter, before the Internet, this was very difficult for children.