Dru Anna Jackson

Share your military spouse story:
My military spouse story is likely not to different: “I wanted to let you know orders have been cut, and we are not getting the assignment we thought. We are going to ‘X’ location instead.” These were the words I heard from my husband regarding our permanent change of station (PCS) orders after a year of marriage. It was no surprise we were going to be moving; however, going from location A, which was about 90 miles away, to location B, which was over 1,000 miles away, became overwhelming from alarm, excitement, and fear. To gain control of my anxiety, I looked at the small tattoo on my wrist that said BREATHE and did just that. I knew we would make the best of the situation. I focused on the positives and told myself, “I can transition my career there. I am eager for the new journey.” We got to this new location, and I took leave to search for jobs in the new location. At that time, I had hit 13 years as a general schedule (GS) federal workforce employee. I finally got placed in a new position after seven months of applying and being on unpaid leave. I downgraded from a GS-14 to a GS-11. After about two months of starting this new position, I got a call about a career opportunity over 1,770 miles away, which meant geographical separation again. We discussed the pros and cons of the job as a family. My husband was scheduled to be deployed in roughly eight months after this conversation. After several ups and downs in planning and a few challenging moments, a decision was made, and things started falling in place. I was to move and start the new position as a GS-14. I drove from northern New York to central Texas to start this new position in a new location after just doing the same a year before. This position got my career back on track, but where did that leave my family? These events changed my focus of my dissertation I would later do as part of my doctorate in Organizational Change and Leadership.

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
My leadership in the military community has not been in the military spouse community only, but as an Army civilian employee leadership roles, which has varied from Missile and Aviation roles, but also included a deployment to Iraq for our drawdown and base closure. I am currently in a senior career position supporting International Military with GE Aerospace. I have also served as treasurer in the SFRG at Ft Drum. Additionally, I am assisting in setting up a remote Veterans network for our organization. Currently, I support varying efforts with my husband's unit, such as the Christmas Party at the local boys and girls club we sponsored with the Soldiers. Assist with setting up of promotion ceremonies, and varying events. As a military spouse, I have continued to work full time, advancing my career, but also my education, completing my doctorate in Organizational Change & Leadership in 2022. I love connecting with other spouses to learn about their lived experience.

Describe your involvement in the military community:
My involvement ranges from supporting SFRG events, more held pre-COVID, attending Coffee Connections, and becoming a volunteer with the USO at Ft Eustis. The reason of becoming a USO volunteer is supporting the hosting of "coffee connections" in the evenings for military spouses who work full time during the day. I attend varying events with my husband and focused on donating items to the Ft Eustis thrift store. While this sounds minimal, I believe it helps spouses obtain items at a cheaper cost. I have also assisted in planning and setting up unit military ball. My involvement does vary based on our duty location, some areas I can develop new skills, create new support systems, and hopefully mentor younger spouses in adapting to changes and remaining resilient. I also like to connect military spouses that are of similar ages and experience to grow their support network as well.

Describe how you support your community:
While I mentioned coffee connections above, I am fortunate to be in an area where I can attend Navy, Air Force, and Army coffee connections. I love attending all services and hearing the voices of the military spouse. I will say during my doctoral studies I was less involved directly with my community, as I was focused on my research, 'Military Spouse Well-Being during the COVID-19 Pandemic'. My research goals were to see if the well-being and military lifestyle varied during a global pandemic. For my dissertation, data was collected from an online survey completed by 597 military spouses of active-duty service members. Quantitative data included demographics and Likert style items about perceived stress scale, military, and COVID-19. Qualitative data were collected from four open-ended question and analyzed thematically. Quantitative and qualitative findings were documented in the final analysis.

What do you advocate for? Why?
As mentioned with my dissertation focus, I advocate for the military spouse wellbeing. A main finding in my research was military spouses have higher-than-average levels of perceived stress. There were slightly higher average scores among the military services with Army, Air Force, and Coast Guard spouses. While Navy and Marine spouses were slightly below the high level of stress, they remained well above the average level of stress for a general population. Two primary themes evolved from the analysis of the open-ended question for contributors to stress: employment and loneliness/separation. The military has emphasized the enhancement of resilience through programs and support organizations and in empirical evaluations of resilience-related interventions. Though these programs offer many to foster resilience, little research has been conducted to identify the characteristics associated with resiliency among military spouses, and I believe more research and focus is needed.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
Most recently it has just been with publishing my dissertation and sharing my findings. However, I would like to share more in the Military Spouse journal and other forums. While working for Army Futures Command I gained a great deal of experience in public relations from advocating social media post, designing videos, hosting VIP visits, and assisting in publications. I would like to take that experience and apply it to advocating for military spouses to improve un/under employment, supporting well being, and sharing lived experiences of military spouses.

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
Raising the voice of the military spouses, from support in career, home, moves, the list could go on. Some are as simple as identifying your state for claiming state income tax with their employer. For instance, when I took my current job, HR could not understand why my mailing address was VA, but my drivers license was NY, and I was trying to claim TN as my state taxes. I provided them with the Military Spouse Residency Relief Act. Recently I have assisted a new military spouse with the information and the form required to provide to her HR so she can stay consist with state tax with each move. I have several recommendations from my research that I would like to seek avenues for as well, such as networking with military spouse more to gain a targeted/expanded research population to learn more of their lived experience. Look into resources that can be communicated more to military spouses to improve education and career options. Frankly my list could go on.