Karmin Loveless

Share your military spouse story:
My husband and I went to the same high school but were far from high school sweethearts. Running in different crowds, with wildly different backgrounds/lifestyles. We reconnected via AOL Instant Messenger (showing my age) after my sophomore year of college and I ended up following his rock band around our hometown as his biggest fan. This long haired, gauged earring, ripped jeans, guitar player... Although everything else in our life has changed drastically, I have never stopped being his biggest fan. After a couple years, he decided he was ready and mature enough to join the Army. He always knew he wanted to serve his country. We got married 8 months after he joined and I have been proud and honored to be a military spouse ever since. Originally he planned to serve his 3 year enlistment, get the GI Bill for college and move back home. After a phenomenal first unit and command team and the best NCOs to show him the ropes, he was hooked! So here we are 16 years later. His first duty station was Fort Lewis, then an unaccompanied tour to Camp Casey, Korea, back to Fort Lewis- where our son was born, then Fort Sill for drill sergeant time, WOCS at Fort Rucker, back to Fort Sill for WOBC- when we had our daughter, then our favorite assignment- Grafenwoehr, Germany and now at Fort Campbell.

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
I was honored to receive the Molly Pitcher award. Honestly, I have not taken on many leadership roles because I was a working spouse the first 9 years of his career and made it difficult to commit the amount of time those roles deserve. Then I have been a stay at home mom to 2 young kids, which also makes those commitments of time and attention challenging. I feel that I am best suited to the "helper" or "volunteer" type tasks that are also very important. I have been involved behind the scenes of all our FRGs and spouse groups. Not everyone can make the commitment to leadership but anyone can devote some of their time and talents to the big picture of getting things done. I have volunteered my time and input as much as that season of my life allowed, which has varied widely over time. It is important to let other people know what every bit of volunteering makes an impact, even if you feel you cannot take on a leadership role.

Describe your involvement in the military community:
My greatest and most prideful achievement was creating the Netzaberg Community Pantry in our neighborhood in Germany. We adapted a room in our basement to storing, sorting and distributing food and household supplies to other military families. This helped minimize waste and provided to many families in a time of need. It grew from one small shelf to an entire room with hundreds of items. We made welcome baskets for incoming families who arrived and had to quarantine. The best thing about the pantry was seeing the goodness and generosity of our entire post wanting to help one another and work together for the greater good. We passed the pantry on to another family when we left and it is still going strong! For the pantry, we were formally recognized by the 41st FAB and US Army Garrison Bavaria for this project.

Describe how you support your community:
I feel that the best way to support our community is to create and foster positivity. Building relationships, getting involved, meeting people, utilizing resources and sharing that information with others. People seem to gravitate toward me with their problems and I do my best to know about and provide them information on resources to help.

What do you advocate for? Why?
The thing I will continue to advocate for is food insecurity in the military community. Seeing the amount of need while running the Netzaberg Community Pantry was eye opening. There is a greater need than many could ever understand. No one serving their country and sacrificing so much should ever have to worry about feeding themselves and their family.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
Social media seems to be the best way to spread the word about needs within our military community.

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
I would love to continue advocacy for military food insecurity and use that platform to do so. I also like to show people the different seasons of life and how that affects your abilities to volunteer in different capacities but you can always be doing something to support and make a difference. I feel that my family has had many experiences that allow us to help others get on a path for the most positive, enjoyable, successful military career while also giving proper attention and focus to family time and the community at large.