Mindy King

Share your military spouse story:
My husband and I met in Iraq during a 15 month deployment. Six weeks after redeploying we were married. Within a few weeks after getting married, we started our first separation. This would be the start of over ten years of more separation than being together. In that time, I was medically retired and we would have two boys while going through the bulk of our seven deployments. Throughout the years, I've had the opportunity to serve as a dual military spouse, Rear Detachment 1SG and Family Readiness Liasion. After retiring, I transitioned to being fully on the military spouse side. Between multiple positions within the Family Readiness Group, serving in the military spouses' group, becoming an AFTB trainer, and actively serving on the CARE team I was able to not only stay busy but continued to help my soldiers in a different capacity, by taking care of their families. We're been married for almost 17 years now and my husband is almost at 20 years of service and although this life has been far from easy, the journey has been worth it.

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
In my time as a military spouse, I've had the opportunity to serve within the Family Readiness Group as both an FRG Leader and a BN Advisor. I've also served within PWOC as a retreats coordinator, as vice president and president of Tumbleweeds (nonprofit on Fort Carson), and as the Battalion CARE team coordinator. Outside of the military, I'm currently serving as a post officer for VFW Post 101, as well as the Jr. Vice Commander for VFW District 5. I also am the location coordinator for Wreaths Across America for Evergreen Cemetery. I currently also serve as the president of the VFW Post 101 Foundation.

Describe your involvement in the military community:
Within the military community, I work directly with the VFW to help support provide holiday meals for active duty families in need. I also work with Bailey Military Family Group to assist with providing items for fundraising and supporting families going through deployments. Currently I'm working on setting up a sewing class on post to teach how to make basic quilt squares to be able to create quilt tops that will be donated to Quilts of Valor. I am involved with the Mountain Post Spouses Club, teach Patriotic Youth Programs, and help with special story times at the on post library.

Describe how you support your community:
Within the community, I serve at as a VFW officer at the post and district level, work with the VFW Warriors, American Legion, Pikes Peak Young Marines, and am involved with the Pikes Peak Veterans Council. I use my small embroidery business to donate items to our local SROs to support mental health awareness and make kids kits for our BHCON unit with the police department. I active volunteer with an organization to support and maintain our cities oldest city and am the location coordinator for Wreaths Across America for that cemetery, which involves working with multiple organizations across the county for both fundraising and supporting their entities mission. I coordinated a blood drive over the holiday where we had 31 units of blood donated and actively work to help collect and donate items for our local unhoused.

What do you advocate for? Why?
Community. While mental health is an ongoing challenge within our military families, many of the challenges of that come from not having a community and feeling like you are alone. When I was still in the Army, while my husband was in Afghanistan, I had a doctor accidently take a peice out of my spinal cord. I had to have another procedure to patch that, but ended up laid out for almost three weeks. At the time we were stationed in Germany and had it not been for the community coming around me, I honestly don't know what I would have done, from making meals to standing outside my bathroom so I could shower without passing out. When we move around, we don't have our families close by and our military community has grown weaker. Due to that, you can see how much more our families are struggling. This life was built to have a community and without it, it's harder than what it could be.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
Through working with multiple agencies, I work to network and find where individuals might have an interest and try to connect them with our people who have the same kind of interests. Currently, we are working on planning a Month of the Military Child event that would bring all the military affiliated agencies in to have games and fun for the kids, but also allow those agencies to connect with the military parents. In this way, we are bringing people in the same situation together and allowing a 'distraction' for them to be able to relax and be themselves.

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
I think above all, I would hope to allow people who don't currently feel seen for the challenges they overcome in this military life to be seen. Additionally, between COVID and the changes to SFRG, I think our core support within our community has taken a backseat to everything else. We have to make that a priority again! Our community is the heart of our military and without it, spouses and families struggle, which in turn means the soldiers struggle too. When that happens, their focus isn't fully on the mission ahead and we have depleted our fighting forces' capability before they have even finish lacing up their boots.