Interview with Chantile Stovall, History 150 Spring 2024, Conducted by Nadja Stovall, March 20, 2024.

Overview

There has not always been support for people in military relationships. In the beginning, a military partner would have to pay for their travel and find new jobs every move if they were not married; sometimes even if they were married, they would still have to do these things on their own. However, we have come a long way from there and the military now provides support to military partners and their families. Chantile Stovall had been a military partner since before 1998 and has learned how to navigate this world. She had learned some valuable lessons along the way and learned how to balance being a mother to three children, a military wife, and a career woman.

Biography

Chantile Stovall is from Ohio. She grew up there and spent her childhood and a little bit of early adult life there. She met Patrick Stovall in college at Kent State University. She traveled with him while he was doing his military training to be a pilot; they also got married during this time in 1998. When he finished his training, he got deployed to Oklahoma. This is where their first child was born in 2000. Next, they moved to Alaska, where their second and third children were born, in 2003 and 2005 respectively. After Alaska, they moved to Colorado. Patrick was deployed twice while living here; from February to November in 2008 and July 2012 to July 2011. They moved to Virginia for Chantile’s job while Patrick was still deployed in 2010. Chantile worked before, during, and after, Patrick was in the military

Research

The military offers services to ease the pressure off of the families. Some of those services include relocations assistance, which helps the families find housing, spouse employments, schools, and more. Another service that is provided is the emergency family assistance, which provides aid to families when planning for short- and long-term recovery from an injury. They also provide transition assistance, which helps the family transition back to civilian life. The Air Force provides a spouse state licensure which makes it easier to move careers across state lines, or to find new jobs. They also provide a dislocation allowance fact sheet which is a single payment used to cover the cost service members experience when relocating their family for a permanent change of station (PCS) move.

Transcript

Nadja Stovall 0:04
Okay, my name is Nadja Stovall. I will be interviewing my mother, Chantile Stovall. And she has said that she is okay with the audio recording. So, [correct] first question, can you just tell me a little bit about your relationship with dad and how like it started to like where it is now? Basically?

Chantile Stovall 0:32
Yeah, so we met in 1991 at Kent State University, and at that time, he was in flight school. He was an aviation major. And my resident assistant introduced us, he [my dad] worked security in our building. And so, she she introduced us and that’s how we met. And then I also learned about him, and we spent time together. He was also in the junior, no, not Jr., but the ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Camp] program, which is the Air Force ROTC program. So, it was the preparatory program for the Air Force. And the through the, yes, three years. He was a year older than me. So, I was a freshman. He was a sophomore. So, over the three years, we spent together at Kent State from ’91 until he graduated in ’94. He was in the ROTC program, so I had opportunity to participate in some of their events. One they call or dining out, where they’re able to bring guests and got introduced to some of the customs like the grog. And it’s kind of a tradition where they send people to drink out of this cauldron of some concoction they mixed up. And then he went on, after graduation, he got commissioned as a first lieutenant. Second Lieutenant? Second Lieutenant, and did recruiting at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. And I was finishing my last year of school. And then from there, he went to see, he went to Montana, Great Falls, Montana, and became missileer. He went to it became a missileer. And he got out there I think in like ’95. And I joined him out there in ’97. He got there in ’96. And I joined them in ’97. And as a missileer, you know, they they were the guys who are in these underground silos. And they wait for, if we ever went to war, the President to say turn the key and push the button, and they would send missiles directed at different sites. So, and they would, they would be underground for I think it was like two days or something like that. So, he would go away, go to his worksite and spend like two days on the ground, and then come back and be off for a couple of days and then kind of repeat that that routine. And then in ’97, he got picked up for flight school and left Montana. I stayed in Montana because I had just finished grad school already had a job. And he went to Pensacola, Florida and started his flight school training spent, I think about six months there and then went to San Antonio and finished the rest of this training. And then we reconnect it in 1990, March of ’99, I believe it was, in Norman, Oklahoma. He was stationed at Tinker Air Force Base; he had got assigned as a navigator on the AWACS; which most folks know is the plane with the dome on the top doing radar surveillance. And we spent four years there before he moved to Anchorage, Alaska, still flying AWACS. And we spent three years in Anchorage where you were born, and Zaria was born, moved there pregnant was Zaria. And then we left Anchorage and went to Colorado Springs and spent four years there. And that’s where it switched up for him and his career. He then had some admin jobs as opposed to flying jobs. And then he taught for a couple semesters an ethics course to zoomies [cadets at the base]. And, and then he became an executive to the Vice President, I think, at the school, by superintendent of the school. And then, in between there while we were in Colorado, there were a couple of deployments that he took to Afghanistan. And then we ended up moving to DC and the consider, he stayed, I should say, and some admin positions. And and then that was he kept that up. He was at Bolling Air Force Base, and he retired out of the Pentagon in 2014. And that gets us to here, to his veteran status.

Nadja Stovall 6:27
Cool, so, um, you didn’t mention when you guys were married, but I know that you guys had to do like, kind of had two marriages in a way like you went to the courthouse, and then you like, actually had the ceremony? Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Chantile Stovall 6:46
Yeah, so we got engaged, in ’96? In ’96. And we were supposed to get married August 31, of 1997. And during that time, [Patick] Dad got picked up for flight school. So, when he got the flight school, he said, he left in, I think, July of 97, something like that. And he said, “You know, I’m gonna get married”, and they were just kind of like, okay, too bad. And they wouldn’t give them the time off, to come back for the wedding. So, we ended up having to push the wedding back a year, and end up getting married September 5, and 1998. And so that was kind of upsetting. But that was probably my first lesson in, you know, being a military spouse, or being with someone in the military, and really taken to heart, the old saying, ‘if the military wanted you to have a family, they would issue one’.

Nadja Stovall 8:00
I’ve never heard that thing before. But that’s interesting. Um, so did you know, I’m assuming that you knew going into this marriage, relationship that that will be deployed at some point? So, like, how did you like, mentally deal with that? And like, prepare yourself for like him being deployed?

Chantile Stovall 8:26
So, I never really thought about him being deployed. Yeah, no, I guess until it happened. Because, you know, when he first got out, and he was on special assignment, as a gold bar at the University of Michigan, like there was, you know, what they call, you know, he would take trips, he was doing recruitment. So, he would take trips to different high schools and stuff to do recruit, recruiting activities and that, and then as a missileer, there really wasn’t a lot of deployments involved. So, it wasn’t until he got into the flying billet that that’s when all that started to occur. And initially, it was fine, because we were single. I mean, we didn’t have kids. And so, he would, he would do temporary duty assignments with what they call TDY. And would go to like, Turkey, and I think he did some trips to England. But he also did local trips, like whether he had exercises in Las Vegas and stuff. And those are fine, because there were times, I would join him like one time I joined him in Las Vegas for one of his TDY and stuff. So those are fine. So those weren’t really bad, but it was probably not until, you know, we started having kids that deployments became more of an issue. I think just because you didn’t sign on to be a single parent, but you get thrust into being a single parent. Um, because your spouse they’re, they always have to be an Airman First, and everything else comes second. And so that that kind of, you had to change your mindset in terms of your marriage, and in terms of parenting, because you go from two parents to one parent, but you have to keep and maintain try and maintain a status quo in the house, which could sometimes be a little challenging and difficult.

Nadja Stovall 10:37
Yes, I remember dad leaving and then you only being there. But I do remember, like, you said that there’s three of us [three children]. Um, there was a point where all three of us were under the age of five. And you were working? How did you manage like parenting us, all three of us under the age of five, even? Or even like, when dad was deployed when you were in Colorado, or in early stages of Virginia, when we weren’t all under five? Like, how did you manage to parent us? And then also, like, work full time?

Chantile Stovall 11:11
Yeah. So yeah, like I mentioned earlier, when we moved to Alaska, so Aris was three, I was seven months pregnant with Zaria. And then, 16 months after Zaria was born, you were born. So, Aris, when you were born, Aris’s was four. And you were a newborn and Zaria was, little almost, short of two years old. So, it was. And we didn’t have a lot of support. It was just Dad and I. Because we were so far away. We were in Anchorage. So, we didn’t have any family. But we were lucky to have my mom came out when you were born. I think Grandma Nell (my dad’s mom) came out when both you and Zaria were born. Or maybe it was you, I can’t remember. But that was only for like a week or so. Right? So, we really, we did it on our own. And that’s where I more so had to rely on other people, other military families to step in when needed and help, which is not something I’m very good at. But we did have a neighbor across the street that, you know, would watch you girls, when I had to do work. And backup and say, when I when we first moved to Alaska, I worked from home. So, it was a perfect opportunity. So, I didn’t have to, I did have to do some appointments outside of the home, but most of it was at the house. So, I would get up, I would drop Aris off at school in the morning. And then I would come back, and this is before you were born, and had Zaria there, and I just put her on a schedule that worked with my work schedule. So, if I knew I had meetings, you know, I would make sure that during that time, she will be down for a nap, or something like that, but or I have my headset on, I’d be nursing her, I’d be taking notes, you know, I just made it work. And then there were times if I had to go to meet a client at a doctor’s appointment or something, because I was doing private rehab at that time some case management for workers comp, and I would, the base had like drop-in care. So, I could take you guys to the drop-in care on base. Or there’s a neighbor across the street. And then there was another military spouse that was a stay-at-home mom that I had become friends with, Miss Trina. And she would keep you girls sometimes too. But it was, in the moment you just do what you have to do. Right? You know, I didn’t really give second thought to how am I going to do this. It was just get it done. That’s just kind of the mode I went into, like, in my my goal, especially when Dad wants to deploy was always to keep home as normal as it was if both of us was there, so that you guys didn’t feel like you weren’t getting the love or the attention or whatever it was that you got when both of the parents was there. So, I was It was tiring. I can remember reading your books and falling asleep, but you know, it was just something that you do. So, I tried to set like work was from this period and then when I came home, it was focused on you know, get you guys to whatever your events, you know extracurricular activities you guys are involved in. And you probably remember, I remember lots of times in Virginia where you guys would be eating out a Tupperware dishes while we were going to events, you know, but I didn’t want again I didn’t want you to eat and Burger King and Taco Bell and all that stuff right you still need to have a home cooked meal so I prepped meals, put them in containers, threw you guys in the car and you guys, we that’s what we did, we went to the event. So, it was really about keeping things as normal as possible. And so that was a lot of probably nights where I didn’t get adequate sleep but you girls we’ve never known that. And that was the whole purpose.

Nadja Stovall 16:00
Um, so I remember, video chatting with dad when he was deployed. Was there anything else that we did to keep in contact with him when he was overseas?

Chantile Stovall 16:16
There was written letters and but most of it was that’s, that’s when Skype was out. So, most of it was Skype. But some packages and letters.

Nadja Stovall 16:30
Okay, and then, um, what was like when he was like when you got like the news that he was about to get deployed? Was there anything different or like special you did with him or like us as a family before he got deployed?

Chantile Stovall 16:51
Um Yes. So, I remember you know, obviously he was trying to make sure that he had well, preparations I’ll start there. So, preparations, whenever Dad got ready to deploy, a big part of that was making sure there was power of attorney in place, you know, for like, our accounts and stuff like that. Medical information like you know, do we want a DNR you know, a wheel. All those are like, when the real-life things slap you in the face when you have to talk about like, okay, what if he dies over there, he gets injured, and you know, just making sure that I would be, or we would be taken care of. Those things always had to occur. So that’s really where stuff happened. Meeting with legal on base to put the wheel and all those things in place and power of attorney. And then you know, just trying to, you know, personally just, he would just like to spend a lot of time with you girls. One on one time with you guys and spend time with y’all with me. Making sure we had like some of his favorite meals before he left, and things like that. And then one time we did a, when we lived in Colorado, believe it was. We set up an Airbnb, I set up an Airbnb, we went to our Airbnb for the weekend. And I remember, part of the package was they sent us to this restaurant that didn’t have a menu, which was weird. So, when you go in, they just and they sit you down, they come to the waitress come to the table and ask you, what are your likes, your dislikes, if you have any allergies to anything, or whatever, and then from there, they just fix you menus from that, like, meals from that I should say. And I remember Dad and I like like we had some squid ink; squid ink frittata was one of the meals they brought to the table. So that was a whole experience. But it was great because it took our minds off of you know, he’s leaving because we we cracked up at every meal and like, the faces we would make, especially, you know, the wait I remember the waitress getting mad at us when she brought that because I was like, “it’s what!?” I was like, “I’m not tasting that.” And she was like, “No, you gotta try it” and “I’m not tasting it.” And I remember being annoyed with me. But it was like, six meals. I mean, they weren’t like huge servants, but it was a lot of food. By the time we got to dessert. We had to like take dessert home because we couldn’t even eat. But I say all that because there was this large party in there and come to find out they were, they were like cacking, they were older than us. But they were laughing, and they were loud. They were drunk. And they started going around the room and they’re like, “What are you here for?” And there was a couple of like, “Oh, we’re, we’re celebrating our anniversary.” And they’re like, “Oh, happy anniversary”, clapping hands. And then they got to us. And they were like, “What are you here for?” And I was like, “well, my husband’s getting ready to be deployed.” And they were like, “oh, thank you for your service.” Then come to find out some of them had, you know, been stationed at the Air Force Academy. They were Air Force retirees and that. And so, we get ready to check out and pay our and take care of our bill. And they’re like, oh, that party that was here, they paid your bill. Thank you for your service. Wow. So. So that was that was really nice, like, you know, nice just to have that military camaraderie. And, you know, they understand, right, they understand what we were getting ready to go through. Just, so being your military family is very broad, I would say. Yeah.

Nadja Stovall 21:16
Speaking of deployment, was it hard to send dad off on deployments? Like seeing him go, like, emotionally or like, any other way?

Chantile Stovall 21:29
Oh, yeah, it was always hard, I would say, emotionally, mentally. Because, like, you know, this is like, been my partner for, like, we, you know, again, we met in 1991. We started dated in September ’91. So, you know, this is like, my best friend, like going away, you know, somebody I wouldn’t be able to talk to every day. So, things happen in your life, and you want to be like, oh, you know, like, normally I pick up the phone and call or talk about it at night, and that person wasn’t going to be there. You know, for me to do that, in that moment. But probably the, the deployment that was the hardest was in 2011 when he went to Afghanistan. And just, like I always thought about, you know how when we lived in the townhouse, and you pull in because I was like a dead end. So, you pull in into the townhouse. And I didn’t want to like to see one of the cars with, you know, federal plates, military plates sitting in front of the house. Like that was always kind of like my fear, like, and how I would handle that and deal with that. So that weighed on me pretty heavily during that deployment. But he’s probably hearing this for the first time because I never shared that with dad, because I needed him to be focused on the deployment and not worried about what was going on at home. So, whenever he called, I’d be like, “Oh, we’re good.” Which we were good, for the most part, I just had that ongoing concern. But I needed him to be focused on being you know, an airman and keeping his mind focused, so he could stay safe there and not worried about us at home, because that would, you know, interfere with his safety. So that was probably the hardest deployment for me. And just, you know, not wanting to get that letter or get that call or see that car sitting in front of the house. So emotionally, I guess that took a toll. But mentally, I had to be there for you all. So, it wasn’t until I had the quiet moments, like when I lay down at night or when I wake up in the morning that that would be very pervasive in my thought process.

Nadja Stovall 24:07
I know you were raised in one kind of area like you grew up in you went to college in Ohio. So, like moving around as an adult moving every two to three years. Did you like that? Not like that? Was it something that you were like interested in doing or?

Chantile Stovall 24:28
I mean, who doesn’t like having a house every two, a new house every two to three years? Yeah, that that was good. But what was more, what was hard I guess with the moving was just employment because I did see myself as a career woman. Like I’ve never been the military spouse that took all my husband’s career and made it mine and be like, you know, “I’m Major Stovall’s wife”, you know, like, he had his career. there, I had my own career. So, move in every three years, obviously, I had to apply for a job. You know, look for a new job, every three years, I had no consistency going for me. And so, I did make a move because I was in private industry. So, I did make a move to get on with the federal government. And I was blessed and that my job was flexible and would be able to support me in a good career, whether I was working in the private sector or the government, federal government. And so with, I chose to get on board with the federal government, because they had what they call hardship transfers. And one of the criteria for authorities under the hardship transfer was being a military spouse. So, like, when we left Alaska, I put in for hardship transfer to get hired at or to transfer to the same job I was doing, but with the federal agency in Colorado. And so that allowed me to switch without having to reapply for a job or anything like that, they just would take me on as a new employee. So, I guess that it all worked out in the end. But, you know, when we left Montana, I had to apply, I had to get on the job search, and I was on the ground when we hit the ground. And I think we got to Oklahoma in February of ’99, and by March of ’99, I had a job. So, I just got my blue suit out, got my resumes printed, and start going door to door, meeting with people calling people, and got hired. And from there, we went to Alaska, and and somehow, I got a job there before I left Oklahoma. And then it was in Alaska that I got on with the federal government. And but as far as, you know, you meet people, and you establish relationships. And so, I am an introvert by nature. So, making new friends and that that was probably another thing that was pretty hard for me is because you I don’t let people into my circle very easily. And then you leave those people behind. And now you got to start all over again, where dad is much more social. And, you know, that comes at ease for him. But for me, that was not so easy to do. And I think that’s why I just kind of immerse myself in with you girls and what you were involved in. And yeah, so I can’t say that I have a lot of friends from the military. Other than like Miss Brianna, the Colognes that come to the house every now and then like they are military friends, Miss Christine is a military friend. So those would be the two that I probably for the 20 years that Daddy was in that I retained. And I met both of them in Montana at the first space that we were we were at. But moving the, you know, the packing up. You know, the military does that for you. So, you don’t really have to be too involved in that part of it. I mean, we did have a couple moves where stuff got broken. And you know, that’s kind of a hassle, filing a claim and stuff like that. But for the most part since we didn’t have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. I didn’t mind that so much.

Nadja Stovall 29:04
Is there anything about being a military wife that no one talks about?

Chantile Stovall 29:16
Being a military spouse. Yeah, no, you said that. But I’m saying nobody talks about the military spouse. Right. It’s all about the active-duty member. And it goes back to ‘if the military wanted you to have a family, they will issue one’ because the concern is about the military member and then being able to show up and do their jobs and the spouses’ kind of are you know… what’s the word I want to look, I would say they they have not a first concern for the military. And so there are lots of things that you like you have to be prepared to take on being head of household and be comfortable with that you have to take on that you’re not, sometimes you’re not going to be number one, when it comes to your family or your husband’s job, like when 9/11 took place, and dad couldn’t even stay at the house, like he had to stay on base. So if I wanted to see him, and I would have to load you girls to go to the base, well, it was just Aris at the time, but I would have to load her up in the car and go to the base, because he had to be ready to, you know, gear up, jump on the plane at a moment’s notice, though they had to be on base. So that left me and Aris in the house, you know, by ourselves

Interview Technology Process

This interview was recorded over Zoom. It was transcribed using Otter AI. The transcript was edited to improve clarification, spelling mistakes, and punctuation.

Bibliography

“Military and Family.” Www.afpc.af.mil, www.afpc.af.mil/Military-and-Family/.

rfletcher. “About the Military Family Readiness System • Military OneSource.” Military OneSource, 31 Aug. 2022, www.militaryonesource.mil/parenting/family-life/military-family-readiness-system/.