Married with children, 2 SNCO's make it work –
Airmen and Soldiers are expected to be ready to deploy at any moment. Service members who are parents must complete a child-care plan when they deploy, which means leaving their child or children in the care of a spouse or guardian.
For a Joint Base Langley-Eustis senior non-commissioned officer couple, Master Sgt.'s Casey and Dawn Moninger, dealing with the details of two married military members only strengthens their commitment to each other.
"At one point in our careers, I was returning from a deployment and Casey was on his way to deploy," said Dawn. "We were able to see each other for a few hours in transition, which was nice because it ended up being another several months before we saw each other again."
Casey works as a Warner Robins Air Logistics Center Detachment 1 superintendent of Distributed Ground Systems-Experimental, and Dawn is the 633rd Air Base Wing superintendent of ground safety. They share the same family values and have four, loving children, but not with each other.
They both struggled through unsuccessful marriages. What now seems like a picture-perfect life came from a long and difficult past dealing with deployments, temporary-duty assignments and separate permanent-duty stations.
They recalled how difficult it was to be apart during those times, but exchanging smiles and laughs with each other Casey and Dawn seem like teenagers in love. Looking back, they feel their relationship is the culmination of a long chain of events.
Casey joined the Air Force May 1, 1992, with an original plan to serve four years and separate at the end of his enlistment. After a few years serving on active duty, he met his first wife, they married and had their two children, before divorcing after four years of marriage.
Dawn joined the Air Force Oct. 13, 1992. She was already married, and joined to help her ex-husband pay for college while earning a degree of her own. They also had two children, and divorced after nine years of marriage.
The Moningers met at Langley Air Force Base, Va., in 1998, while attending Airmen Leadership School, the first step for non-commissioned officers in professional military education. They became friends and remained close throughout the years that followed.
"After a while he became the person I could not imagine my life without," said Dawn, while smiling at her husband. "That's when I knew we were meant to be."
In 2001, Casey and Dawn decided to get married. With children from previous marriages, they had their hands full, swapping responsibilities while living an active-duty lifestyle.
"The key is learning how to say 'sorry', even if you think you're right," said Casey, with a grin. "Because to some extent, everybody is wrong at some point."
"Though my life and career was not an informed decision, I feel like it has been the best decision I've made," said Dawn. "I have had the most amazing career, and it afforded my children the ability to see life in a similar perspective as we do. That's where Casey comes in as well, because we are both military."
With one child in college, two in high school and one in middle school, the Moningers learned to work together well, even though they all have unique personalities.
"Our kids are all very different, but they pair up and get along great," said Casey. "We have an 18-year-old, two 17-year-olds, and the youngest is about to turn 15-years-old."
The Moninger's both had separate plans and separate lives when they enlisted, but when those goals changed, they focused their attention to create better lives for themselves and their children.