Military
Tales from mothers serving across the DMV
BY LINDSAY C. VANASDALAN
Capt. Candice
Hunt takes the
family out to
their favorite
pizza place
on one of the
days where
cooking dinner would
be too much
for her
and they
need her
attention. Lt. Col. Racine Randolph attended the Pentagon’s
Month of the Military Child Event, 2018, with her children.

C apt. Candice Hunt has her morn-
ing routine down pat. As a mother
in the U.S. Marine Corps, based in
Quantico, she gets up around 5 a.m. before
waking her three children about an hour
later to get ready for school. Her ex-hus-
band—in U.S. Air Force security forces at
the Pentagon—gives her a few nights off
each week.

Co-parenting can be difficult to navigate in
any family, but even more so in the military with
unexpected late nights, responsibilities that
take priority and sometimes long deployments.

It can be impossible to achieve balance,
Hunt says.

“I thought the military was the hardest
thing I’ve ever done until I had kids,” she says.

“There is no balance. There really isn’t. You
just try to be organized and set goals, and you
allow yourself to not always be perfect and
you keep moving.”
As a woman in the military, Hunt is a
rarity. Women comprised only 16% of enlisted
forces—and 8% of the Marine Corps—in 2018,
according to background provided by the
Council on Foreign Relations.

Pair military service with motherhood,
and the experiences are rather unique.

10 Washington FAMILY MAY 2022
Washington FAMILY spoke to three mothers
about what it’s like to be a mom serving in
the military.

You’re Never Alone
Getting by day to day often takes outside
commitments. Hunt uses a nanny for her
children—ages 2, 4 and 7—one or two nights a
week if she or her husband is deployed so that
their routines are not disrupted.

With schedules that are often unpredictable,
it helps considerably to have family members
nearby who are able to step in. In the case of
Racine R. Randolph, a lieutenant colonel in
the U.S. Army, her mother relocated with her
disabled father to help care for her 6-month-old
while she was deployed for a year.

“All of this becomes an extended family
affair,” she says. She adds that it was important
to her to have someone care for her son who
knew and loved him as much as they did.

A special camaraderie exists among military
neighbors and friends. Military families—
especially stay-at-home moms—have stepped
up for Hunt, cooking dinners or picking up the
kids, regardless of whether she was living on
base or what branch they were in, she says.

“I don’t think I could have made it,
especially on my first tour with my first kid, if
I didn’t have neighbors and friends who were
there,” Hunt adds.

Tammye Abbott found the same support. She
was a single mom during her 20-year service in
the U.S. Navy. Her sons are now 23 and 35.

“Being a single parent in active duty is not
easy,” she says.

Her next-door neighbor is active duty, and
his wife would pick up her son when she had
overnight assignments and ensure he was fed,
washed and doing homework.

Abbott says they’re still the best of friends.

“Having friends that understand what it’s like
to sacrifice—to serve in the military—they’re all
the more willing to jump in and help you out,”
Randolph says.

The Challenge of Separation
In her 16-year career, Hunt has been fortunate
enough to have only one major overseas duty
station, in Japan, where she lived with her
family for three years. Many military moms
aren’t as lucky.

Randolph recalls the logistical difficulties
of shipping her breast milk home to her infant



Moms, W
e t
u l
Sa !
You for the first time when she was on tour alone
in Korea for a year. Shipping cost $800, and the
breast milk was stuck in customs for three days.

Abbott, who grew up with a stay-at-home
mom while her military father was overseas,
believes there’s something about having a
mother away that’s more difficult.

When her eldest son was getting his
clinical hours to be a military social worker,
he realized how much help he needed, Abbott
recalls. He asked her how she used to do it.

“It’s hard just getting me up and out doing
what I need to do,” Abbot remembers
him saying.

Hunt says a lot of dads are stepping up. Her
last master sergeant, for example, became the
primary parent on call so that his wife could
start her career. This example made Hunt
realize that she should never assume fathers are
more available in their careers than mothers.

Programs in the military to ease the burden
of family separation exist. They aim to keep
military parents together, but they do not apply
to civilian spouses such as Randolph’s spouse.

Randolph had to make the difficult choice
to take her yearlong tour alone to sustain her
husband’s career. Although he and her youngest
were able to visit once, the onset of the COVID-
19 pandemic in early 2020 kept her family,
including two older children, now 7 and 8, apart
for the rest of the tour.

“Service to your country
as a mother is a sacrifice that
cannot be repaid,” she says. It
took her youngest son—now
3—about a year to “have that
trust and love for me” when she
returned in 2021.

Abbott cried for two weeks
when she started a six-month
assignment—her longest up to
that point. Her kids were 2 and 15 at
the time.

“The flag secretary would be asked
where their parents will be living and working,
every day if I was still crying. ‘Yes, sir, but not Abbott says.

as much,’ or ‘she’s OK, sir. She’s drying up,’”
And the military provides local benefits to
Abbott says.

families: more affordable child care on base
and facilities on site such as youth sports
and libraries that provide convenience to
Military Support
Randolph, who works for the Army Talent working parents.

Management Task Force, says one of the goals
Sometimes, finding support is also about
they’re working toward is longer stretches being open with your superiors, Hunt says.

between moves and telework options. This
“If you have a bad day because life is hard,
development is something that she’s been (it’s) being able to go to your boss and have
hoping to see as she reflects on her 21 years that conversation,” she says. “Hopefully, they
of service. Many more dual working families had a few experiences, too, to understand.”
exist today compared to the 1960s, according
to the Pew Research Center.

Making It Work
The Navy has carrier groups that give As a parent in the military, you will have to make
an eight- or nine-hour family cruise with sacrifices, but you can exercise priorities.

fun activities before a deployment. It helps
“Everyone has to sit down and think about
children adapt by becoming familiar with what the must-dos are,” Randolph says,
whether they be dinner together or attending
sports games.

Hunt makes accommodations she can for her
kids, such as letting her son visit his old friends
and feeding off her daughter’s excitement for
moving to a new location.

“She thinks it’s an adventure,” Hunt says,
noting everything is exciting for her, whether it’s
new friends or a new house.

Tammye All three women also have incredible
Abbott takeaways
from their experiences that they
and her
can share
with their kids: respect for service,
two sons
exposure to
history and diversity and the
are shown
at her
knowledge that it’s OK to fail and try again.

youngest’s “I was proud to be in the military,” Abbott
graduation says. “It makes you feel like you’re doing
from something really important.” n
Potomac High School.

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