From Army Brat to Army Wife

Many military spouses take the endless algorithm of military-family-affiliated influencers for granted. We have seen the homecoming videos, the disappointments over extended deployments, the anxiety and excitement about PCS season, and the memes that speak to the unique quirks of military life.

Kodie, an Army wife, mother of seven, and social media agent, is partially to thank for that because of her work in the KoFe Confessions podcast and associated social media platforms. Dedicated to sharing helpful, relatable insights from her authentic life, Kodie’s story began as a brand-new Army Brat and ends as a senior enlisted wife working to drive positive culture change.

Finding Stability in Army Life

Kodie grew up in rural Arizona with fond memories of her mom and grandpa roping and moving cows through the chute. However, Kodie’s life radically changed in 2000 when, after years of being single, her mom married an Army soldier. Not wanting to welcome her new stepfather into her life, Kodie spitefully chose to live with her biological father in California. Unfortunately, Kodie did not realize how much her father drank or how much his drinking would impact her life, and she categorized this year as “highly traumatic” because of her father’s abuse. 

With California living being unsuitable and unsustainable, Kodie flew to Fort Bragg to live with her mom, stepfather, and siblings again. Having grown up around flat deserts, the overcast and humid weather, and lush green trees stuck with her, and the North Carolina summers take her right back to that pivotal childhood moment. 

Life with her stepfather was strict and came with new rules, but it also gave her family financial freedom they had never enjoyed before. “All the things I never had, I was allowed to have,” Kodie remembers with gratitude as she detailed the beautiful power of hearing “yes” at the store and the dentist. With two incomes and healthcare, she was able to get braces, buy clothes for the school year at the mall, and pick out things that she liked.

As a single mom, Kodie’s mom took her children through the store with a purpose, and purchasing Skittles was the extent of the treat they could expect. Kodie remembers the luxury of just walking through the store with her stepfather and him telling her, “Oh, do you like that; go buy it.” While she couldn’t fully realize the luxury of having $11,000 in dental work being covered by insurance as a kid, she knew that the “peace that brought my mom also brought me peace.” She instantly fell in love with the stability of her new North Carolina home and could even admit that her stepfather was cool. 

How 9/11 Changed Military Family Life

Life changed again for Kodie and thousands of other military Brats on 9/11. Kodie remembers her mom stopping for cigarettes after Kodie’s orthodontist appointment and the cashier telling them that the Twin Towers had been hit. Kodie was dropped off at school and couldn’t fully understand the fear and sadness that struck the adults around her so deeply. Because Fort Bragg is known for its global response, the community knew their soldiers would be deploying and that their friends and family might not come home. 

Kodie’s family moved into military housing and her stepfather deployed, but Kodie didn’t fully understand the emotional weight of the situation. She remembers her mom forbidding her from using AOL dial-up because she never knew when her husband would be able to call. Her mom would fill moving boxes to the brim with care package items, but Kodie would sneakily open the mint Oreo packages and take a few of the cookies for herself. 

While her mom and stepfather separated her junior year and were divorced in her senior year, Kodie’s brief time with her stepfather left a lasting impression on her; the military, in her youthful memory, was romanticized as an institution of stability for her young family, and she admired the brotherhood of the men her stepfather served with. 

Marrying a Soldier 

After her senior year of high school, Kodie’s mom and siblings moved back to Arizona, but Kodie, totally focused on her on-and-off boyfriend, wanted to try and make North Carolina work. Ultimately, the relationship failed, and Kodie briefly rejoined her family. She returned to North Carolina in the spring of 2011, when she was 21, to visit her friends, and she had so much fun visiting all the places she could now fully and legally enjoy.

As she and her friends went bar hopping, she was caught up in the excitement of being surrounded by attractive soldiers. In fact, she was having so much fun that she didn’t want to return home. When her friend offered her a place to stay and suggested she apply for work in North Carolina, Kodie called her mom for advice; shockingly, her mom told her that it was up to her to make that decision for herself, so, of course, Kodie decided to stay where the fun was. 

Kodie spent her nights partying and exploring the online dating pool, but her life suddenly became serious and settled when she met her husband in 2012. While she wasn’t looking for anything serious, they immediately bonded over their small hometowns in Arizona, and they never stopped seeing each other after that pivotal first date. They were married just thirty days after meeting and have now been together for fourteen years and have had seven children. 

Solo Parenting During Deployments

Kodie’s early years of marriage were a whirlwind of stress and change. Her husband deployed for a year when she was fourteen weeks pregnant with their first child, and while he was home for their second child, Kodie’s diagnosis of Crohn’s disease added additional challenges. He was deployed for the birth of their third child and deployed yet again shortly after the birth of their fourth. Each child was seventeen months apart, so Kodie was managing 4 kids under 5 years old in 2019 when her husband left for a 9-month deployment to Afghanistan. 

Finding Her Voice Through KoFe Confessions

Understandably, Kodie was feeling lost in 2020 after years of solely putting her focus into solo motherhood. “I didn’t know who I was anymore…I wanted a hobby. I wanted something for myself,” she explained. She wanted to harness her passion for creativity and storytelling, so she and a friend decided to start a podcast together for military spouses called KoFe Confessions.

“For the first time, someone was being vulnerable on the Internet,” Kodie said with pride, and she emphasized how important it was to her to be real about the “good and the suck” of military life. KoFe Confessions was one of the first military spouse podcasts, and Kodie believes they “set the caliber and tone for who has come after.” 

Of course, Kodie, like many military families who have voiced their opinions and experiences, has faced scrutiny for sharing her thoughts online, but she said all the hate has been worth it because she was able to help other women feel less alone. “It felt good to share inside thoughts and have people relate and not feel crazy,” Kodie said. 

When Military Spouse Stories Help Others Feel Less Alone

They recorded the first three episodes in the car because they were both busy solo moms. Kodie and her friend would purchase pizza and root beer for their kids and have them play on the trampoline so they could sneak in a few quiet minutes to record. They were amazed to see their following skyrocket across social media, and over the course of six years, they wrote a book, recorded multiple podcast seasons, and shared a wealth of resources with the military community online.

She fondly remembers the surreal moment when Facebook invited them to join their monetization program and the first payment landed in their account. She realized in that moment that “we made something; this can go somewhere,” and she loved that she could creatively share her story and advice while bringing in additional income for her growing family. 

However, after six years of sharing military-spouse-themed content in partnership with her friend, Kodie is now creating her own content more focused on her own motherhood experiences. While she loved sharing resources, she felt tapped out after six years of constant content creation focused on the same niche topic, and she felt the messy weight that can come with responding to the social media news cycle.

She and her friend had different creative visions, and ultimately, Kodie found peace and satisfaction in a new focus on her own family and twin pregnancy experience. She has since created her own social media agency and currently creates content for two small businesses. She loves that she can “go into small mom and pop businesses and create something that goes viral,” and she especially appreciates that unadulterated joy after years of being called a “dependa” in her comment section. 

The Challenges of Military Childhood

Kodie has a lot of compassion for her kids and all of the ways that military life has presented them with challenges. Moving every few years forces them to create a new set of friends over and over again, and it hurts Kodie that she “can’t control that heartbreak and know it’s not going to stop.”

When they were living in Colorado, her daughter cried at the injustice that her classmates’ dads who were in the Space Force were able to come to their kindergarten performance, but her dad couldn’t because he was too busy with Army duties. The kids would always ask, “but you’re going to come back, right?” when their dad would leave, and one of Kodie’s daughters could not relax until her dad’s uniform was taken off at home because she associated it with him leaving.

When the Army Comes First

In 2022 Kodie’s husband went from Special Forces Selection to Senior Leader Course to the Drill Sergent Academy back to back to back. Her son didn’t want to start on sports until his dad was home to watch him, but Kodie said, “if you drag your feet waiting on your dad, you’re going to be heartbroken because the Army comes first.” With a bit of humor and heaps of encouragement she recalled saying to him, “you can’t pass up on opportunities because you’re afraid your dad won’t be here; he wasn’t here for your birth.” 

Creating Positive Change as a Senior Enlisted Spouse

As a first sergeant’s wife, Kodie wants to “help create something supportive of his troops.” There are plenty of hardships in Army life, so “let’s be part of something that creates change.” When someone in the unit has a baby, she wants to send diapers and dinner to offer much-needed support.

Instead of waiting on someone to ask for help, she wants to be proactive and step in to assist. “If we set the example, maybe others will follow,” she hopes. However, she has to combat the unhelpful culture of “we figured it out, you should too.” Everyone faces their own set of obstacles and challenges, but wearing your “hardships like badges of honor” and treating your suffering as a competition only continues and feeds into the stresses the military community carries. Kodie remains committed to not gatekeeping valuable resources, and she hopes to write a book inspired by her life one day. 

Katie McDonald is a Navy wife, and she and her husband are currently stationed in Guam. After 5 years as an English teacher, Katie is currently working as a freelance writer and enjoys writing about books and travel. https://www.katiereads.com/