TJ Hirst

Four-Star forum at Air Force Association Convention in Sept. 2008 where field commanders and Chief of Staff respond to questions from the audience. Photo courtesy of the Air Force.

Despite the high-profile responsibilities of General Bruce Carlson, his wife Vicki Carlson says, “We live our lifestyle as if he is a nobody.” Both are down-to-earth people who are humble about the opportunities Bruce has had throughout his career and his current responsibilities as Commander of the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. AFMC buys, sells and maintains all equipment for the Air Force or as the official Air Force website reads,

AFMC conducts research, development, test and evaluation, and provides acquisition management services and logistics support necessary to keep Air Force weapon systems ready for war.

General Carlson’s current command and the previous command of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana (2002-2005) have been “interesting and challenging” positions for her husband, Vicki says. But, she adds, “Just like any other career, you just progress in your job and more things are given to you.”

Over these years as his duties have increased, Vicki’s official participation as a “four-star spouse” has also increased, and it is a position with which she is not always entirely comfortable. Still, she presents herself well in social settings and with people. She says, she is “working hard to be extroverted.”

Military life encompasses a variety of social occasions including traditional formal military balls to informal Friday night gatherings. At Barksdale, the 8th Air Force held a military ball which included a parade of troops in uniform, and the entire community was invited to this very formal affair. At Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the AFMC hosts the International Ball, and invites the foreign men and women who have come with their families to Dayton, Ohio, to come in their country’s attire.

Expectations also exist for informal social gatherings in military life. Vicki says,

At one point Bruce was told if he didn’t go to the bar and drink at the bar, he wouldn’t go anywhere. We didn’t do that. Bruce didn’t do that.

Some commanders require social participation. They see that as being team players. We have done enough of it to survive, but we never were party animals. We did what we had to do, but we never did any more than that. Our Air Force family was important to us in that we would have good friends we would go and do things with but it was never every Friday night. When we did go, we were not the long stayers.

Social connections and relationships do aid the work, such as when four-star spouses are invited to participate with their husbands at CORONA, a few days of meetings “when four stars do business at the four-star level.” There, she and other spouses receive briefings on people issues and housing issues and updates on air lifts to bring home the wounded, but they also buoy each other up over common concerns.

In 2007, Vicki and other four-star spouses were invited to the amputee clinic at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In the Summer of 2007, she toured San Antonino Military Medical Center (Brooke Army Medical Center) to visit burn victims. In both places, she witnessed the realities of the recovery for the wounded.

Never had we visited with so many young kids there. I asked a nurse, ‘What have you seen that has changed in the last few years of this war?’

She said, “There are far more of our wounded that have more limbs gone because the enemy has perfected bigger and more severe bombs to do more damage.

The wounds she saw were horrific, but when she spoke with some of the wounded, who were relearning simple tasks like buttoning a button or zipping a zipper, their determination to heal overwhelmed her.

I am in awe of these valiant, strong, amazing  young men and women who serve for our freedom.

I look at it in two ways: I look at it as if this individual is my child and how hard that would be with the longevity of those handicaps. Many of these victims are twenty-something. Think about that. How do you face the rest of your life?

Walking in and seeing these young men and women, it makes me absolutely in awe of the selfless service that our military members are willing to give. You can find people who are for or against the war.  But these young men and women have a willingness to do their job in the face of the fact that they could be wounded.

Many have a determination to get their bodies back so they can continue to serve their county, and that brings tears to my eyes. These young men love what they are doing more than anything else.

We, in the Air Force, are realizing we have to take care of these wounded and their families long term. And the Air Force has come up with a lot of programs to help.

Vicki’s position as the wife of a four-star general gives her a unique perspective with visits such as those, and occasionally in visits to other countries. She only travels with her husband when her presence is needed in an official duty. The Air Force Materiel Command buys and sells parts and airplanes throughout the world, and recently she accompanied her husband on a trip to South America when he visited airplane manufacturing facilities there.

I think traveling around with Bruce has helped me see the influence that Bruce has—because of his position, not necessarily because of himself—on decision making and cause and effect in the Air Force. That broadened my understanding of the intelligence and abilities and capabilities that he has.

From that vantage point by his side, she sees his leadership in action and appreciates what he has given in service to the country.

General Carlson at the airport as he departs Bogotá Columbia in 2008. This is the group of young men who escorted him everywhere during their two-day visit to Columbia.

A Four Star-Family, Part III is the third in a series of posts from an interview with Vicki Carlson. Read Part I here. Read Part II here. TJ will share the conclusion of the Carlson’s story next Wednesday, October 15, at tjhirst.com.

Read Part I in the series.

As the wife of Air Force General Bruce Carlson, Vicki Carlson knows better than anyone that her husband “will give 110% to whatever he is asked to do.”

Although she has supported him through the moves, advancements and challenges of nearly 38 years of service in the Air Force, she is quick to say, “I am not a queen.” Instead, she thinks she’s been the balancing act throughout her husband’s career.

Balancing began even before they married when Vicki learned that Bruce wanted to join the Air Force ROTC, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to do that. She called her dad, Clarence Martens, for advice. He had been a B17 pilot in the Air Force, so his counsel to Vicki came from a place of experience.

I just called him and he said, “You cannot be the person who keeps Bruce from doing this. So you have to decide whether you love him enough to marry him or if that is not what you want to do, allow him to go and do what he wants to do.” I will always be grateful to my dad for that counsel. He probably was Bruce’s biggest cheerleader.

Her dad’s words and example solidified her commitment to her husband’s military career from the beginning and helped Vicki persevere through tough times and recognize the triumphs. At first, it seemed “no different than anyone who starts a job,” except for the added stress when Bruce was learning to land an airplane. Ironically, she never worried about him. “It was just his job.”

Since that time, General Carlson has flown more than 3,300 hours in a variety of aircraft including the  F-4, OV-10, A-10, F-16, F-111, EF-111, AT-38, F-117, C-21 and B-52. Read his official Air Force biography. Today, he still flies, but now it is only the C-21, a commuter airplane. Vicki admits that she worries more about her son flying than her husband. “As a mother of a son flying, I worry about him every day. I pray every day for my son’s safety.”

As General Carlson prepares for retirement at the end of 2008, Vicki considers the path they have taken together. “I’ve been going through pictures when (Bruce) was younger. Here is this young guy that I met in high school, and look where he is, a four-star in the Air Force. He has really done very well.”

She tells of the rare opportunity early in Bruce’s career to be mentored by General W. L. Creech. They had been at Myrtle Beach Air Force Base in South Carolina from 1977-1980. A captain at the time, his name was put forth to interview with Gen. Creech, a four-star commander at Tactical Air Command (TAC) at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

Bruce was a young captain and interviewed for this job, and Gen. Creech told him,”I think you would do great, but you’re just too young.” A week later Gen. Creech called back and said, “I know what I said to you, but I want you to come up.” We spent two years with Bruce being an aide as a captain to this general, who was a giant in the Air Force. Bruce was able to go everywhere with him and watch things that would come to fruition 10-15 years later.

Some assignments brought these great positive experiences, and some assignments taught them how to cope with the emotional stress of a husband and father who was gone a lot or carried weighty responsibilities. And other assignments were just a time to get through.

Vicki found a support system in friends outside the military, in church participation and from her family, particularly her mother. At one point early on, Bruce told her, “You’re going to have to figure this out.”

Family support services were available on base, but for the most part, she learned to manage the anxieties she felt on her own. When Bruce was away from home, she also relaxed the routine and created a more laid-back  environment for her and the kids. “When dad was gone, we would eat things he didn’t like—macaroni and cheese and breakfast for dinner. We didn’t pick up all the time, and we didn’t go to bed with the same routine. We were a little more slack.”

When they lived at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina in 1982-1985, Bruce had a lot of responsibility at work, and he also served as a bishop for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Vicki says,

He lived on Milk of Magnesia, and I had TMJ in my jaw. Our family was an absolute mess. Our flight surgeon lived next door, and I said to him, “This is hard. I feel like I am coming apart at the seams.”

What she discovered was that “when the spouse gets into a commanding position, this unpaid person gets thrown into it, too.”

Out of the blue, an assignment came up in Washington D.C., and they moved in 1985. The change eased some of the pressure from the family, and in the next three years they settled into new opportunities and relationships.

Time together helped. They worked on ways to give their marriage priority like getting a babysitter so they could be gone for a night. And experience helped. As Bruce progressed in his career and Vicki became more accustomed to her husband’s responsibilities, she found ways to cope. She says,

I call myself an escape artist. In the military, you know that after 18 months to 3 years, you are going to be leaving. I always say, “I guess I can stand on my head for these two to three years. I know that there is a change that is going to come.”

A Four Star-Family, Part II is the second in a series of posts from an interview with Vicki Carlson. Read Part I here. TJ will share more of the Carlson’s story next Wednesday, October 8, at tjhirst.com.

When Vicki Carlson met her high school sweetheart, he was going to be an accountant, and she thought they would get married and have a home. But then he decided to join the Air Force ROTC to pay for his education at University of Minnesota, in Duluth, and their lifestyle surpassed the ordinary one she imagined.

Now, she is married to General Bruce Carlson, the Commander of the Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, who will be retiring at the end of 2008. In thirty eight years, their family has moved 21 times and lived in a variety of homes, most of which were not their own.

Neither one of them really knew what a military lifestyle involved when they started out. They attended a reception for the new incoming class of pilots. She was standing by the table eating from the shrimp bowl and a man approached her and said hello.

Afterward, she went to find Bruce and said, “What kind of rank is it if he has a bird on his shoulders?”

“Who the heck have you been talking to? That’s a colonel.”

Vicki now laughs about being a naive young spouse, ignorant of the rank system. She admits she didn’t have much understanding of what lay ahead.”You’re thrown into it, but everyone else is doing it. And, you learn to adapt your lifestyle to the career your husband has chosen.”

He graduated pilot training at Vance Air Force Base in Oklahoma in 1971, and they spent a year in Florida, then New Mexico. Bruce was deployed in December 1974 to Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand near the close of the Vietnam War. He flew OV-10’s as a forward air controller and instructor pilot, and Vicki moved home to Minnesota to stay with her family.

He returned to the United States in the fall of 1975, and they moved to Bergstrom Air Force Base in Texas and entered one of their family’s most stressful times.

Looking back, now, she realizes it wasn’t easy, but she learned independence.

I learned that I had to take care of those children on my own, wash the cars, do the BBQ, mow the lawn, do all of the medical. I could not depend on Bruce for most of the things in our home. That made me better at standing on my own.

We went all through his career with him coming and going—home for two weeks, gone for two weeks, home for three weeks, gone again. We moved every 18 months to two years, the longest time being three years. If we didn’t have a good strong basis for our family, every time it would have been harder.

As their three children, Bryan, Jani, and Scott grew older, they grew increasingly more helpful, too, and the family drew closer together, despite the many moves and sometimes “crazy circumstances.”

“Never did I think that I was supposed to do anything but to raise our three children,” Vicki says. Her presence established a sense of stability at home, for both her husband and her children. One day she was late getting home when her daughter, Jani, came home from school. Jani said, “Mother, you’re supposed to be home.”

Together the Carlson family created traditions of things they liked to do together like boating, and they also made rules to manage the questions and concerns that come to nearly every military family. As a result, they “had a consistent lifestyle when we had a lifestyle that wasn’t very consistent.”

Whenever they moved, they had a goal to get everything moved in and pictures on the walls within 72 hours. When a military family moves, an active duty spouse may go ahead of the family or a child may stay behind to finish in a particular school. Yet, the Carlsons “always went together” even if it meant sacrificing comfort for the sake of unity. Their eldest son, Bryan, was a senior in high school when they moved from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho in 1991. Even then, they moved as a family.

Later, when Bryan became an active duty Air Force pilot, himself, and went to South Korea for two years, he wanted to have his entire family around him. According to Vicki, Bryan told his wife, “I can’t do this without you.”

Admittedly, Vicki says that Bruce missed out on some important family opportunities like time at home or family vacations. “He gave all to the military, and he would not be where he is if he hadn’t done that.”

Those hard aspects of the military lifestyle affected each of her children in specific ways and have influenced how they raise their own families. Bryan chose to leave the active duty Air Force and is now in the National Guard. Jani, married a man that plans to stay in Texas, and she doesn’t want to be uprooted. Scott works in an 8-5 job as an Air Force civilian.

Through the years, the Carlsons both became aware of how a commander’s lifestyle impacts other people, and that influences how General Carlson leads.

As Bruce started going up in rank, he had young people working for him with families, and he would say, ‘Go home.’  We can help them by loving our family and seeing it as number one and allowing others to have that, too. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t demand that they do their job, but when the job is done, ‘Go home’.

Now that the Carlsons know a little better what this lifestyle involves, their priorities have become even clearer. Vicki says,

My first responsibility and my first thought always is my family. If you have put other things as a higher priority than your family, when you leave that base, you have left yourself at that base. If we had not established the firm foundation of our family we would be retiring in November and what would we have? Nothing.

Read Part II of A Four Star Family when this series continues next Wednesday, October 1, here at tjhirst.com.

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

I didn’t pull out a new backpack or sharpen my pencils when my children went back to school, but I did challenge myself to evaluate my routines and identify one or two that need a change and make that change.

Did you try it with me?

I anticipated some of my changes, but once I started evaluating, I was surprised by possibilities I hadn’t imagined. See if you can guess which change from the ones below had that unexpected impact.

Change of Habit. My father-in-law believes exercise should be productive, like working in the yard or walking to the store. I buy into the theory, but in practice, I just can’t raise my heart rate enough even with all the  running up and down the stairs that I do. And while Paul expends a lot of mental energy at work, he doesn’t burn many calories at his desk, in his car or standing at a job site. Both of us are nearing forty. Our metabolisms are changing and our activity level needs to increase.

Ironically, the same day our family hauled loads of firewood inside for our Tulikivi wood stove, Paul unpacked our new elliptical machine. He’s been working out regularly at the YMCA for more than eight months to reduce his risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Now that we’re both sticking to a routine, we’ve canceled our 8-year-old membership and created daily workouts at home.

What habits are you changing?

Change of Schedule. My mother always said that her father always said, “An ounce of morning is worth a pound of afternoon.”

After my young babies grew up and learned to sleep late, I eased back on getting up early myself. Now, everyone in our house has shifted to an earlier schedule, again, and we’re praying that my mom is right.

That’s the reason for the elliptical at home—to get our exercise in before the day begins, and that’s 4:50 a.m. for me! Can I keep it up? I hope so. I would have to be up by 5:30 anyway, and I don’t know how I would wake up otherwise.

Is your schedule changing with the change of seasons?

Change of Tradition. Something else we’ve been doing for the last eight years, too, has been to sit in the exact same church pew every Sunday. We sit in the back 1/3 of our chapel on the left-hand side. When we first sat there, the door was a close escape for a our crying one-year-old. Now, I’m distracted from my real purpose in being there.

No, we didn’t cancel that membership, but we did need a change. This past Sunday we sat on the right-hand side of the chapel in the third row from the front. I received some looks and comments, probably stunning a few people, but we loved the move. My daughter said, “I feel closer to the meeting and more a  part of it.”

Have any of your traditions diminished in meaning? How have you changed them?

To be honest, the few that I included only prompted a large evaluation of all my goals, especially my writing goals. I have written at this website for nine months. Today is post #235. Consistent posting is a routine that develops my writing, but I keep wondering if I am just toiling or if this is a productive use of my writing time. I’ve opened the door to another pondering process, and I’m wondering where that will lead.

When is a routine leading somewhere and when does it just become repetitious?

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.

When I was a teenager, I pulled an avocado green paperback book off the bookshelf where my dad stored his dusty college textbooks. The copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie seemed helpful in my quest for social confidence. Since it was a book no teenager would want to be caught reading. I hid it under my clean laundry until I reached my room where I could read it secretly without teasing.

The anecdotes were old-fashioned ones about adults talking at cocktail or bridge parties. Many examples were about business people trying to win over clients. Yet, the ideas and principles seemed like something I could still learn and use:

• encourage others to talk about themselves by asking them questions
• be interested in what interests the other person
• give sincere appreciation and praise.

The author outlined little exercises to try, and I did those. In fact, the place I had the most success trying these was with the people my parents often invited over for dinner. We seemed to always have strangers to dinner who were just traveling through and missionaries from our church.

I would usually begin by asking about the place where that person lived, finding a genuinely interesting aspect about that place and then looking for a common connection.  I discovered that if I could get a one-on-one conversation started in this new way, then I could connect with someone in most any group so that I would feel comfortable and confident in social settings.

I trace that tidbit of my personal story to why I like to interview and write stories about people. When I ask them questions about themselves, I learn more about life listening to how they approached their own experiences.

One day at our church I sat next to a woman who was visiting her mother-in-law. Our conversation started a friendship that continues whenever she “comes home” to visit Brainerd, Minnesota. That’s the simple way I met Vicki Carlson, the wife of an Air Force four-star general, the subject of my next Everyday Biography.

She insists that she is a “nobody” and wonders what story she has to tell, but our interviews have been  delightful conversations about raising a family in a military lifestyle, supporting her husband in a demanding career, and learning to overcome life’s challenges with the Lord’s help. This new series, which I have yet to name, begins this Wednesday.