86 AW vice commander recognizes key spouses

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Devin Boyer
  • 86th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany --  Col. Brandon R. Hileman, 86th Airlift Wing vice commander, recognized key spouses during a luncheon at the Ramstein Officers’ Club, May 16.

The Key Spouse Program is an official Air Force program designed to enhance mission readiness and resiliency as well as establish a sense of community. The program is made up of volunteer key spouses as well as key spouse mentors. Unit commanders can appoint spouses of enlisted, officer or Department of Defense civilians as key spouses.

“The Key Spouse Program is a commander-directed program that helps military spouses during times of deployment and navigating the military lifecycle,” said Patricia Chmielewski, 37th Airlift Squadron key spouse mentor. “As military spouses, we have a variety of experiences. Those experiences depend on our personal lives and also on the lives of our military member.”

Key spouses help other military spouses who are overcoming different lifecycle stages. Examples of these lifecycle stages include, but are not limited to: marriage, having children or experiencing deployments.

“As the military spouse navigates through those phases, the key spouse is available to connect that military spouse to available resources as needed,” said Chmielewski.

Chmielewski said before she was a key spouse, the Key Spouse Program helped her while her husband deployed for a year in Afghanistan.

“The squadron commander’s spouse specifically assigned herself to be my key spouse during that one-year time period,” she added. “She consistently checked in with me during that time he was gone to make sure I was getting access to whatever resources I might need.”

After presenting awards to key spouse mentors, Hileman thanked the individuals in attendance for supporting the program and thanked the key spouses for their daily execution of service before self.