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Kyle Craig – Personal Narrative

Assignment #2

OGL 482 – Arizona State University

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Greetings everyone! My name is Kyle Craig and you are about to adventure

into my personal narrative of my life. I am currently serving in the United States Air

Force as a Munitions Systems Craftsman after 13 years of service. Essentially I am

the one responsible for all the munitions at my base. This entails of assembling all

the bombs and missiles for the aircraft along with receiving, shipping, inspecting,

issuing and accounting for all the munitions for our custodians so they can perform

their duties safely and proficiently. I am married to my beautiful bride, Katie, and

we have been blessed with 4 of the most amazing and crazy kids ever. I hope you

enjoy the recap of my life, as it has been one heck of a ride so far.

I am the youngest of three children born to James and Irene Craig, late April

1989. It was no secret that I was not a planned pregnancy and that my parents

intended on capping their family size at four. My wife is forever grateful for the

accident that is me, and I am pretty thankful to have had a chance to grow up where

I did and surrounded by the people and love I got to experience. Coming into the

picture when my brother was nearing his fourth birthday meant that he was off to

school as I was searching for playmates. He and my sister had established their peer

groups and did not need a little brother tagging along trying to interfere with their

play. Thankfully my mom lived to make every big event fun and exciting, and my

dad carved out time to spend one on one with me.

My early years are filled with happy, secure memories. We were fortunate to

live in the same town as two of my aunts, my grandpa, and have my godparents

living next door to us. There was never a shortage of family time. My godfather

taught me how to fly fish, helped me dig a hole to China, and my dad volunteered to
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coach my soccer teams. My earliest days are marked by the people who loved me

investing in me with their time and filling my life with a lot of experiences, most of

them outdoors. This is likely where my love of the outdoors began. It helps that we

lived in a small mountain town in Arizona where you could be outside in nearly

every season. Winters were spent playing in the snow and spring through fall we

were outside running through the pine trees and riding bikes until we had to come

in for dinner. They say you don’t remember much before you’re five years old, and

so most of what I have talked about to this point was shared with me through

picture and story. But a life defining moment happened for me at five years old.

My dad was the coach of my soccer team, and on my team was another five-

year-old boy named Jesse Cool. Jesse and I became fast friends and I spent all of my

elementary, middle school, and junior high school years outside of school making

memories with Jesse. His friendship laid the foundation for my desire to have close

relationships in my life. We played every sport together, Jesse’s mom taught me

who every song written in the 80s was by. He was an extension of my family, and all

of my earliest memories that weren’t shared with me by others have Jesse in them.

Life was good for me, until Jesse’s family relocated to the valley in Arizona between

my 7th and 8th grade years. There was still the promise of visits and vacations that

we would take together. While I was disappointed that I could no longer bike to

Jesse’s house after school and on weekends, I was involved in sports and had made

other great friends in my peer groups. The summer after my 8 th grade year, my

parents sat me down on the couch and let me know that they were divorcing. This

left me at a crossroad. My mom was moving out and to a house that was 35 minutes
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from my high school and wanted me to split my time between her house and my

Dad’s.

I was about to start a new school and fall sports with the same people I had

been spending time with for years. I decided I did not want to play football and

explain the updates within my family life to my peer group, but my dad didn’t want

me to sit home every day after school and encouraged me to join the soccer team.

Upon hearing some of my friends were on the soccer team, I decided to play and I

am so thankful I did. Up until my freshman year of high school I played football,

wrestled, and played baseball. Baseball was my favorite sport and something I

expected to continue into high school. After joining the soccer team, my new

teammates and what became my peer group in high school turned me onto the golf

and I never looked back. I joined the golf team that spring and worked for the golf

course the following summer. It quickly became my favorite sport and way to pass

time. The big change in my family life between my 8th and 9th grade summer led to a

fresh start in high school with new friends and sports. I recently listened to

Matthew McConaughey’s book Greenlights and he explained the concept that we all

crave the ease in life of getting a Green light at every intersection. When we see a

red or yellow, we see it as an uncomfortable deterrence but every one of those lights

eventually turns green. He attributed life’s hardships and letdowns are sometimes

the yellow and red lights, but eventually, they will turn into green lights if we wait it

out. This is a clear example of a red light turned green as I pushed through the

discomfort that came with the new family structure and the shift in peer groups and
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extra curricular activities. These things were not easy at the time but turned out to

be full of great memories.

I truly enjoyed living with my dad throughout high school, I discovered a

sport I love and made great friends. Golf also became a way for my mom and I to

reconnect after she moved out and a fun way for us to spend time together. The

summer before my senior year of high school I drove by a friend I spent a lot of time

on the playground with in 5th grade and was close to until my freshman year of high

school walking down the street. I pulled over and asked what he was doing and he

said he was just walking because his step-dad had kicked him out of the house. I

told him he could come live with me without checking with my dad but I knew I

didn’t really have to. My dad is generous and kind and always happy to help

someone in need out. He cares deeply for people and the connections he’s made and

I knew he would take in a friend in need. We moved Phil in with the little

possessions he had and we shared my room and made a lot of great memories our

senior year, resulting in us becoming great friends and eventually being in each

other’s weddings later in life.

After my mom moved out, our relationship entered into a lot of hard years

with a lot of distance. I mentioned earlier she wanted me to stay with her at her

house part time, but I am not sure I spent one night there all four years. I watched

my sister start and choose not to finish college, and then my brother did the same.

Seeing this as a pattern for my older siblings, I was not convinced that going to

college right out of high school was the best choice for me. Jesse joined the Air Force

my junior year of high school and my dad was in the Army Reserves, he had served
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four years in the Air Force in the 60s. In addition to the history, there are golf

courses on every Air Force Base. This sparked my interest in joining the military

after high school and serving four years then using my GI Bill to get a degree. No

debt, life experience, and a little maturity seemed like a better formula for me.

I started the Delayed Enlistment Program at the beginning of my senior year

and officially enlisted June 17, 2008, three weeks after graduating high school.

Somewhere in my senior year I met the girl who would one day end up my wife and

we made some fun memories those months before my enlistment. Her plans after

high school were to start at Arizona State University in the fall and I was off to basic

training. We amicably decided that it wasn’t the best time to pursue a serious

relationship and went our separate ways.

Basic training was one of the hardest things I have gone through. The Military

Training Instructors break you down to build you up. I learned to appreciate

structure and having more than 2 minutes to eat a meal. The things that kept me

going were consistent letters from my dad and friends he had distributed my

address to back home. Basic training refined my attention to detail. After basic

training I went to Technical School in Wichita Falls, TX and then on to Italy for two

years.

This marked the longest time I had spent away from my family as well as the

furthest distance I had experienced. In addition to the loneliness I was experiencing,

I was also experiencing a lot of new freedoms with a consistent paycheck and

drinking age of 18. When you pair loneliness and uncertainty about where you fit in

with all access to alcohol that has been prohibited up until that point, it does not set
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young people up for success. It explains why there are so many Alcohol Related

Incidents among young Airmen, which I was fortunate to avoid but it probably led to

me drinking a bit more than I should have those first few years. That might be the

only thing about my time in Italy that was sub par. It was incredible to see the

country as well as seven others while I was stationed there. This is where my love

for travel really began and has ignited a fire under me to see as many new places as I

can. We were still in the dark ages back then, the time before smart phones. I had to

plan my trips on MapQuest prior to departure and book hotel rooms in advance.

Living in a foreign country provides a lot of great cultural opportunities, being

pulled over by the Italian Police and not knowing what they were asking for is not

something I recommend to everyone. I handed them everything in my glove box

and they just rolled their eyes and sent me on their way.

My dad came for a visit and we got to enjoy the Grand Prix together. I had to

talk to him about privacy a little and let him know that Italians don’t appreciate you

taking their picture without permission, lots of life lessons. Having him come visit

was encouraging because the first four years in the Air Force are not fun as far as

the work goes and the way you’re treated. My years in Italy added more distance to

the relationship between my mom and I. Her husband at the time could not be on

an airplane that long because he wouldn’t be allowed to smoke, and so she didn’t

visit me while I was in Italy. If asked about it, it’s something I easily brush off but

there are a lot of times I wondered why she wouldn’t come and spend time with me.

From Italy I moved to Fort Walton Beach, Florida and spent almost six years

enjoying the sand and sun in the Gulf of Mexico. I made great friends, deployed
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twice, got married and became a father while living in Florida. A lot of big life

changes happened there. I got to Florida in December of 2010 and it was pretty

chilly one night as a friend was taking me out to dinner. I looked out the window as

we drove along Highway 98 and asked if it had snowed. It was sand and he had a

good laugh at my expense of never seeing sand that white before. A few years later

they shut down the base and businesses for 3 days because of freezing temperatures

after rain. Never saw snow while living in Florida.

Four months after arriving in Florida I deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan for

four months. It was an exciting time to be in the desert because while I was serving

over there, our military killed Osama Bin Laden. A lot of the time people who aren’t

actively serving in the military see sacrifice and have a lot of anxiety about sending

us overseas, but it is what most of us service men and women live for. I have so

much pride in the men and women who executed that mission and I am honored to

have been able to be supporting it in a small way. I am so grateful I had the

opportunity to defend our freedoms in Afghanistan. It is a little hard to watch the

current events in light of this. My coworkers and I have had a lot of solemn,

frustrated moments in the last couple weeks trying to come to terms with the way

the withdrawal from Afghanistan was handled.

About 8 months after returning from deployment (March 2012), I took leave,

visited my sister in Denver, and then flew up to see Jesse who was stationed in

Montana at the time. We drove down to Arizona to visit ASU because I planned on

getting out in a couple of months and getting my degree in Tempe. The friends I was

with went to Devils Advocate, and my wife remembers it was 2-for-1 Thursday,
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because it was in this bar, almost four years after the end of our high school

romance, that we ran into each other. We chatted that night and then met again a

week later the night before I flew back home to Florida and decided we were at a

better place to think about relationships. Katie was graduating early May and had

plans to move to Colorado and apply for graduate schools. She moved to Florida

instead and we were engaged in December of that year, after adding our first dog to

the family in November. We were married in August 2013 and spent a fantastic

week on the island of Crete in Greece celebrating our nuptials. It is pretty incredible

the way my life took a sharp turn shortly after running back into the girl who I knew

would be my bride. I planned on separating from the Air Force in a couple of

months, after seeing Katie; I started studying hard for my Staff Sergeant promotion

test. I found out a couple months later that I made rank. This time in my life is when

all of the attention to detail and appreciation of structure took a new importance in

my life. The harder I worked, the better I could provide for Katie, and our future

together. I enjoyed stepping into the role of provider, and was happy to dream of all

of the ways I could work hard in my career to provide stability for our family.

Another thing that happened when I lived in Florida and as Katie and I were dating

was that I started to soften toward my mom and a few golf dates erased the past

frustrations I had with her and choose to enjoy her in this season of my life.

In May of 2014, we got the exciting news that an offer was accepted on our

first house and we were expecting our first child. At this time I was creeping up to

the top of the list for a deployment and left in September for Kuwait, I was supposed

to return a week after our daughter’s expected arrival. Thankfully I was able to
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come home early due to our mission ending early and was present for her December

16, 2014 arrival. Another life changing moment. All of the years of concern about

close relationships, the need to provide for my wife and myself manifested in a

brand new priority, my family. The sweet six-pound baby I would do anything for. I

was in awe of every little peep she made. This is my new number one, the thing I

would sacrifice sleep and comfort for. Don’t be confused thinking that she took a

seat over my wife. My wife holds the same level of importance and I prioritize our

relationship, Jenaya just gave me an extra boost of intentionality. The first 20

months of her life were good ones. Marveling at every new thing she learned,

making sure the dog was exercised and knew he was still loved by us. We spent a lot

of time with our neighbors who were 50 years older than us, just trying to learn

from them and take it all in. In the middle of that sweet season with just one child, I

received orders for a 1-year remote tour to South Korea with a follow on assignment

to Germany. Exciting times lie beyond the temporary red light that meant being

separated from my family for 12 months. In September 2016, my wife moved in

with her parents and I moved into a dorm room with a 13-hour time difference. It

wasn’t easy, or fun. If we were to receive the same orders today, the family would

come along. It’s not normal to be separated from your family. I knew what I was

doing was for them, but it didn’t feel good to be away from them in the meantime.

Six months after I left, my wife’s best friend died, I felt hopeless being so far away

when she needed me.

I came home in April for a month and we had a great time making more

memories as a family of three. My wife was able to visit me over Labor Day
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weekend that year and we got to find out together that our second baby was a boy.

I’ll let you guess what time frame he came from. We moved to Germany on my

wife’s birthday, October 17, in 2017. It was tough. We pulled our almost two year

old away from both sets of grandparents, a great grandparent, some surrogates and

tried to adjust her schedule 8 hours in one weekend. Everything was foreign; we

wondered what we had done. A red light that eventually turned green. Katie was 28

weeks pregnant when we moved to a country where the sun comes out 10 times

between October and March. We thankfully had a home in mind when we landed

but we needed a vehicle. Our dog got so stressed on the trip he made himself

physically ill and so we were having to run him down the stairs into the chilly humid

air at all times of the night so he wouldn’t make a mess in our Temporary Lodging

Facility.

There are also things about coming back after a year away that people just

skip over. Learning new roles and routines after you’d established your own for so

long. At that time I was so thankful Katie and I really liked one another and we

made it through the exhausting, confusing first month in Germany still enjoying a

nightly game of Yahtzee and toddler giggles in our home. Christmas is when

Germany became home for us. If you need to get in the Christmas spirit, go there.

Christmas Markets, concerts, and tree farms just make it the perfect place to be. Her

parents and grandma came to visit that year as we anticipated the arrival of our son.

After Christmas and Silvester (New Years), we welcomed our son, Charles Ruel,

named after Katie’s dad and mine was born January 3, 2018. He added to my drive

and focus.
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This was a rough time work-wise for me. My boss was complacent, but very

much adherent to checklists and she and I did not get along well. I found out she did

not rate me well when I had performed up to her expressed expectations. Despite

working for her and feeling discouraged in all of my dealings with her, I found out I

promoted to Master Sergeant in May of that 2019. All of the hard work I put in

during the year away from my family had paid off. I was assigned a temporary duty

in Poland the following month and during that month, our beloved almost six-year-

old dog declined and passed away. It might seem small to someone who has never

lost a dog, but if you know, you know. Dogs are family, they’re constant and

consistent and always happy to see you. It was a tough loss. We were a little over

halfway through our time in Germany at this point and we were planning future

vacations. My dad and his new wife came to see us and we spent a week in Ireland,

we also made some great friends and said goodbye to some.

My wife and I found out in November of 2019 we were expecting our last

child. In December, we found out our last baby was twins. That one really took me

by surprise. A few months later the pandemic came info full effect and we were

locked down. Thankfully we had moved on base a few months before and the

restrictions were not as harsh. It was difficult to isolate from friends we were

seeing every day and anticipate the birth of our twins without my beloved mother in

law in our home. We were thankful when May came and we were able to spend

more time with our closest friends. The twins were born June 26, 2020. Karsten and

Keevan, our little caboose babies. Definitely fraternal, probably the most traumatic

birth we experienced and I am thankful to not have to go through that again. They
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have been such a joy to get to know, and I can’t imagine life without them. Because

of all of the shut downs and stop movements, our expected departure from Germany

got pushed to December. We got an assignment to Las Vegas, NV, completely

different landscape than Germany but we were excited about the proximity to

family. A six hour drive is nothing when you’re used to traveling 24 hours an losing

8 hours of your life.

We bought a house entirely online-quite a leap of faith but thankfully we hit

the market before it got too hot and found a great space for our family to grow for

the next few years. One of the hardest parts of leaving Germany was saying goodbye

to the friends we made there. Friends become family when you live overseas

because you need one another to fill in the gaps family can usually fill. In Germany

we were able to make friendships as a couple for the first time and it was a difficult

goodbye, but we have been able to maintain those relationships and I have no doubt

they will be close to us for years to come. It is good to go through seasons where

your perspective shifts and you are forced to grow. It was incredibly fun to travel

and experience all we were able to during our 3 years in Germany, but we missed

being close to grandparents.

Since returning from overseas we have been able to see my parents as well as

my wife’s parents almost monthly for the last nine months, my kids have seen their

cousins three times where as they only saw each other twice in the three years

prior. People often take proximity for granted, but my wife and I will not do that

after learning how hard it is to be far away.

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There have been many ups and downs in my life but this is what makes up

whom we are. Even through the darkest times I would change anything along the

way and I look forward to what God has in store for my family and me. God, family,

friends, and close relationships are the ingredients to the life that has led me thus

far and will guide me into the future. I have included this personal narrative to my

e-portfolio and can view it on my capstone website at https://kacraig2.weebly.com.

I hope you have enjoyed this personal narrative and I look forward to what is in

store for my family and me in the future!