More Than Rosie The Riveter

Tabitha Pooler Jenn Derdoski

Story By Hannah Lester Photos Contributed

Tabitha Pooler said joining the Army was a nobrainer. She was returning to her roots after having been a part of JROTC in high school.

In 2006, Pooler was about to graduate from Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma with her first degree. She was feeling uncertain about her future and realized that not only would the Army provide a clear path forward, but it would pay off her student loans.

“It felt familiar to me to join the Army,” she said.

Before joining the army, Pooler said she’d thought about culinary school, but with her already existing student debt, taking on more loans was not a viable option.

So, Pooler thought she’d enlist as a cook.

“I did my training, I really liked it,” she said. “I didn’t get put on the fast track to get to be an actual culinary artist or a chef but I was a regular cook. My first duty station was Korea and it was a really great experience.”

After a year in Korea, however, Pooler was asked to consider a different option — human resources.

At this time, having not been deployed, Pooler decided to submit her packet for officer candidacy school.

Pooler graduated from Officer Candidacy School in 2009 and was selected as a military intelligence officer.

“After that, I was an intel officer and it really felt like my calling in the army because I love to be an analyst, I love to use that part of my brain, critical thinking and all that,” she said.

She deployed to Afghanistan in an aviation unit.

“We had a small contingent of pathfinders, which are infantry men that are trained to land helicopters … so these individuals got attached to us and my boss wanted to be able to use them,” Pooler said. “So he said, ‘let’s make up

missions for these guys to go out on the ground and exploit things.’ So they’d see things from the sky in their helicopter and then they’d say, ‘let's bring our ground guys and land them here and let them exploit.’ And we had some really great experiences, because of that effort, we removed over 30,000 pounds of improvised explosive device (IED) precursors and things like that from the battlefield.

We kind of kept going back to the same area and knowing that it was dangerous to go back to the same area multiple times. As an intel analyst you alert your boss, ‘I think this is a bad idea, it’s a trap probably.’ And as an intel analyst, you never want to be right. But I was. So we ended up losing 10 guys in that single mission.”

Following Afghanistan, Pooler lived in Hawaii in the irregular warfare analyst center and also in an EOD unit.

“It kind of helped me to feel like I was making a difference in a way,” she said. “Kind of validating my friends’ sacrifice in a way by working on projects that specifically were designed to mitigate the threat of IEDs.”

In 2017, Pooler left the Army, though her husband is still serving in the ranger regiment at Fort Benning.

Pooler is now at Auburn studying dietetics and is in her senior year.

“I feel a little bit more challenged because I know that a lot of these students, on paper, they’re adults, legally they’re adults, but most of them haven’t had any real-life experience at all,” she said. “So it’s very interesting for me to be surrounded with 21-, 22-yearolds that have basically very limited life experiences.” Pooler has often served as a ‘real-life’ adult for a lot of Auburn students, answering questions about life and marriage and things of the sort. “It’s helped me to really prioritize where I spend my time, the things that I choose to stress out over or the things I really encourage other people not to stress out over,” she said. “When you’ve seen some things … and you’ve been involved in those sort of things, it just kind of helps you to reevaluate priorities in a way … It just kind of taught Tabitha Pooler me to figure out, what’s the legacy that I want to leave on this planet. How do I actually want to [make an] impact in life and how can I use my experiences to be able do that.”

Doing this for students is a shadow of what Pooler did for others while still in the service.

“I loved being an officer, I loved being a leader and getting to be a mentor,” she said. “So getting to pour into the next

[Service] just kind taught me to figure out, what’s the legacy that I want to leave on this planet. How do I actually want to [make an] impact in life and how can I use my experiences to be able do that?”

Tabitha Pooler

Jenn Derdoski

generation of military personnel, getting to just help people understand that not all superiors in the military are a bunch of jerks that are just wanting to bark orders and not really care about them as people. I really wanted to change the face of military leadership in the way, make sure that all of my subordinates knew that I was an advocate of theirs and that I would fight for them.

“So the mentorship aspect of being in the military was always my favorite.”

Jenn Derdoski:

Jenn Derdoski has, at different points in her life, filled the shoes of a child of a military parent, a veteran herself and the spouse of a military member. Soon, her son will join the Army and Derdoski will be the parent of a military child.

As a child, she traveled across the states, and across Europe, while her father was a service member in the Army, in medical records.

In 1996, Derdoski decided to join the Army in the same field as her father, medical records, and was sent to Alaska.

“I joined the military because I wanted to go back to Europe,” she said. “… I also, one of my goals in life, was to see all 50 states, so when I got orders to Alaska, I was like, ‘well, that’s one way to see Alaska.’”

While in Alaska, Derdoski met her husband, and the two decided to start a family.

“I went from being an army brat, to a service member, to a spouse of a service member and now my son is a cadet at Troy and he is going to be in the Army,” she said.

Derdoski said there are a lot of politics for women in the military. It wasn’t easy being in the same field as her father was and Derdoski ultimately decided that finding a career outside of the military was the better option for her.

From that point on, Derdoski was the spouse of a military member. Her daughter was born in Fort Cambell, Kentucky, and her son was born in Fort Jackson, South Carolina.

“I had a unique experience because I grew up as an officer’s daughter so I knew the ends and outs of the politics … so to speak,” she said. “But as an enlisted spouse, there’s different politics, I guess you could say. So it was a unique position to be in and you just kind of have to feel your way through it.”

She worked different jobs following her stint in the military, including work at a mental health clinic and running a daycare out of her home. In Fort Jackson, Derdoski worked for the FRG (family readiness group).

Derdoski also volunteered time to help other

Jenn Derdoski

military spouses.

“I helped the ladies on post develop a plan for the young wives that come and be a part of post to the young drill sergeant spouses,” she said. “Because a lot of them are young and have never been in the military before.”

She said that her experiences really allowed her to help others and that she has always enjoyed being part of a community and lending her experiences.

Having other military spouses to connect with made things easier, too, Derdoski said.

“The difficult part was having young kids and being able to balance things,” she said. “Because military members are not paid a lot. So, a lot of us spouses would help each other out. So, if one mom was working part-time, the other moms would daycare. And you would help each other out and you would babysit each others kids so that was also helpful.

“It was just being there for each other as spouses. You were all going through the same thing. Especially as drill sergeant spouses. You were all going through the same thing. Your husbands are gone all day long, they were never home until the end of the season.”

Speaking of balancing things, Derdoski said she remembered being asked to reconsider service following 9/11.

“When 9/11 happened I was pregnant with my [second child],” she said. “He was born in April 2002. My daughter was 3. So my husband was on the trail as a drill sergeant and I was with our kids as a stay-at-home mom. This was at our Fort Jackson assignment in South Carolina. Three months later there was a knock at our door.

“A recruiter came to my door and said 'your country could use your help, we would like you to return to active duty.’ I said, ‘thank you, as much as I would love to, my husband is on the trail as a drill sergeant, which is a 24-hour job at times, and I have a 3-year-old and a 3-month-old.’

As a soldier back then when you signed your paperwork ultimately, I had an eight-year contract. Four in active service and four inactive but call back. It was still within my four, just barely. He understood and went about his business.”

Now, Derdoski runs her own business. When Derdoski and her husband were in Colorado they had a sports photography business. When they moved here, however, the business blossomed into what it is today: Studio52 Images and Gifts.

Derdoski does professional photography and digital decorating through the business, which can be seen on the Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ studio52imagesandgifts/.

Her products can also be found locally, however, through Marker + Merchant at the Auburn Mall.

These female veterans are just two of many who serve and represent their country.

Jenn Derdoski

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