Congrats to Lori Volkman and Marcelina Chambers! Both were voted Military Spouse of the Year for their installation and have advanced to the next round of voting for Military Spouse of the Year! Lori will be representing NB San Diego and competing for Navy Spouse of the Year, and Marcelina will be representing Davis-Monthan AFB and competing for Air Force Spouse of the Year. Voting for the Branch Spouse of the Year is on Feb. 5 and lasts for one day only. Be ready! 

Lori is a Navy Reserve spouse, and is competing through Naval Base San Diego. Married to her pilot husband for over 20 years, Lori started a blog in 2010 to document her husband’s deployment — it quickly gained a loyal following. Her ability to see the humor while being honest about the difficulties resonated with military spouses across the country, but also touched working moms and the larger civilian population as well. Her husband has since redeployed, but Lori continues to blog about their struggle with reintegration, as well as current events affecting spouses. Last March, she wrote “An Open Letter to Kari Bales,” a post that encapsulated the military spouse community’s support for the spouse of a soldier accused of killing 16 Afghans. Lori’s writing has been featured in the New York Times At War Blog, WordPress’ “Freshly Pressed,” and in Reader’s Digest. She has appeared in interviews in Newsweek’s Daily Beast, the Department of Defense “Family Matters” Blog, America Online’s Military community and has appeared on CNN, the NBC Nightly News, and the CBS Evening News. She serves as the MSJDN Communications Director, educating state bar associations across the country about why it makes sense to allow military spouse attorneys to have temporary licenses as they move. She is currently working on a book of her deployment stories.

Marcelina is an Air Force Spouse currently stationed at Davis-Monthan AFB with her husband of 11 years. They have endured seven (!!) deployments, two of which were during Marcelina’s time in law school. She is an Assistant Attorney General for Arizona in the Child Support section and works to connect the local military community to the office. She is also active in the Junior League of Tucson.  She takes great pride in the many hats she wears — mom, attorney, volunteer, military spouse. Marcelina wrote a great blog post for us about being an attorney and an enlisted spouse.