Exhausted and aching, Bobbie Kennedy meanders along the Port Canaveral pier, listening to waves crash against the shore. Her dark brown hair is blowing in the cool January wind as her deep brown eyes survey the horizon between sea and sky. She is a naturally cheerful person, known for meeting challenges head-on and answering requests with the typically perky, “I’d love to.” But, something is off today – something is on her mind.
As her two small daughters toddle nearby, Bobbie’s olive complexion fades and her contagious smile is replaced with a grimace. Her breathing becomes increasingly labored as she reflexively stretches her arm across her pregnant belly and struggles to conceal the pain from her young daughters. Another contraction has come and gone – and it was a big one. But, as usual, Bobbie takes it in stride, reassuring her daughters that everything is just fine, and they’re not leaving until daddy comes home.
It was an emotional scene, she says, as her husband John Kennedy, the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Drummond, stepped off his ship to find his pregnant wife – in the throes of labor – standing on a pier yearning to have him by her side.
Just a few hours later, the couple would welcome their third child, and first son, John William Kennedy Jr., or “Jack” into the family.
It’s another day in the life of a military family, Bobbie says, and, she’s not exaggerating. Two years earlier, while eight months pregnant this time, the Kennedy’s were called on to move from the warm, sunny beaches of Miami, Florida, to the frigid wilderness of Kodiak, Alaska. A move like that can be challenging to say the least, Bobbie says, but you have to be able to adapt to new environments in the Coast Guard, and you have to learn to enjoy the ride.
“We see moving as an opportunity to see new places and meet new friends and give our extended family and friends a new place to visit,” says Bobbie, a native of the tiny Midwest town of Ellsworth, Michigan. “It’s always an adventure.”
The Kennedy family adventure took a decidedly public turn in December, when the National Military Family Association presented them with the 2010 Coast Guard Family of the Year honor at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
The NMFA is the leading non-profit organization serving the men and women – past and present – of the United States Armed Forces. Each year, the organization honors families from every service branch of the military. The honor recognizes their outstanding dedication to the Coast Guard, their willingness to embrace each deployment and move with great attitudes and excitement, and their tireless efforts to assist anyone and everyone within each community they join, according to the National Military Family Association.
“To know that there are so many other families that are making sacrifices in the armed forces and in the Coast Guard, and to know that we are being looked at as an example of that, is really amazing,” Commander Kennedy says. “I’m excited for my wife and kids especially.”
Making a difference
Since getting married in 1996, the Kennedy’s have called seven different port communities home. From Washington, D.C. to Key West, Florida, and from Cape Canaveral to Kodiak, Alaska, this family understands that when they arrive in a new community, it’s only temporary, Bobbie says, so there’s no time to waste.
Eight years after that memorable day on the pier, the family resides in Beaufort, North Carolina, where Commander Kennedy is serving a three-year tour of duty aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Elm. And, as always, when they arrived in town, they hit the ground running.
“We know that as a military family, our address will change,” she says. “That’s why we get busy making a difference as soon as we are able to in a new community.”
Both John and Bobbie have become vocal leaders in their church and active volunteers in the community. The children, 14-year-old Olivia, 11-year-old Marissa and 8-year-old, Jack, are active in the church, and participate in various charitable efforts, including volunteering for the group Operation Christmas Child. They deliver meals to the sick, help folks with new babies, and have become leaders amongst their peers, Bobbie says. Recently, John, Bobbie, Marissa and Olivia joined the county’s home school band. The girls are all taking ballet lessons, and Jack plays little league baseball and youth basketball while his dad coaches the teams.
“I want to live a life of no regrets,” Bobbie says. “I want to ensure that when we leave a place, we leave knowing that we’ve made a positive impact within the unit and within the community.”
When Bobbie first learned that her family would be the 2010 Coast Guard Family of the Year, it was late September, and her husband was in the Gulf of Mexico, assisting in the effort to clean up the largest oil spill in United States history. As the commanding officer onboard one of the few oil-skimming ships in the Gulf, Commander Kennedy was a leader in the effort. He even made several appearances on television, including interviews on National Geographic Explorer and CNN.
“It was funny,” Bobbie says. “The first time we had seen him in a while and we saw him on TV instead of in person.”
Commander Kennedy and his crew of 50 people were deployed as part of a Contingency Response Team, assisting in deep water horizons operations, command and control task forces and using the oil-skimming capabilities of their ship, the Coast Guard Cutter Elm.
Although, the ship was designed with the capability to skim oil, those capabilities had never been tested in the real world. It took a little creativity to devise a way to hold all the oil, Commander Kennedy says, but the crew eventually worked out the kinks. Surprisingly, he says, one of the most challenging aspects of the mission wasn’t the amount of oil they had to skim, but simply locating it.
“Contrary to graphics on TV, there wasn’t like a big blob of oil -- it was surprisingly, at times, difficult to find,” he says. “As soon as the oil comes in contact with the water it disperses. It was more like thousands of little oil spills all over the Gulf of Mexico.”
Now that the Gulf of Mexico is recovering, and Commander Kennedy is back patrolling and protecting America’s coastlines, Bobbie says that she and the children are committed to living up to the values and standards embodied in the Coast Guard Family of the Year honor. They aim to make life at home easier for dad, and to put even more time and effort into their community – no matter where that community happens to be.
“This hasn't all been easy, but our life in the military has been very rewarding,” Bobbie says. “We have learned how to be independent, what it means to sacrifice and what is truly important in life.”
John and Bobbie Kennedy are current clients of First Command Financial Services, Inc.