From the Navy to the Air Force – Episode 15

Welcome to episode 15 of Women of the Military Podcast. In today’s episode your host Amanda Huffman interviews Katrina Moon. Katrina attended the Naval Academy from 2005 to 2009. In 2009, she initially commissioned into the Navy as a midshipman, but cross commissioned to the Air Force when she graduated. She served five years on active duty and is current serving in the Reserves with almost 10 years of military service. She is a developmental engineer and has worked on projects ranging from F-16 engines, a deployment to Afghanistan, instructing at the Air Force Academy and working on developing technology related to satellites. When she isn’t working for the Air Force, she works to keep the 4 small humans in her home alive and well. She comes from a line of military women serving in the military. Her grandmother served in the military and her mom joined and completed ROTC was medically disqualified from serving on active duty. Along with that her grandfather and father also served in the military. While attending the Naval Academy she learned she wouldn’t be able to be a pilot in the Navy because of a surgery she had undergone prior to attending the Naval Academy. So she decided to look at her options and did a swap program with the Air Force Academy and became a student at the AF Academy for a semester. It was there she learned the AF had a waiver for the surgery and she also met her future husband. She deployed to Afghanistan as a 2nd Lt, which is a rare thing for a Developmental Engineer (check out episode 8 for another Developmental Engineers experience) to do. And her deployment left her to hop around the country of Afghanistan doing various reports on equipment spread out around the country. She was able to see a lot of the country and even was involved in a few humanitarian missions out of Bagram. She made the switch from Active Duty to Reserves when both her and her husband realized the high likelihood of them not being stationed together at the next assignment. She was able to stay in the military as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee (IMA) in the Reserves. Episode 14 also share the experience of an IMA. This gave them the flexibility to both continue to serve while allowing Katrina flexibility of following her husband’s career. Would you like to be a guest on a future episode of Women of the Military Podcast? Sign up here. Are you considering joining the military? Check out my free guide: A Girl's Guide to Military Life