Going Beyond Active Duty: Building Bonds in the United Arab Emirates -11

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Kim [: 00:00:02

Ever wonder how a routine deployment can turn into a life altering experience? In this episode of Dog Tag Diaries, we take you behind the scenes of Kory's 2019 deployment to the United Arab Emirates.

Dakota [: 00:00:16

8 months into a new relationship and fresh in her role as a 42 Alpha with thE-741 Brigade Engineer Battalion Bravo Company, Kory's journey was anything but ordinary. From escorting personnel in secure areas to navigating the challenges of a pandemic and even blowing things up with the Australian Air Force, this episode dives into the unexpected opportunities and unbreakable bonds that defined her time in the United Arab Emirates.

Kim [: 00:00:45

Join us to discover how trust, adaptability, and a tight knit E-4 mafia transformed the deployment into a story of growth, camaraderie, and lasting international friendships. Welcome to Dog Tag Diaries, where military women share true stories.

Dakota [: 00:01:04

We are your hosts, Captain Kim. And Captain Dakota. The stories you are about to hear are powerful.

Kim [: 00:01:26

Into their experiences, struggles, and triumphs. By speaking their truth, they contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and the resilience they demonstrate. We appreciate your decision to join us today to

Dakota [: 00:01:38

gain insights and knowledge from the experiences of these courageous military women. Thank you for being here. In this episode, Kory shares her deployment experience to the United Arab Emirates in October of 2019 as a 42 alpha and administrative specialist with thE-741 Brigade Engineer Battalion, Bravo Company. She reflects on how the initial role of escorting personnel in secure areas and handling errands evolved into something much more impactful, especially with the onset of COVID 19. Join us as we dive into the unique opportunities, collaborations, and friendships that saved her time in the United Arab Emirates. Welcome, Kory.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:02:28

Hi there. How's it going?

Dakota [: 00:02:30

We're happy to have you on.

Kim [: 00:02:31

Yeah. Thank you for being here.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:02:33

Of course.

Kim [: 00:02:35

So this episode of Dog Tag Diaries is very unique in the fact that our guests, Kory, and one of our hosts, Dakota, were deployed together. Same company, same mission. So I am really excited to listen to this. So, Kory, why don't you start by telling us a little bit about how you were as a child, your personality, and then reel it into how you gravitated towards joining the military?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:03:04

Alright. So I was a pretty quiet and reserved kid, which I'm sure Dakota has a hard time believing. But I always looked up to my older siblings and would always hang out with them. So I always got along with people who are older than me and worked my way into situations that were unconventional for my age. My dad worked at the fire station, so I spent a lot of time at the fire station around a lot of guys in the bro environment, hanging out with them and learning kind of their skills of the trade just by proxy and enjoyed my time there and loved the kind of bro environment. And so I was looking for something kind of similar that with the military.

Kim [: 00:03:42

And how did you choose the National Guard?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:03:46

One of my friends in college convinced me to join the National Guard instead of active duty as a 42 alpha because then I could go AGR, stay in my home state, and make the same amount of money and get the same amount of benefits, which AGR is active guard reserve, meaning that I would be a national guard still in my state working for the state, not the federal government, but I would be doing a 9 to 5 kinda job for the federal government, for the state.

Kim [: 00:04:13

Best of both worlds.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:04:14

That's what I

Kim [: 00:04:15

thought. And you mentioned your identifier, your, well, your MOS, which was 42 Alpha. What is that?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:04:23

That is an admin, administrative assistant. So my job was mainly to make sure people's promotions were going through on time to do, birth month reviews to make sure every year around their birthday that everything was of order, promotions, demotions, fun stuff, bad stuff, all the paperwork side of things.

Kim [: 00:04:41

Oh, boy. The demotions. Yeah. What did you say, Dakota?

Dakota [: 00:04:45

I said the very important stuff.

Kim [: 00:04:47

Yeah.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:04:48

Yep. Now boots on the ground kind of stuff usually, but still important.

Kim [: 00:04:52

Yeah. Very important to keep the troops healthy mentally and all their paperwork in order for sure.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:04:58

Yeah. It was a lot of learning experiences. I got a lot more opportunities because of it, I think.

Kim [: 00:05:03

So how long were you in before the deployment?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:05:06

I was in for 2 years before the deployment. I knew I was deploying before I even signed up for the National Guard or I knew that there was a high likelihood because of the company that I chose. And my friend actually decided to try and put me in that company because she knew thE-1st sergeant and she knew what was coming. And so that's kinda how I ended up in that specific company. I was working for the battalion level originally, then deployed one of their companies, which was Bravo Company.

Dakota [: 00:05:33

How did you feel about deploying?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:05:35

I was excited at first when I thought it was an opportunity. And then when I knew it was actuality, I got really scared and nervous because I had just got into a relationship with my now husband, and I didn't want to move all the way across the country with people I did not know at all. My friend who was supposed to deploy with me, she ended up getting taken off the deployment because of personal problems. And just before that, I had another friend pass away who was gonna be, like, one of my confidantes who had been through similar experiences before. So I was kinda leaning on that person to help me guide me through that, and then that person is no longer there.

Kim [: 00:06:12

Oh, gosh. So you really faced some challenges even before the deployment.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:06:16

Yeah. It was a challenging time and a lot of different stressors happened recently before the deployment, but you gotta do what you signed up for and that's what I signed up for. So I had to persevere.

Dakota [: 00:06:28

Tell us how you met your husband.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:06:30

I met my husband at a country western bar, and we were both the dancers there or we danced there. And we he was across the bar at across the dance floor. And as soon as I saw him, the first thing that went through my mind, as crazy as it sounds, is that man is either married or I'm gonna marry him. And so I went up and talked to him, and he knew a lot more dances than I did. He knew somE-50 lion dances where I knew, like, 5. This is a lot newer to the community. And we started dancing together and hanging out, and that was about 8 months before we actually deployed. And I moved in with them 2 months after meeting him.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:07:06

So pretty fast. And then I left Medog with him throughout the deployment too.

Kim [: 00:07:10

Was he military?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:07:11

No. He was not military. He is a engineer for the aerospace industry.

Dakota [: 00:07:16

How did he feel about you deploying?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:07:18

He was not looking forward to it at all. His dad told him not to marry a redhead or to marry an orphan, not to marry a redhead, to never date a horse girl, and probably stay away from military.

Kim [: 00:07:31

So I know for you viewers, you can't see Kory, but she's a redhead.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:07:37

And I love horses.

Kim [: 00:07:38

So And she loves horses.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:07:41

He was a little rebellious with me, I guess.

Dakota [: 00:07:43

And I guess have a little baby.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:07:46

Yep. And 6 weeks ago, we had a little baby boy. His name is Wyatt.

Kim [: 00:07:50

Aw, congratulations.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:07:53

Thank you. Yeah.

Kim [: 00:07:55

Well, let's get into the deployment. Tell us about the deployment or the beginning of it.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:08:01

Yeah. So, originally, I was going to work in the admin sector for deployment, but things got shifted around a little bit, and I ended up being in the mayor cell, which the mayor cell is the base of operations for the entire base. Like, they run everything that's the day to day, how food's getting in and out, what's happening, what's going on. And Dakota was in charge of the mayor cell. She was the mayor of the mayor cell as we like to say. So I was underneath her command and a couple other NCOs that were beneath her as well. So that's kinda how I ended up with Dakota. We ramped up in Texas.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:08:35

What base were we at in Texas?

Dakota [: 00:08:37

I think it was Fort Hood.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:08:38

We ramped up in Texas, and then we went off to the Emirates. And we did our little exchange with the people who are already there, and we took over shortly after. And after only a few months of being there, we got there in October of 2019. And after a few months of being there, COVID hit, which was a lot of fun to deal with while overseas in a very strict country. And while at the beginning of my deployment or our deployment, I was supposed to just kinda escort people into secret and top secret areas, and clearance was kind of a big issue and trying to keep that all under wraps and good to go. Things quickly shifted as COVID happened and responsibilities for everybody on the base changed as we were in a new global pandemic in a very strict country trying to deal with multiple countries that were also on our base, which there werE-6 different countries on the Emirati base in total. So there's a lot of different negotiating and communication and policies for different bases, whether it be more COVID testing or gloves and masks while you're over there at a 120 degrees or whatever the case may be. And then I quickly changed my responsibilities.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:09:49

Or I didn't, but situation based changed responsibilities.

Dakota [: 00:09:52

So what were some of the funner things that you enjoyed doing before COVID hit? Like, what opportunities did you have?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:10:00

Not many. I mean, before COVID hit, I would go pick up the newspaper every morning, which required me to go outside of the Emirati gate, just outside the Emirati gate, pick that up, and then I would bring it back to the Australians and then to our base as well and hang out with them for the Australians for a little bit as I was coming back to our base, and that's kinda how I started most of my mornings.

Kim [: 00:10:22

Were the other countries friendly?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:10:24

They were very friendly to me. I never had an issue with them. The Australians loved bringing or that we brought them the Stars and Stripes newspaper, which is the military newspaper while you deployed as Stars and Stripes. And they didn't get that much before, and so they loved having a little bit of news from what was going on around the world. Very appreciative. And so they would always give you a coffee or they would chitchat with you and hang out a little bit. The Emiratis, even though many people would suspect because I was a woman that they would treat me kinda hostile, they were always very nice to me. There was only a few of them who would refuse to speak to me because I was a woman.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:11:00

They never had any issue with me shaking their hand or doing any of the things that are kind of nontraditional, partially because I think it was near Dubai, which is a big tourist immigrant, and because they understood that I was an American. So they kinda knew that our cultures didn't exactly flow with everything, so we just kinda both made small compromises to work better together. But everybody was super friendly, very nice, and people just wanted to get along and have fun and make things work out for the better community as a whole. So that was very lovely. That was the highlight probably before COVID happened. And then we also got to use the Australian gym. They let us use that, which was a very nice facility. Getting used to things in kilograms versus pounds was a little strange.

Kim [: 00:11:42

Oh, yeah. I bet.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:11:45

Yeah. You're just like, I'm gonna feel this out because I don't wanna pull out a calculator each time. And, so we gotta use that facility up until COVID, which was awesome. It was a great facility. It was air conditioned, which was amazing for that temperature out there, and there was no dust or sand in there. It was great.

Kim [: 00:12:02

Say again what the temp was out in UAE.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:12:06

In the summer, it got up to about a 123, I think, the nice that we saw. It got pretty hot in 70% humidity because it is next to the water. So sea warm, especially when you had to wear masks and gloves.

Kim [: 00:12:19

Oh, yeah. Well, I wanna hear because Dakota, I know you're a big workout gal. So how was having that gym there for you?

Dakota [: 00:12:27

It was really nice, especially compared to, like, our prison gym because that's what we had on our small US.

Kim [: 00:12:33

Okay. Tell us about the prison gym.

Dakota [: 00:12:36

Well, during COVID, we had to move a lot of the equipment outside, and so rust and just in bad condition, and it was under, like, a spade. So it looked like and felt like a prison gym. But we made it work, but that air Australian gym was on point.

Kim [: 00:12:51

And they let you use it anytime you wanted?

Dakota [: 00:12:54

Yeah. Until COVID happened, and then we were not allowed to use it.

Kim [: 00:12:58

Okay. So, Kory, because I know when COVID hit here, everything shut down. So what does that look like when you're over there for a mission and you havE-6 different countries that you're supposed to be communicating with? And now there's this unknown disease out there that was, at the time, told that it was just gonna take everyone out. So precautions were huge. So what did that look like over there?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:13:23

It was different for the mayor's cell, I think, versus everybody else because everybody got locked down. Nobody was allowed to go outside of the base anymore for even a little bit. A lot of people got locked down to our specific base inside of the Emirati base, So they weren't allowed to interact with other countries, and that really put a damper on on most people's kind of view of things and their enjoyments, like going out to the the nicer gym and everything got taken away and their friendships they had built had got taken away. So it really impacted the morale of the base overall. For us, it shifted things quite a bit too. The Emiratis, most of the bases really didn't mind how you did things once you were behind closed doors. It was a lot more loose. So, like, overall, the Emiratis required you wear masks and gloves.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:14:11

But when I was out there dealing with the Emiratis trying to get things waiver signed to get people through the gate for our food to come in or or whatever, we would often eat and drink tea. And so at that point, I was had to take off my mask and gloves and then things got a little bit more chill. But when you are outside of everything, you have to be very on point or you will get in big trouble. The Italians required you have vaccines as soon as they came out. But before the vaccines came out and we were there, they required that you got tested. I think it was every 2 months you got where you were supposed to get tested. Or if you had left and come back, you had to get tested. And if you got a positive test, you had to stay in your room.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:14:52

So they couldn't even leave their room at that point. So things got really strict and really nailed down at that point. But a lot of different countries kind of pulled together to try and help our base kinda feel a little bit more uplifted since we had some of the more strict guidelines. I mean, we weren't even allowed to leave our base. For example, sometimes the Italians would make pizza for us, and then I would bring it back, and then I would give it to, like, our mechanics or whoever and try to kinda boost morale that way. We started a sit up group.

Kim [: 00:15:23

Oh, what is that? What does that mean?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:15:25

We just wanted to try and improve our sit up score for PT test, and so we did apps for half an hour. What was it? 5 days a week, 6 days a week?

Dakota [: 00:15:34

I think so. I can't remember.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:15:36

Yeah. Most of the days of the week, we, did apps for about half an hour, and we tried to annihilate our apps in every shape, way we could. And it brought people together from the mechanic bay, from ourselves, admins, to everybody from different states. There was different national guards from all over the country that were there, and so it brought them all together and built a lot of camaraderie between them. The MPs joined us. The military police is the MPs. They joined in on the fun, so it helped kinda boost morale and have a little fun and get a little bit more community on our own base going in addition to our, like, 2 hour regular group that we had.

Kim [: 00:16:13

I have a feeling that you, Kory, and Dakota were thE-2 females that probably started this.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:16:20

Yes? Yeah. We started the sit up group because I was not doing so hot on my PT score. And I don't know if you were or not, but you just loved to work out for some reason. So that's how it ended up.

Dakota [: 00:16:32

Well, what

Kim [: 00:16:32

a great idea. Bringing everyone together through fitness, through health. Good job, ladies.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:16:38

Dakota tends to do that. She likes to get a group together for working out. She tries to push everybody to work out and she'll ride your ass if you're not doing it good enough.

Dakota [: 00:16:48

That's not true. That is true. So tell us about the Australian Air Force and doing demolition with them.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:16:59

So one of the opportunities that we got, we need some stuff blown up. And so I got in touch with the Australians because I knew that they had the demolition crew with them that were allowed to blow things up on their base. And so we got in touch with them, and they were like, definitely come out with us. In fact, bring the team out with us, and we'll go blow up even more stuff together. They had a lot of I can't remember what those bullets are called. The armor piercing bullets, they had a lot of armor piercing rounds that they needed blown up to just get rid of, and we had some stuff to blow up as well. And so the whole crew, our whole mayor cell went out there with them, and we got put on the bomb suit at one point. And we tried doing push ups and that.

Kim [: 00:17:45

Of course, you did.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:17:46

She started it. We did push ups and that. We ran around in it. We got to play with the bomb robot that drives around and can, like, disable bombs. We gotta blow things up. We got even a picture from blowing things up and walking away from the explosion, which was pretty cool.

Dakota [: 00:18:02

Like in the movies.

Kim [: 00:18:03

Oh, do you still have that? You'll have to share that with me because you guys probably looked so cool.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:18:08

It was pretty cool.

Kim [: 00:18:10

Well, that's so cool. How did you both feel? Like, new opportunities, new friendships?

Dakota [: 00:18:15

I think it was Kory that really brought that together. She's really good at mingling and resourcing and building these relationships. So I think if it wasn't for her, like, we wouldn't have had those relationships or those opportunities.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:18:30

That's sweet. I might have networked people, but, like, I'm really bad about staying in touch, generally speaking. Like, I like to just quick, oh, you're super cool. You're super awesome. Let's hang out. And then I get busy doing something else, especially with how busy our base was. And then I kinda fall out of touch. And so if I didn't have Dakota there to kinda push that and be like, oh, have you talked to this person recently? Like, need to keep in touch, then I don't think I would have done that as well.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:18:55

It was really cool to get to work with everybody, and we had a strong community there. Even if it wasn't completely on our base, we had a strong community overall with all the different bases. Sometimes the commander of the British Royal Air Force would, like, drink off coffees to our office, which is super strange considering we were nobodies compared to his rank, but also a cool opportunity. He brought us soil so he could start a garden too because he was the only person who could go off base. So that was pretty nice of him.

Dakota [: 00:19:24

Yeah. Our base compared to everyone else's, so ours is like a desert. There's no green. There's nothing. The Australian base had grass. They had green trees and just birds and just life. So it was really, like, a a nice creek to have soil so we could plant something because our base was like

Kory Flansberg [: 00:19:45

Yeah. 1 of the guys on our base had a great idea of starting a garden to make homemade salsa on our base, and that didn't quite pan out. But some of the greenery lived, and it was nice to have something living in front of our office. When you walked in, you didn't just see desert all day. Like, there wasn't even really scorpions on our base. The one time

Kim [: 00:20:06

Woah. No scorpions? Come on.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:20:10

We kinda had this handstand thing ritual that we do every day or every so often after our workouts where we do handstands on the shipping containers for as long as we could, and it ended up being handstands while throwing things at each other. So you would catch, like, rocks or water bubbles or different things like that or handstand push ups. Like, it got more extreme as we got better, But, one time, Achilles' spider did, like, run up to us while we were doing handstands, and that was pretty scary because those things are huge. It's like the size of a little bigger than a softball.

Kim [: 00:20:43

Yeah. Well, it sounds like you both made the the best of it during such an uncertain time with COVID. So I think I mean, I know one of my questions is how did you possibly be perform a mission when you had the uncertainty of how many number of troops you were gonna have or because, right, like, people probably were testing for COVID that had certain jobs to do.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:21:09

So we didn't have many soldiers in the mayor cell. I was really the only grunt worker that we had in the mayor cell, which meant that our captain, Dakota, she had to do a lot of grunt work herself as did sergeant first class ward, which is kind of unusual for the highest ranking people in the area or in that sector to be doing a lot of your work. But they pulled up their bootstraps, and they got down in the dirt with me. And we got a lot of different, opportunities, like learning how to drive forklifts because we had to, and there was no choice but to learn those things. We pulled long days. Sometimes we would be getting up at 6 and going to bed at 12, but that's also because we were trying to work out 2 hours a day, which is probably unrealistic, but we made it work. We also resourced and, did things like trading chewing tobacco for soldiers because that's kind of a hot commodity overseas, or sometimes I'd get rip it from our DFAC, which are energetics, and I would trade them with the Australians, and they would give me Tim Tams, which is a sweet little biscuit chocolatey treat. And the Americans love Tim Tams, so then I would use the Tim Tams to then trade back to American soldiers to ask an MCO who had a bunch of soldiers, who didn't have anything to do that day, if we could borrow their soldiers to kind of work with us and inventory shipping containers or whatever the job was that needed to be done.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:22:28

And so we kinda resourced and negotiated ways to get more hands on deck to try and help us. And sometimes those people were other enlisted, like myself, lower enlisted, or sometimes they were higher enlisted. And and sometimes it was people from other bases who would help and make sure that we got our jobs done, which was very handy.

Dakota [: 00:22:48

Yeah. And towards the end there, we our responsibilities kinda amplified because we were also closing down the base. And so we had to go through the Conexes that weren't claimed and do a lot of inventory. We had to tear down tents. We had to pull up boards off the ground. Like, there's a lot to do, and Kory was really, like, a driver in making sure things were organized and getting things done and rallying the people to the help to get it done.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:23:16

Dakota had to deal with all the administrative bullshit at that point that all the officers or other enlisted folk or other enlisted people did not like and try to keep the peace as I was trying to wrangle people and and get jobs done. We had 26 different conexes or shipping containers that we had to inventory in thE-120 some degree weather, because at this point, it was closer to summer. And we had to get every item inventory down to the last, like, nut and bolt that was in these, and you never knew what you were gonna find. We found eagle statues. We found there was a boat statue. We found vehicle parts and all sorts of different things, and we had to try and find them homes or try and figure out where these things belong to to then kinda get them moving on to the next location. In addition to that, we had all of the they were called bike tracks. They're kinda like Legos that you walk on that we had to tear up because our base was all sand with only a little bit of gravel parts, and we had tends to take down forklifts to operate.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:24:16

And there's only a couple of forklifts that ran at a time. Some of them, you had to restart with a screwdriver. We had to touch, like, a couple wires with the screwdriver to get it to restart, and some of those are kinda tricky. And we only had so many forklift operators, and so it was the juggling task. And thE-3 of us had to work pretty much around the clock. We were constantly on call in addition to that because we had keys to every door on the base. So if somebody locked themselves out of their room, we had to go and answer that call and bring them back into their room. Or if their AC broke, then we had to go fix it because you couldn't always be calling up the people who are contracted to fix the ACs and such.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:24:51

It was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun.

Dakota [: 00:24:53

Definitely a lot of busy work.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:24:54

A lot of busy work too.

Kim [: 00:24:56

So, Kory, being enlisted, and you were an E-4 at the time. And so how did that feel to have Dakota, who is an officer, an o three or captain, there with you right by your side doing the same exact work? Because you wanna explain a little bit with enlisted and officers, titles, and jobs.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:25:18

Yeah. So it was even worse than that. When I got there, I was at E-3, so I was a private. In a during my time there, I got promoted to E-4. So even before that, she was working as a private, which is almost as as low as you can get. I mean, they're E-1, 2, 3. That's pretty low down there. It was really cool to see that people that high up in the chain of command, having a captain and having a sergeant first class, and E-7 work with you on the ground doing the same jobs that you're doing and not complaining about it, not caring, making sure the job gets done.

Kim [: 00:26:21

And for you, Dakota, you were prior enlisted, which meant that he was in those positions at one time as an enlisted. What did you start as? E?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:26:33

I

Dakota [: 00:26:33

was a a fuzzy, have any, like, formal rank on there, and then I came I made it up to an E-4.

Kim [: 00:26:40

So do you think that helped being there before knowing what that entails? Do you think that was one of the reasons that you were able to be part of helping with all those tasks?

Dakota [: 00:26:53

I think so. And I think I just appreciate being listed because without them, like, we would wouldn't have our jobs, and we wouldn't be able to accomplish what we have. And so I just want to make sure that they feel appreciated and that they're not alone and that I wouldn't ask them to do anything that I wouldn't do myself.

Kim [: 00:27:13

I love her work ethics.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:27:15

Me too. I would like to also point out that I think her experience as an E-4 made her utilize what we call the the E-4 mafia a little bit better than most, which the E-4 mafia sometimes feel called the sham shield because the E-4 logo looks like a shield. It's when the E-4 is the largest rank in the US army. More people at E-4 than any other rank. So that means that in any position within the military, you're going to have at least 1 or 2 E-4. Meaning that E-4 kinda know everything that's going on even though they're not supposed to know everything that's going on, And they can also kinda manipulate situations into more advantageous for whatever they need to get done, or they can obtain things that they may not be able to obtain otherwise. Like, if you needed a headlight for something, then they could figure out a way to get you that headlight and nobody would have to know about it, and you just could acquire that headlight. That's kind of what the E 4 does.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:28:16

And so one of the benefits to being that rank or close to that rank is that the other E-4 trusted me, and I could kinda say, hey. I've got these jobs that need done. And if you get them done, I can get you some chewing tobacco. Or the like, the Italians would often let me onto their base and they would make food for me or the Yamatis would bring me food and stuff. And so I could bring them food that wasn't American army food, and that was a huge incentive for people too. So I could get them things they couldn't otherwise get in return for maybe doing some work or maybe teaching me how to do something that I don't know how to do. So it was really kind of this underground network that you kinda had in the background by utilizing an E-4 that you otherwise might not have had because officers are kind of intimidating. And some of them didn't even wanna talk to Dakota simply because her rank.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:29:06

She is a very sweet woman. Like, she's not gonna hurt a fly, but rank can be very intimidating. I just have never had a problem being intimidated by rank. So I would say whatever I needed to say to get whatever I needed. That was the truth. I would say whatever I needed, whatever yeah. I never lied to Dakota. I never tried to deceive her.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:29:27

It was the thing that I was doing.

Dakota [: 00:29:29

And I knew that if I needed something done or needed something, like, I would go to her, and I learned to never ask how she made it happen. I just knew that she would make it happen.

Kim [: 00:29:42

Through negotiation. Through honest negotiation. Right?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:29:47

Yep. I never lied to anybody. I've just got things done. If you asked, I'd tell you. To be honest, like the other bases helped out a lot. I don't think we could have gotten everything that we did done as effectively if we didn't have the other bases supporting what we were doing and trying to help where they could. The British even offered to give us all of their grass at one point because they were going to demolish in their base and like rebuild it, the brick and mortar built. And so they were gonna ruin their grass anyway, so they offered for us to take all of their grass if we wanted it.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:30:19

That's how friendly and how sweet a lot of them were.

Kim [: 00:30:22

So I know there was 6 other countries there, and they all have their own ranking order. Were there E-4 in other countries?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:30:30

I'm sure there were E-4 in other countries. This sounds really mean. I didn't have time to learn the ranking systems. I just knew who was in charge and who to go to for certain things. And usually if I could, I would try to go to the highest ranking individual because they were so friendly. They just wanted to help us get it done so they would figure out a way to help us and get it done. I knew for the Emiratis, I often didn't speak to the highest ranking because they didn't like me as a woman, but the lower ranking officers would speak on my path for me, and I could still be just as effective.

Kim [: 00:31:02

I love that you're a little negotiator. We're staying friends after this.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:31:06

It's fun to negotiate.

Kim [: 00:31:08

It is. I wanna pick up tips from you, but I do have a question. I know you said that you started dating somebody who the moment you saw him, you were like, he's either married or he's gonna be married to me. So being away for that long, were you able to communicate with him? How are you feeling about the whole distance?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:31:28

So he had a tricky job as well because he's in the aerospace industry, and I had actually worked with the company that he was working for at the time. And so I had clearance to know what was going on, but, like, we couldn't communicate over the phone what was going on at his work all the time. And oftentimes, because of the clearance level required for our job, I couldn't communicate what was going on, what we were doing, at least the specific of it. I had to kinda be a little more vague. So due to that and the time zone difference being 11 hours, we didn't get to talk a whole lot. We tried to talk once a night, and we usually talk for half an hour to an hour, but also waking up 6:30 in the morning and sometimes not getting to bed until extremely late limited those opportunities because he would be at work already or I would just be so tired. I would just wanna shower, pass out. So we didn't get to talk as much as we would have liked, nor did we get to have as good of conversations due to the nature of both of our jobs.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:32:26

So that was really difficult, especially because he had my dog who is a healer and can be really stubborn and he didn't grow up with dogs, so he didn't know how to deal with some of the things with her. And so he couldn't just tell dial my number and call me when he's having an issue because it'd be, you know, 2 AM our time.

Kim [: 00:32:42

So you ended up together with all those challenges through all those challenges?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:32:46

Yeah. Our biggest thing is we're a team. We come first no matter what's going on, no matter the situation, even with with our kid. Like, sometimes we need to set him down in his crib, walk away, put on the baby monitor, and, like, make sure he's safe, but then just talk and be like, okay, here's our game plan. This is what we're doing so we can stay sane. I'll go take care of this. You go take care of that. Like, we are a team.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:33:07

We're top priority. We'll figure everything else out. The world's not going to burn down for 2 seconds, but we have to be open. We have to be honest as much as we can be. Again, nature of the job, sometimes you can't be fully honest, but we come first no matter what. And then when I got back, it was still during COVID. It was September is when we got back up 2020, and he had lost his job due to the budget cuts shortly after that. So we ended up moving states in May of 2021, and that was a lot of him having to rely on me and then pick up what was going on at the house again while I was working for the National Guard full time for COVID borders.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:33:45

But we tried to stay open and honest in our communication as best as possible. And biggest thing is you gotta stay loyal. We're both extremely loyal people. As soon as you're in our crew, like, that's it. That you're done for. You need us. We're gonna be there as soon as we can. We just try to stay loyal and honest.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:34:00

I don't know.

Kim [: 00:34:01

I love that you 2 have a couple bubble. Like, no one's allowed to penetrate that. It's you 2 in there first.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:34:07

I'd love it or hate it. You tell either one of us something. Like, the other one's gonna know because we have to be on the same page for everything. Because if I have to take a phone call from somebody and he doesn't know why I have to take this phone call, he might be like, oh, no. This is more important when, you know, this person really needs me. So he has to know what's going on in my life, and I have to know what's going on his.

Dakota [: 00:34:24

Good. I like that. So you're out of the military now. What made you get out of the military?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:34:30

Most of the command teams are not like the one that I had while I was deployed. And I'm trying to be very specific with members because it can kind of backfire on you sometimes. There's a lot of bullshit that happens in the military, and some of it is intentional, but a big saying is embrace the suck. And I hate that saying. I hate it with everything inside of me because I think if there is a way to change the suck, you should change the suck. There are certain circumstances in which, yes, I get it. During basic training, you're trying to kinda, like, create some trauma bonding intentionally. Like, you want it to suck because you wanna make sure that those individuals can get through sucky situations together.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:35:10

And so those are intentional, but there's a lot of non intentional things. Like, you're sitting around at the end of the day, and you're on a drill weekend, and the only thing that's preventing you from going home is the floors need marked. But the command team can't decide who needs to be mopping the floors this day. So you can't go home until they decide who's gonna mop the floors and then and tell them floors get moved. Instead of just saying, hey, everybody. The floors need marked. And then somebody will pick it up because everybody wants to go home. So instead, you go there 2 hours later, 3 hours later.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:35:43

And when I was drilling out of Denver and living in Grand Junction, that meant, you know, I have a 4 hour drive anyways. 2 hours is quite a big difference. I might be driving in the middle of winter at night now instead of when there's a little bit light out. So I got really tired of all the extra bullshit, and I just wanted out of that situation. And I knew that I wanted to start a family soon. And I didn't want to have a kid and then get deployed because I knew that was gonna be really difficult on my spouse as well as on me, and I didn't want that stress.

Dakota [: 00:36:12

How long have you been out?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:36:14

Technically I'm ready reserve right now, which is kind of a tricky in between. When you sign up for the military, I signed a 6 year contract and then you have 2 years in addition to that, because every contract is technically 8 years. During thosr 2 years, I will not be called up for any military service unless there's, like, World War 3, they really need me, and then they'll activate ready reserve, and I could potentially get called up. But I have been on ready reserve status for just over a year, and I'll officially get out in July. And then I'll get my DD 214, which is paper saying you are done with the military.

Kim [: 00:36:49

Well, in our closing statement, we like to ask, what would you tell any woman wanting to enter the military? What advice would you give?

Kory Flansberg [: 00:36:58

I would say being a woman does not limit your opportunities. It can actually provide more. So know how to blend in when you need to and know how to stand out when you need to and be intentional when you do decide to blend in or stand out.

Kim [: 00:37:13

Oh, I love that. Yeah. I do wanna close out with saying, after hearing both of you, Kory and Dakota, talk and how you really just blended together really well over there and really worked as a team that if I was part of the military again, I would wanna be on your team as well. You 2 have a lot to be proud of, and I'm proud of you. And thank you for your service.

Kory Flansberg [: 00:37:36

Thank you. And thank you for your service.

Kim [: 00:37:42

Thank you for tuning into Dog Tag Diaries. We appreciate your willingness to listen and engage with these stories as we understand the challenge that comes with sharing and hearing them. Your support in witnessing the experience of our military women is invaluable. These stories are meant to inspire and provide meaning, and we hope they can help you find your own voice as well.

Dakota [: 00:38:05

If you or anyone you know are in need of immediate help, call the crisis line by dialing 988, then press 1. There are resources available to help and provide guidance during difficult times. Please visit our website www.reveilleandretreatproject.org to learn more about the Reveille and Retreat Project, including upcoming retreats for military women and resources. The link is in the show notes. We'll be here again next Wednesday. Keep finding the hope, the healing, and the power in community.