Born and raised in San Bernardino, California, Shawdreen Jensen grew up knowing more about earthquakes than snow storms. Living so near the San Andreas fault, she was accustomed to occasional quakes.

“It does snow, even in southern California, just not like here,” said Jensen, who now lives in Eagle Grove with her two children.

Jensen was 18 years old in the summer of 2001. She was ready for a change, had admired her lieutenant colonel grandfather and loved hearing his stories about his time in the United States Air Force. High school was in her rearview mirror and she decided to chart a path for herself that would honor his legacy of service to country.

“I enlisted in the Air Force in 2001,” Jensen said. “I went in, in July, and then 9/11 happened right after that.”

-Photo courtesy of Shawdreen Jensen
Shawdreen Jensen is pictured with her grandmother, Mattie Brown, at her graduation from basic training in 2001.

The next several years would take her to many points all over the globe, but it is that September morning early in her Air Force career that she will always remember.

“On Sept. 11th, I was at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi,” she recalled. “I was in a tech class and they shut everything down. They came in, turned on the TV, and said you all need to watch this.”

Keesler is also home to Navy sailors and Marines in training, so she was surrounded by nearly all branches of the military and watched how those with more service time than herself reacted to the tragic news of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“That was a very dark time,” Jensen said. “It was very quiet.”

The quiet would not last long. She described a mixture of sadness and a fierce determination to respond with the full force of American military power.

“Everybody was gung-ho to fight,” Jensen said. “A lot of the Marines were trying to push through to finish their schooling so they could get out there.”

Dental and forensic experts from Keesler were called in to help identify victims at Ground Zero in New York. Jensen was part of a group that assisted in carrying the fallen and served for about two weeks in this solemn duty.

“It was a very somber time,” Jensen recalled. “People were just sad, but everyone came together and formed a really close-knit group.”

Looking back, she sees those dark days as a shining time for what Americans are capable of when they work together.

“I feel like it’s one time that everyone in the nation has pulled together to really be one,” Jensen said.

In the military, that type of bond with one another is something she came to appreciate. After completing tech school, she was assigned to Beale Air Force Base in northern California.

“I was an information management specialist,” Jensen said.

Regardless of where she was stationed for the next five and half years, the work was often similar. She was stationed at the U.S. Air Force Base in Aviano, Italy, for six months and worked laying fiber optic cable. Her assignments would also take her to Ramstein Air Base in southwestern Germany, and then to Okinawa, Japan.

“Again, I was always laying fiber optics and programming computers,” she recalled.

There is just one portion of her service that she prefers not to talk about yet.

“I did a little bit of time in the sand box,” she said in reference to Afghanistan. “But I don’t talk about it. That’s just something I leave locked up.”

In all, Jensen served five and a half years and was honorably discharged as a senior airman. She had tested for staff sergeant, but was discharged before the promotion came through. Despite serving at such a turbulent time, she has absolutely no regrets and recommends military life strongly to young people.

“More than anything, I learned how to work as a family,” Jensen said. “Before the military, I was a crazy little teenager with a bad attitude. Honestly, I found my family, the best friends of my life, because of the military.”

It was a man in the military who actually led her to build a new life in Iowa after the Air Force.

“He said, ‘Do you want to come to Iowa?'”

She did, and nearly 17 years later she said Iowa — and with a special shout-out to Eagle Grove in particular — has been the best place she could have found to raise her two children.

“Raising my kids in Eagle Grove has been amazing,” Jensen said. “The school is close-knit. The classes are a bit small, and the teachers really sit down and work with the kids.”

Her son, Devin, is 15, and daughter Audriana is 7 years old. She is passing on to them the stories her grandfather shared with her about the military and how it can change one’s life.

“You will see and do so many things,” she said.

That can also mean seeing some of the darker sides of this world, but to Jensen the chance to be of service is transformative and worth the effort.

“I feel like the camaraderie of the military can give a person so much that you don’t get anywhere else,” she said. “Some of my best friends today are people that I met in basic training.”

Besides, no matter what the day may bring, in the military, you never go it alone.