I wear no uniform, no blues or greens.

But I am in the military, in the ranks rarely seen.

I am not the one who fires a weapon; who puts her life on the line.

But my job is still tough; I'm the one left behind.

These are the words from part of a poem by Kristin Anderson-Cronin, PMHNP-BC, a student at the University of Colorado College of Nursing at Anschutz Medical Campus.

Her son is in the Marine Corps, so the military is a big part of her life. She’s only seen her son once in the past two and a half years and rarely gets to talk to him on the phone.

The isolation from her son is hard. Anderson-Cronin calls herself “a silent extension of the military” because she’s part of a population that is sometimes forgotten.

It inspired her to enroll in CU Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program, focusing on Veteran and Military Health Care Leadership.

Finding this program “was so unbelievable, because helping our military and their family members has been such a passion of mine for so long,” she says.

Supporting Military Families

Anderson-Cronin lives and works in rural Door County, Wisconsin, where the nearest VA Medical Center is two and a half to four hours away in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She says there’s a significant military population in her area, but there’s a lack of resources, including support for mental health.

“There are so many resources desperately needed…there’s so many people struggling with their mental health, so I want to do something about it, and I’m going to do something about it,” she says. “Military family members often live unpredictably. They move all the time, they don’t know what’s happening to their family member in the military, especially when they’re on the front lines."

Often military and veteran family members feel misunderstood by the general public; they are coming from a culture many civilians know little about.

Many also “feel invisible,” she says. As a service member, “the military becomes their focus. That’s their job, they do what they’re trained to do and it becomes so engrained in them. And when they leave the military, it doesn’t leave you,” she says.

This includes family members. “The military is a mission-first culture and everything else comes second, including loved ones," she says.

Due to the lack of resources for people like herself – someone with a family member in the military – Anderson-Cronin created an online toolkit called MySTART for military families. The toolkit focuses on addressing challenges that may arise, as well as the knowledge of resources that may be available before, during, and after military service.  

She says it’s because there’s a lot of focus on and information for service members and veterans, but there’s not a lot for spouses, partners, or other family members.

The toolkit has several resources: information for basic needs, support groups, and phone numbers to call in an emergency. There are also inspirational quotes and advice from other military family members.

“I really wanted to limit the barriers and let people know that resources are available everywhere,” she says. “It’s really hard for military spouses and partners, so I wanted to try and make sure everything was available in one spot.”