We’re with the Garfield Family: How Two Commanders in the U.S. Navy with Three Kids Navigate Military Life

By Gaby Coyle

Military families epitomize remarkable strength and resilience in light of the unique challenges that are posed by military life. They are accustomed to frequent moves and deployments, requiring them to adapt quickly to new environments, communities and obstacles. They understand the true meaning of sacrifice and commitment to service, as their loved ones are called to protect our nation, taking pride in supporting their hero and their country. Military families are the cornerstone of our Armed Forces and serve as the backbone of our nation.

One such family has navigated having both husband and wife serving in the military, adding even more challenges to their daily lives. However, through it all, they’ve leaned on one another for support – and have always had a place to turn to at the USO.

Meet the Garfield Family

“It started off with the desire to serve, not really knowing what I was getting myself into.”

The words of Danielle Garfield echo those of so many other service members who have answered the call to service. While many people feel drawn to serving and defending our nation, they often do not realize until after they’ve put on the uniform just what military life truly entails. And for Danielle and her family, military life means constantly striving for stability.

Not only is Danielle currently the commanding officer of the Navy Region Southwest Transient Personnel Unit, but she is also a devoted mother and wife to her husband Jason, who also serves in the U.S. Navy as the commanding officer of the USS Sterett, which recently returned home in February 2024 following a deployment at sea.

As a dual military family, Danielle, Jason and their three children have become accustomed to a busy life full of unpredictability and change – something they will soon face once again when they relocate from San Diego to Tennessee on orders at the end of summer 2024.

But the Garfield family has been through all this before. Before their daughter Ava had turned 5 years old, they had already moved from duty stations in Washington D.C., Tennessee and San Diego, resulting in their children experiencing quite a few PCS moves in their younger years.

“We’ve tried to find some stability where we could. As far as how they handle it, they don’t know anything other than what they’ve lived so far,” Danielle said. “All the things that we do are normal to them. They take all of it in stride and are doing quite amazing.”

Some Navy families move every 18 to 24 months, and when Danielle and Jason receive a permanent change of station orders, they try to make it exciting for their children.

“For a Navy family, this amount of movement is considered a decent amount of stability,” said Jason. “We start talking about it very early and make them part of the process. We’re moving again at the end of the summer on orders and they’re coming with us to go house hunting,” Jason said.

Fortunately for the Garfield Family, moving back to Tennessee on orders at the end of summer 2024 is something that they are all looking forward to, since they have lived there before and enjoyed their time while they were there.

Danielle and Jason’s Journey into the Military

Before Danielle and Jason were your everyday military family, moving with their children from place to place, they were two ambitious young adults living separate lives and figuring out their next step in life. Danielle joined the U.S. Navy right out of ROTC and following her graduation from college, she left the midshipman life and commissioned as an ensign. Similarly, when Jason relocated from Massachusetts to Florida as a teen, he decided to join the JROTC program at his new high school with an open-minded attitude, willing to give it a chance. He immediately fell in love with the discipline, tradition, customs and sense of service.

“I had two mentors that were instructors in my JROTC unit and by the end of my sophomore year I knew I was going to continue doing this for a long time,” Jason said.

Looking for ways to continue to serve, he began speaking with enlisted and officer recruiters, attending Blue and Gold Meetings for the Naval Academy, as well as recruitments meetings for candidates to learn what admission to the academy was like.

Jason became driven and determined to go to the Naval Academy. And while he didn’t initially get in on his first try, he was accepted into the Naval Academy Foundation Program, which gives candidates who are close to meeting the mark for admittance an opportunity to go to a different school for a year to build their record before they can gain admittance to the Naval Academy. Jason did well enough in the program to get his appointment to the Naval Academy, and after four years, he commissioned as an ensign.

In 2006, during their first year of active-duty with the Navy, Jason and Danielle had both coincidentally selected ships out of Hawaii. After meeting in Pearl Harbor and dating for several years, they ended up marrying in 2009 and had their first two children on Danielle’s scheduled shore duty. While dual military enlisted married couples can often opt to have one spouse on shore and one spouse at sea, especially when there are kids involved, this was not an option for Jason and Danielle. Being in the same year group as surface warfare officers, their career paths aligned, meaning they had similar timing in their careers for achieving milestones.

“We had to have serious conversations about staying on the same path because we both would have had to go on sea duty at the same time and that would have been a five-year stint,” Danielle explained.

Since they were both lieutenants about to go on their department head tours, marking a major turning point for their military careers, the couple was faced with a difficult decision that would affect the future of their family. Ultimately, the couple decided that Danielle would leave the active-duty side of the Navy and become a Reservist, which in turn allowed her to become her own detailer.

While Jason was away on his department head tour, Danielle worked as a government contractor and then was able to activate by picking mobilization orders that maintained her active service commitment and, in turn, was better able to balance her family life and Navy career. When Jason received orders to Washington, D.C., Danielle was again able to pick active orders in the same location and have continuity in her Navy resume. After D.C., when Jason received new orders, this time to Tennessee, Danielle was able to once again remain on active-duty and indefinitely recall as a human resources officer. This allowed them to both continue serving, while keeping the family together.

“We have to go where the jobs are and if we both want career progression, then we need to go where both of us can get a job that would help facilitate that,” Jason said.

There is a U.S. Navy policy that states if you are legally married, the Navy will collocate you to the absolute best of its ability. As an officer, however, it can be a challenge, because depending on your role in the military, your next career milestone may only be available in certain places, and that may not necessarily match up with what your spouse needs to do next.

“Navy Personnel Command has done an excellent job in recent years of bending over backward in making sure that there is family stability. From my experience as a detailer, in two years there, I never once detailed someone away from their spouse – there was always a solution. Communication is key,” said Jason.

Juggling a Military Career and Parenthood

Now, after 18 years of being in the Navy, Danielle and Jason serve as commanders and are two of the Navy’s most invaluable leaders, all while being parents to three children, now ages 12, 11 and 9.

At work, Danielle’s command supports deployed units and ships that are underway or overseas that can’t otherwise facilitate administrative functions themselves. If sailors are transitioning on or off the ship, her command facilitates their transfer by housing them and administratively processing them.

In port, Jason’s workday is filled with the day-to-day operations of managing a ship, maintenance requirements and meetings. Depending on what a ship is doing at that particular moment in port, the sailors can have long 14-hour days, especially when preparing for inspections, or short days and some well-deserved time off, when following a deployment.

However, during underway periods or deployments, the days blend and the schedule depends on operational requirements. Once Jason is underway, back home, Danielle shifts over to becoming a single working parent, where responsibilities are no longer shared between the spouses and she is on her own.

“She’s superwoman,” said Jason. “I’ve been back on sea duty since May 2022. While I wasn’t deployed the entire time outside of the 3rd Fleet area of operation, I was still away quite a bit, which obviously puts quite a bit of strain on Danielle – or any military spouse for that matter. How often you’re deployed just depends on the ship you’re assigned to, and I just came back from my seventh deployment.”

It’s in challenging times like these that service members and military spouses can find a consistent network of support at the more than 250 USO locations around the globe.

How the USO is There for Dual Military Families Like the Garfields

It was during that seventh deployment when Jason and Danielle reconnected with the USO, which has had a lasting effect on them both. Through their many years of service, they had leaned on the support of the USO, and it was Thanksgiving 2001 when Jason first heard of the organization, as a midshipman coming home for the first time from the Naval Academy.

“I was walking through the airport and this USO Volunteer stopped me to thank me for my service. It was the first time I had gotten that, and it was pretty exciting for me,” Jason said. “He asked me if I knew what the USO was and pulled me into the USO Center at the airport and told me all about it. Throughout my Naval service, ever since then, the USO is always something that comes up and is in everyone’s mind. It just equates to support across the board. For this tour, what really reconnected me to the USO was USO staff, Brandi Elias.”

Brandi Elias serves as the USS Sterett Command Ombudsmen and USO center operations and programs manager in the Inland Empire (that is, a metropolitan area in Southern California). Her son, Petty Officer 2nd Class Duncan Elias, currently serves on the USS Sterett as an Ombudsman, and he collaborated with USO San Diego (and his mother) to make sure the sailors aboard the USS Sterett and their families, such as Jason and Danielle, had support every step of the way.

The USO participated in a pre-deployment resource fair, where the USO connected military families with USO programs and services, including providing treats and crafts for the kids. Jason and Danielle’s daughter Ava was one of the guest speakers, who spoke to the younger kids about life as a military kid. Later, when it was time for the deployment send-off, the USO partnered with the local Starbucks to provide coffee and pastries.

“The USO Volunteers were there on the pier with us, making the families feel right at home. From the ship, I was watching families that were reluctant to go to that next step, to watch the ship get underway, but they felt comfortable in going with the volunteer to grab a cup of coffee and I would see them suddenly smile,” Jason recalls.

Danielle also recounted that for the “Halfway Through Deployment Party,” the USO came out and set up games, prizes and food for the military families to enjoy.

“It was a great environment for families to feel connected,” Danielle said, emphasizing the importance of military families leaning on one another during deployment, and how helpful it was for the USO to facilitate that.

Similarly, for the sailors’ homecoming at the return of the deployment, USO Volunteers woke up at 3 a.m. to head to San Diego during a torrential downpour, just to be there and make sure military families were taken care of with goodie bags for the kids and supplies to make “Welcome Home” signs for their sailors.

“It’s quite remarkable they were willing to come out and support a random destroyer returning from deployment,” said Jason. “I can only imagine the support they give other places. We’ve always worked with the USO, we’ve always seen them in the periphery, but Brandi was really the catalyst for the USO to show up and show out for the USS Sterett, and I know they would do it for any ship.” And thanks to USO Volunteers like Brandi, the USO will always be present and support service members and their families who are a part of the Navy. From giving these families the opportunity to create “Welcome Home” signs, to making sure they are well taken care of with snacks and treats during a ship’s departure or homecoming, this type of support is crucial for the well-being and morale of the Navy community during an otherwise stressful and emotional time.

And now, with the USO increasing our efforts in finding new ways to support sailors at sea, we can quite literally “go where they go,” as we now have six (and counting!) USO Centers aboard U.S. Navy ships. Offering military personnel at sea with a home away from home.

But just as Jason was grateful for the USO, our USO team members were just as grateful to be able to provide this crucial support to Danielle, Jason and their children.

“Standing alongside the Garfield family has been an honor beyond words,” Brandi said. “As a USO staff member and the USS Sterett Command Ombudsman, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the extraordinary leadership of Jason, a captain who embodies compassion and dedication to his crew and their families. And in Danielle, a true Wonder Woman, I’ve found inspiration in her remarkable balance of motherhood and military command. Together, we’ve shared tears on the pier, our hearts united as our loved ones set off on deployment – a heartfelt reminder of the strength found in solidarity and support amongst military families.”

Brandi illustrated the profound impact of the Garfield family’s leadership, resilience and unity on those around them, reinforcing the importance of community and support in navigating the challenges of military life.

For the people who serve and their families, one of the greatest resources you can provide is a sense of community, and they know the USO is always by their side to help facilitate that.

“You can’t quantify the value of the USO. They are always there for the sole reason of supporting our sailors, soldiers, Marines and airmen,” Jason said.“ For those junior service members who might have not been doing this for a long time and don’t have the same resources as high-ranking officers but are just concerned about what’s next – to have the USO available to them is unspeakable.”

Danielle shared her insight into the crucial role that the USO plays for service members, expressing that “whether it’s two months or nine months away, or just a service member that is reporting to their first duty station, a lot of times the USO is the first touchpoint.”

The USO’s impact extends beyond periods of separation. Our organization contributes to the overall well-being and readiness of the military community throughout every step of their military service. Danielle was especially moved by the collective impact that USO Volunteers and staff have in strengthening the well-being of service members and their families.

“Everyone that I’ve met through the USO has the same drive and the same passion, that is definitely shown to the service members, and it reenergizes us in that same way. Even though many USO Volunteers that I’ve met were not active-duty service members, they help fuel that service,” said Danielle.

The strength of military families, exemplified by the resilience and unity of the Garfield family, is a testament to the unwavering commitment and sacrifices made in service to our nation. Through every milestone, the USO is proud to play a vital role in bolstering the well-being and morale of military families across the globe. The USO’s unwavering support and steadfast presence embodies the spirit of gratitude and solidarity that reflects our nation’s appreciation for those who serve.