Colonel Kristen Wood urges women veterans to 'tell your story' at Okaloosa County ceremony

Colonel Kristen Wood urged women veterans to share their personal histories and to use those stories to build teams and solve community problems during a Women's Veterans Day recognition ceremony in Okaloosa County.

"The views I'm about to express this morning are purely my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of US Air Force, the DOD, or the US government," Wood said at the start of her remarks, then pressed attendees: "Tell your story. Someone wants to hear your story."

Wood said she accepted the invitation to speak after Commissioner Kechel pushed for a memorial that "tells the stories of women veterans from as far back as 1776," and credited earlier speakers and recorders of history for making her comfortable telling her own story. She described family memoirs and said personal narratives become part of collective history.

Wood, who identified herself as "a solo mom of 2 boys leading 1,800 plus air commandos in the first special operations mission support group," framed storytelling as practical and civic: it preserves memories for family, normalizes service for future veterans and helps build diverse teams that reach better solutions. "Diversity is an operational necessity," she said, arguing that teams composed of varied backgrounds produce stronger answers to complex problems.

She also warned that some veterans' stories have been removed from public access recently and described difficulty accessing archived accounts without formal requests. "We're entering an era where stories are being silenced in an attempt to control the narrative," she said, naming several individual veterans whose material she said had been taken down and noting some were later restored after public outcry.

Wood addressed the limits of uniformed participation in public events, saying Department of Defense review and public affairs input had influenced whether she would wear her uniform. "I lost patience and I lost interest. If it makes someone feel better that I'm not in uniform and I'm on my personal time to to thank women, so be it. I took leave, pulled out some civilian clothes and here we are today," she said.

She closed with three explicit requests to attendees: tell their stories, listen to others, and use shared stories to form diverse teams to tackle the nation's and community's long-standing problems. "Use these collective stories and shared understanding to build teams of diverse backgrounds and experiences to solve our community's most pressing issues together," she said.

Her remarks were given as a keynote address at a commemoration and did not include formal motions, votes, or policy changes by Okaloosa County government.