The California desert, for 28-year-old Madie Chapman, was a friend of the system.
Chapman became a desert resident last summer, when her husband, a field radio operator, settled at the Twentynine Palms Fighter Center, the largest US maritime corpus training base. Within just a few months of receiving orders, the couple moved with their three young children to isolated post near the Joshua National Park, joining thousands of other active service members and their families living there.
But in the palms of twentynine, almost everything feels away. The nearest Walmart is 30 miles (48 km) below the highway. Palm Springs is a car by car and Los Angeles is three. The isolated base, spread over 1,000 square miles (2,590 square km) open desert, is wrapped on a few sides by nothing more than the hill hills of sand and a string of unpopular, low mountains. The landscape is not the only part of the other world of twentynine palms; Summerso summer, temperatures in triple figures go down to the community.
“There’s nothing here,” Chapman said.
In an environment that left the urban world, finding work may seem close to impossible. Despite having a college diploma in sociology and economics, Chapman was fired from her distance in August, and then tried to find a personal role in human resources-a position she held in previous bases. Chapman and her family have been transferred to three countries in six years.
“Being a mother of three, I was like,” I have to do something or I’ll go crazy, “she said.” You know, we have food items and bills and things we have to do. “
So Chapman started its small business instead: C&A gifts, a woman’s operation Where she collects baskets for holiday theme, birthdays, baby showers or every day of the year that can guarantee a choice. Her business is a welcome financial incentive for her family, but also serves as an emotional incentive for other spouses in the palms of twentynine. “Simply makes it a little less lonely,” she said. Chapman is one of the many spouses based with a growing business; Others sell handmade earrings and bracelets, sour pillow bread and even mini photoshopi sessions for couples and family.
Even in much less distant military bases, a sparkling crisis has continued for decades. Across the country, military spouses, who are mostly women, have one of the highest levels of unemployment of each demographic: about 22%. In 2021, among the pandemia, this figure was reported to have increased to 38%. Although most spouses with active duty have a college or higher education, 90% of spouses agreed in a study that military service adversely affected their careers.
Many factors make it difficult to find a job: frequent moves from the basis to the basis, the challenge of finding reliable children’s care, the difficulty of transferring professional licenses between countries and places, and the lack of remote affairs beyond customer service roles. And many military families say that reliance on just one income is less likely than in previous generations, especially as the cost of living increases throughout the country.
In that employment vacuum, many women have turned into enterprises.
At the base of Twentynine Palms, Chapman and a narrow network of other spouses expect “expos of small business” every month, where they show their businesses and sell their most recent creations, often for other women and families from the base.
Being a business owner also offers military spouses something much more valuable than just a job, said Stephanie Brown, CEO and co-founder and non-profit chamber of military trade.
“Don’t make me wrong, we are very proud to support the mission of our service members. But you tend to lose part of that feeling of self-identity, “Brown said.” So if we can help military spouses find that sense of purpose-as a small business owner, as an independent contractor, like someone who is self-employed-then this is a gift. “
IIn the hours before the latest business exhibition of Twentynine Palms-an event on Valentine’s theme staged in a common room-more than a dozen business owners were excavated around their homes, preparing for the following day.
I was denied entry to the basis for this story (Twentynine Palms stated that they did not have enough staff to accompany me, as a member of the media, the exhibition), so a small number of spouses met me only outside the barbed wireless borders of the country’s war center. Their cars were loaded with exhibition supplies, and their children were waiting for the back in their back. Half a mile away, the armed guards stayed observed in a base entrance. The bored sound of artillery echoed regularly in the distance.
Chapman rested through the stack of plastic bins accumulated in her luggage, joining a Valentine’s basket, complete with a stuffed animal, body cleaning, a heart -shaped pillow, chocolate candy and other small items. The first basket she ever made was for a husband celebrating her 18th birthday while her husband was set, she said. Since then, Chapman has made similar gifts for military spouses who were born while their husbands have disappeared, or forced to celebrate only wedding anniversaries.
“You just see on Facebook the young women who are here, who are newly 18 and whose spouses have disappeared for months, and you are in this distant place themselves,” she said. “I have spent my right part of dislocations with my husband, and I know what it is like to be in those particular times.”
Another, the owner of the spouses returned to a dozen, Emma Salazar, showed jewelry she planned to sell at the exhibition that day: small rings made of twisted metal, earrings studied with small shells and quartz, and stacks of colored bracelets, beads.
Salazar started its business, Lil Sumthin ‘jewelry, A few years ago as a “side hustle” after learning from her grandmother how to feed on natural materials and then turn them into handmade jewelry. But when she moved to the desert with her husband in 2023, it was difficult to find a regular job to complete that passion project. It was also the first time of Salazar living on a military base – and she had just gave birth to her first child.
“I just ended up doing my full -time business because I can’t work anywhere else,” she said.
Salazar now Zanat jewelry from her home at the base of the palms twentynine, in any room “baby wants to be” at that moment. The ultimate goal for her business, she said, would be to be Sell its parts in local boutiques.
“People automatically see you as addicted,” she said for her role within the army. “But it is good to have your exit and your identity because you can be lost so much in being a woman and a military woman.”
Groups like the Military Spouse Chamber are working to strengthen that community of entrepreneurs, said Brown, co -founder, who is a military spouse himself. Free certification of nonprofits for spouse -owned businesses, provides guidance and resources and helps to connect them with well -known national companies in private and public sectors.
“All we are trying to do is legitimize them,” Brown said, “and give them a place on the table.”
However, both the isolation and the highly controlled nature of any military base can affect almost any part of everyday life.
After our meeting in the wilderness, the spouses of the palms of Twentynine eventually left to settle for the exhibition, returning again inside the base.
As I stayed out of the barbed wire, taking some photos of a welcome sign for the war center, a guard approached. I would have to delete those photos in front of him, he said, as he quickly demanded backup. After a small squadron of security officers and other guards gathered at the gate to investigate, they finally admitted that I was not required to delete the photos and was not banned.
I went back to the desert, the base in my back mirror. Somewhere after me, the spouses prepared their booths, artistically arranging their goods and preparing for customers.
Twentynine Palms, as Chapman had described, can often feel like “a step back in time”; Spouses need to understand how to make their fate. This month, Chapman even began working a second job: a new role in human resources, which had just opened at the base.
“You really have to learn,” she said, “How to stand on two legs, yourself.”