By: Renea Kessler
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
renea@thevillagereporter.com
Tina Studenka has lived in Lyons, Ohio, with her husband and children for the past 17 years. She is passionate about photography and enjoys being involved in the sports activities for which she does photography, which is wonderful because sports are a significant passion for her entire family.
Tina comes from a long line of military personnel and grew up with a strong sense of patriotism. Her father, uncles, brothers and grandfather all served in the military, making it a “family business.”
At the age of 19, Tina joined the military. Just two years after the events of September 11, 2001, she was deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a military police officer in the Army Reserves, working as a block guard.
She served a total of four years before leaving the Army. Her enlistment began with basic training and Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Fort Leonard Wood, lasting a total of 17 weeks.
She made the decision to enlist because she did not want to attend college. In fact, she even ran away from home to join the military, which devastated her parents. Whenever she attempted to speak with a recruiter, her family would dissuade her, but deep down, she felt it was her calling.
Tina thought she would just be a weekend warrior, making $200 on the weekends. She never imagined that she would get deployed. When she arrived at her duty station in Inkster, Michigan, she learned that she was being deployed for a year to Guantanamo Bay.
“Of course, I cried. I went home and sat on my brother’s roof while they were reroofing their house, and I cried,” she recalled. Family means everything to her, and she was unsure of what to expect.
When Tina arrived at Fort Dix, New Jersey, for her training before deployment, she was treated quite softly. She struggled to get up on time and complete her chores. It took a stern conversation from a superior to change her attitude, and that moment left a lasting impression on her.
“It does take a team, and when I wasn’t pulling my weight, it affected everyone else,” Tina said. The most significant lesson she learned from her time in the military was the sense of brotherhood; there is truly nothing like it.
This experience turned out to be the best time for her, almost like a vacation. There were opportunities for shopping, water skiing, night fishing, nightclubs, golf, and paintball courses, which felt just like being back in the States.
One of the most memorable events was when Hurricane Ian came through. During that time, they spent 24 hours in the camp with the detainees, sleeping in the blocks to ensure their safety during the storm.
Throughout this ordeal, she served the detainees three meals a day, collected their trash, provided toiletries as needed, and transported them for medical appointments.
Only one female guard was permitted on the block at a time, accompanied by three male guards. This policy was in place because the guards needed to shackle the detainees when taking them to shower, and once they reached a certain point, the female guard would hand the detainee over to the male guard.
Tina recalls a time when she had to sit in an ambulance with one of the detainees while he was being transported to a different camp within the facility.
She felt extremely nervous in the back of the ambulance, carrying her 9mm pistol, praying the detainee wouldn’t attempt anything. At that time, Tina had just turned 21 in Cuba, making her still quite young and inexperienced.
During her time in Cuba, the guards were never allowed off the base. She remembers one occasion when they were on a pontoon boat and got so close to the Cuban border that the coast guard was called, and they had to be escorted back to base.
Tina also had the opportunity to work with members from all branches of the military while in Cuba, which she described as an amazing experience. At that time, the male to female ratio was quite skewed—there was one female for every 80 males.
After being discharged, Tina worked at a plasma donation center in Toledo for eleven years. She got married in 2007 to Davey Studenka and together they had two children, Riley and Hayes.
Tina feels proud and grateful for having served her country; however, she is not completely satisfied with the way she did so. It would break her heart if one of her children were to enlist in the same manner she did.
Tina initially planned to make a career out of military service, as that was the path her family had taken. Instead, she chose to start a family, a decision she wouldn’t change.