Soldier surprises wife, kids with early return

MARSHFIELD -- Kristina Howey suspected something was up when her office calendar had nothing on it.

Kristina, a product development and implementation director at Security Health Plan, was expecting her husband – Captain Jake Howey of the Wisconsin National Guard – back from deployment on or around March 31.

“I told him that I wanted to surprise the kids because we’ve put in almost a year of this, so we’ve been planning on a surprise for the kids,” Kristina Howey shared with Hub City Times, after she was called into a “meeting” at Security Health Plan headquarters on the morning of March 7. Instead, out came her husband, with a dozen red roses.

Kristina said she knew something was up about two days prior to the surprise because her entire calendar at work had been cleared.

“The original plan was just to surprise the kids and throughout the past year talking with Kristina, I wanted to surprise her as well,” Jake Howey told us after his big surprise. “So, about a month ago I started sleuthing.”

Captain Howey has been deployed with the Wisconsin Army National Guard for almost one year. Kristina had been expecting his return on or around March 31. However, Captain Howey was officially state-side as of March 5 and returned to Marshfield the morning of March 7. Kristina was told he’d be back in town the following day. 

Howey’s unit – the 112th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, Wisconsin National Guard, Madison – was deployed to Poland and he was stationed at Camp Adazi, Latvia.

Captain Howey was deployed for ten months, although Kristina said it was longer than that.

“I want to claim the month beforehand,” she said. “So this has been about a year because we found out the end of March (2023). He left April 5 for a month, came home for two weeks, and left, so for me it’s more than ten months. I’m claiming my year,” she told us.

With their oldest already out the door, Howey still had five children at home while Jake was deployed.

“Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong,” she said. “Five days into the deployment, the water heater went out. He also left me with a couple of construction projects, so I learned how to do construction. I finished a bathroom and built a bedroom. The washing machine went out. The dishwasher went out. The kids had…there were a couple of ER visits. You gotta be resilient,” Kristina said. “I just would take a breath and figure it out.”

Kristina has also dealt with mental health-related issues for many years, and now uses a service dog to help control her symptoms.

“This was supposed to be the last deployment of his career,” said Kristina. “We’ve been in this for thirteen years.”  

However, Jake’s latest deployment may not have been his last.

“I filled out an application for an O-4 major position, and if I get that then I’ll stay in for a minimum of three to four more years. If I don’t get that, then I’m going to push my retirement back in and hang it up,” said Jake Howey. “I’m committed to my country. I’m committed to the Wisconsin Guard and committed to the Army. But I’m also committed to my wife and family, so therefore, if it’s time for me to retire, it’s time for me to retire, but I’ll keep on truckin’ if I can get one higher position.”

Jake Howey joined when he was 17, and now has 21 years of service in with the Wisconsin National Guard. When he’s not soldiering one weekend a month, he’s cruising parts of west-central Wisconsin and portions of I-94 as a Wisconsin State Patrol officer based out of Jackson County, a post he’s held for nearly five years.

“He trades out one uniform for another stressful job,” Kristina said. “I grew up in law enforcement. My mom retired from law enforcement, and all I thought was, ‘One war zone to another.’ All it takes is one angry person coming up the highway.”

From Security Health Plan, the couple surprised their children – students at Lincoln Elementary and Marshfield High School – with dad’s early return home.