One mom is getting an unexpected gift for Mother's Day: being deployed with her daughter! Senior Master Sgt. Jennifer DeCou and her daughter, Senior Airman Jenaka DeCou, are both currently deployed in Japan. The 44-year-old mother of three has been in the Air Force for the past 26 years, but this is the first time that she'll be serving on a deployment alongside her 21-year-old daughter.
Jenaka was inspired to follow in the footsteps of her mom, while Jennifer was inspired by her grandfathers, who served in the Army and Air Force.
"I was very close with both of them. And they were a big influence on why I decided to join," she told Good Morning America. Her grandfather John Roe served in the 114th Fighter Wing of the South Dakota Air National Guard. When Jenaka decided to enlist, she signed up at the same logistics building that her great-grandfather has worked in at Joe Foss Field.
"Hearing my mom talk about her deployments that she had been on just seemed like a really amazing and unique experience," Jenaka explained. "It was something that I've always kind of been interested in and then also going out to the base and just seeing her work and [seeing] the people that are working with her, I just really fell kind of in love with the environment and the people that were there as well."
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For Mother's Day, they plan to go for a hike and see a waterfall. They also hope to have a phone call with the rest of their family, who lives back in South Dakota. "A lot of people don't really get to have family members on these deployments," Jenaka said, "So having her be here, especially for my first deployment, it has been a really, really great blessing."
