Marine Wife Named Spouse of Year

Bianca M. Strzalkowski of Fuquay-Varina was named 2011 Military Spouse of the Year in recognition of her work for Marine Corps families.

"Shocked, shocked, shocked," Strzalkowski said when reached at her hotel in Washington, where the award was presented. "This is a surreal experience."

Hundreds of wives and husbands are nominated for Spouse of the Year in a contest sponsored by Military Spouse magazine.

Winners are chosen first for each branch, and then for the military as a whole, on the basis of volunteerism, personal sacrifice, education and career pursuits, and community influence. Readers vote for their choice.

Another North Carolina military spouse also was in the running; Crystal Cavalier of Harnett County, whose husband is in the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, won the title of Army Spouse of the Year.

At a luncheon for the five branch winners, Strzalkowski said she sat next to Bonnie Amos, wife of Marine Corps Commandant James Amos. Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan spoke at the event.

"Bianca and Crystal ... represent the best of the best," Hagan said. "I am amazed by the strength and selflessness of today's finalists, and by all the military spouses across the nation."

Strzalkowski, 31, is featured on the cover of the new edition of Military Spouse, and the magazine includes a story about her.

When her husband became a recruiter, Strzalkowski noticed that Marine recruiters at 69 stations in the state had no Family Readiness Groups, like other units throughout the services. The groups serve as a conduit for information on everything military families need to know, such as how to apply for educational assistance or what day care centers are accustomed to working with military children.

Strzalkowski started a Family Readiness Group and leads workshops for spouses so they can help one another.

Already, Strzalkowski said she is using her title to leverage support for military spouses who, she says, work and sacrifice and don't get the thanks that their uniformed spouses increasingly receive.

She talked with Hagan, she said, about the Navy SEALs operation in which Osama bin Laden was shot and killed.

"Ten years of tireless effort to catch bin Laden, all that training we do, this has really energized us," she said. "It shows how important it is not to cut funding to the military.

"We are at an all-time great moment," she continued. "All the attention is on us, and it's a great time to take advantage and do productive things with that."