Jessica Koceja

Born in Bowling Green, Ohio and was raised by a pair of gypsies. Went to Elementary school in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and both Northwestern and Central Ohio, attended Middle School in Ohio and Florida, and High School in Florida, Arizona and Connecticut. When I finished High School in Scottsdale, Arizona, I decided that what people did other then attending concerts and hanging out was go to college. I enrolled at Scottsdale Community College. What I neglected to understand was that in order to progress in college, you actually have to attend class, so my first venture into the college system ended poorly.

Shortly after High School, I met a “sick boy” at a Grateful Dead concert. It was entirely accidental, while I was in the right place, he was not. We met, married, and swiftly began to multiply.

We moved from the desert to the gulf coast where my parents had moved. Orange Beach is a touristy island off the Alabama coast. It’s known for white sandy beaches, yearly hurricanes, and laid-back margarita soaked lifestyle. I took some classes at the local community college, on and off, and worked as a daycare teacher while my kids were preschool age. I eventually transferred to the University of South Alabama when 9-11 occurred and my husband, in a fit of patriotism, decided that he needed join the Army and show them how to handle the terrorists. Obviously, our life changed.

The last nine years have been a wild ride. We just landed at Fort Gordon from Hawaii. My husband is an instructor for the AIT students on Fort Gordon. My daughter, Daisy, is a sophomore at Westminster, she loves it there and she spends all her time trying to convince me to drive her around. My son, Buck, is a sixth grader at Freedom Park, and he spends his free time playing MW2 and Madden 11, and plotting ways to destroy the universe. I’m a History/Secondary Education major. I’m a history and crime buff who spends all my spare time reading and researching whatever has struck my fancy that week. My mother and Diane de Poitiers are my idols.

I live on Fort Gordon with my husband, my kids, a neurotic Chihuahua who likes to wear clothes and two cats.