By Van Mitchell
Hank Kuhlman came from a military family while his wife of 55 years Jeanne did not.
Yet, the Edmond couple ended up serving in the United States Navy together in Washington D.C. and Florida.
“My grandfather was a Prussian army officer. My father was in the Army Air Corps, and then after that, Air Force when it changed over,” Kuhlman said. “As a matter of fact, when I graduated from high school, the first thing I got was a telegram from him (father). He was in Sondrestrom Greenland and said, “When are you enlisting?”
Jeanne Kuhlman said after graduating from college in 1969, she had limited career paths to choose from.
“In 1969 I had two choices as far as employment. I could become a schoolteacher, and I didn’t want to do that, or I could become an airline stewardess. I didn’t want to do that either, but I needed a job,” she said. “A friend of mine was talking about it and thinking about going into the Navy. So, she and I investigated, and I decided that wasn’t such a bad deal. So, it was a job, and it was something I wanted to try.”
Mrs. Kuhlman was hoping she could utilize her modern language degree in the Navy,
“I graduated from college with a modern language degree. I could speak French quite fluently, and I was studying Russia and making some progress,” she said. “So, I was hopeful that maybe there would be something in the Navy where I could use my skills. But of course, they didn’t do that. I was administrative, which is fine. That’s what women did in those days because that was still the days of the old Auxiliary, and we were just beginning to change over starting in the ‘70s. And even so, there were limitations there too. But it was interesting.”
Kuhlman said he and his wife both started as ensigns which is the same thing as a Second Lieutenant.
“She got her commission ahead of me and later on she was a Lieutenant Junior Grade, which was senior to me,” he said.
Kuhlman served in uniform from August 1970 to September 1978, while his wife served from 1969 to 1972.
Kuhlman said he met Jeanne at the request of his Division Commander.
“We met because my Division Commander wanted me to go see this person who was giving him a hard time about a fleet program,” he said. “I made an appointment with her office, and I walked in and that’s how we met. We were both at Naval Air Systems Command in Washington, DC. We met early in October 1970. We got engaged in January, and we were married in April of 1971.”
The couple later moved to Pensacola, Florida where he was taking flight training. He was later transferred to Naval Air Station Lemoore Attack Squadron 146 in California and ended up serving in Vietnam.
After returning from Vietnam, Kuhlman returned to Pensacola and was part of Helicopter Training Squadron 18.
Kuhlman, who was no longer serving in uniform due to a reduction-in-force, was sent by the Navy in 1995 as a civilian employee to Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City, which was home to two Navy squadrons.
“A lot of people were dismissed due to budget cuts,” he said. “The parent command was Naval Air Depot Jacksonville, and they needed somebody out here to be the senior airframe engineer for these squadrons out here. And that’s how we got here.”
Jeanne Kuhlman said initially her husband thought the job transfer was a joke.
“He thought it was a joke when they first called him, because he didn’t remember any large bodies of water in Oklahoma,” she said.
Kuhlman worked at Tinker for 10 years before retiring in 2006.
After retiring, the couple moved to Edmond to reside at Villagio of Bradford Village Independent Living.
“We really enjoy it here,” Jeanne Kuhlman said. “One thing about living in a community like this, if they don’t see you or hear from you in a day or two, they come knock on the door and check on you.”
The Kuhlman’s stay busy in retirement traveling and are active in their Quail Springs Baptist Church in north Oklahoma City.
Kuhlman also spends one day a week volunteering as a baby cuddler at Children’s Hospital in OKC.
“In 1995 I was watching a news program on Channel 3 in Pensacola, and they were doing one of their little reports about baby rockers at the hospital. And the last thing the lady said was, “We never have enough men. So, when I retired, I called up Children’s and said, “You need a male volunteer to hold babies?” And they jumped right on it,” he said.
Kuhlman continued, “My primary responsibility is to comfort and calm down babies who are agitated or upset or hungry so that they don’t burn calories. They don’t burn calories, they grow. That’s the primary responsibility. We have some other responsibilities, like we’re supposed to talk to them and read to them and all to help their mental development also. It’s my ministry.”
