Veteran

John and Chrystie Shawhan give back to their adopted Knoxville community after lengthy careers in the Air Force and Marines

By Phil Newman | Photograph by Ethan Smith

Appeared in Cityview Magazine, Vol. 42, Issue 3 (May/June 2026)

As eventful and meaningful as John and Chrystie Shawhan’s respective military service was—he retired from the Marines in 2014 after 21 years, she from the Air Force in 2022 after 28 years—reviewing my notes from a conversation with them at their West Knoxville home reveals a telling truth: Far more of the couple’s thoughts center on their passion for giving back and the difference they’ve made among fellow veterans after their lengthy tenures of duty.

“Serving and helping others is my love language; it really fills my cup,” says Chrystie, who comes from a family steeped in military tradition. When she retired from the Air Force after having achieved the rank of Chief Master Sergeant, she snapped a 72-year streak of consecutive active duty within her family.

“It’s all about serving and getting out in the community,” echoes John, who is open about the struggles he faced in isolation after his discharge from the Marines and the calling he feels to helps other veterans who face similar challenges.

“For me, suicide hits really close to home,” he continues. “I had three really good friends, Marines, who took their own lives. One of my best friends even committed suicide. I can relate to the mentality of wanting to be alone, not wanting to get up and do things. That’s why it’s so important to help.”

As a case in point, the Shawhans are deeply engaged with the nonprofit Irreverent Warriors (irreverentwarriors.org), which is “committed to tackling veteran suicide through camaraderie, connection, and authentic community.” John is the Knoxville-area coordinator. Likewise, Chrystie serves on the board of the East Tennessee Military Affairs Council (ETMAC.org), which connects governments and nonprofits that are focused on veteran issues and challenges.

The couple’s roles include hosting get-togethers for veterans, providing much-needed resources and support, breaking the power of isolation, and organizing opportunities for veterans themselves to make a difference. “Just as I have, they find health and healing through serving,” says John.

“We are grateful to be part of a community that is so willing to help others,” adds Chrystie. The Shawhans moved to East Tennessee in 2013 when their daughter, Trinity, was a toddler. She is now 14, and her little brother, Samuel, is 9.

Destined for A Personal Rendezvous Point

John and Chrystie met when both were well into their military careers. John had grown up in Richmond, Virginia, graduated high school in 1993, and enlisted. “I knew I wasn’t going to do anything in college. I would have just partied a lot,” he shrugs. After basic training at Parris Island, he went to Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) training on the West Coast, then to New River in North Carolina.

“I bounced around a little bit, was in California for six more years, went to Fort Worth to work as a Marine liaison for Bell Helicopter.” There he helped to upgrade Vietnam-era H-1 (Huey) choppers for modern warfare.

Chrystie, meanwhile, had grown up in Phoenix. Her parents were career Air Force and loved the service. “Without trying to influence me that way, they created a positive outlook of what military life could be like,” she reflects.

“Serving and helping others is my love language; it really fills my cup.”

She joined in 1994, in the reserves, completing basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio. She then became a medic in Texas before returning to Arizona, studying public relations, and transferring back to the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)—where she would meet her future husband.

The couple knew their “Aim High” and “Semper Fi” courtship would not be simple, since they were very busy in two different branches. “I was stationed in DC, so we did the long-distance thing for a while, and then later I went to North Carolina where he was,” Chrystie says. As their careers unfolded, it helped that she was in the reserves, so she would be able to move units to where John was sent.

Battle-Tested Across the Globe

John’s ventures during his 21 years in the Marines included “two trips to the Mediterranean, one to Bosnia in ’95, two trips to Japan, and two to Iraq. When it came to my deployments, they were pretty straightforward, mostly tame. My tours in Iraq were toward the end, so I didn’t get shot at too much.”

As for Chrystie, her missions in the reserves included Saudi Arabia twice, and then being stationed stateside. In the 1990s, America “got a little taste” of hostilities with the first Gulf War in 1990-91, she says, but after 9/11 the pressure intensified. “It was all hands on deck.” When she was shipped to Saudi Arabia in December 2003, only 20 minutes down the road from where once she had experienced “footie jammies and burgers,” she now encountered Kevlar, “duck and cover” from mortar attacks, and injured service personnel arriving in the medical tent.

“It was ugly. At first I was wondering, What did I get myself into? But after a few weeks you acclimate and just do the job.”

Granted, that earlier deployment had been “eye-opening,” she says. She realized the “battle prep” for the guard and reserves—who previously had undergone more limited training away from the hot zones—would benefit from improvements, and she developed a desire to help with training and preparation back in the US.

Christie was deployed once more, in 2004. After that, she ended up with the 113th Medical Group of the DC Air National Guard, stationed at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, aka the “Capital Guardians.” She was tasked with a range of duties mostly centered on planning and readiness.

Being deployed had magnified Chrystie’s heart for service, so for the rest of her career she worked to support America’s fighting men and women as well as their families back home. “They were taking care of us over there, so we need to take care of them.”

She would serve as a family readiness officer in North Carolina, making sure airmen and their families “were getting the benefits they needed, welcoming them to events so they didn’t isolate, taking care of them.” The pace was typically seven months away, five months home, which caused stress not only on the service personnel but also on their spouses and children.

The need for such support became even clearer when John began to move toward his retirement. “When he left [officially in 2014], I experienced again firsthand how important it is for the families to be taken care of,” she says.

“We are grateful to be part of a community that is so willing to help others.”

Finally Home in the Shadow of the Smokies

John’s transition out of the Marines in the spring of 2014 “was a little different,” he says. His was a medical retirement, in light of the lingering and worsening effects of a vehicle accident years earlier. “I was hit by a drunk driver a long time ago. Toward the end of my career, it was tough to do the day-to-day stuff.”

The family had moved to East Tennessee the previous August. They rented a home in Greenback, and once his discharge was complete, suddenly John was without the camaraderie he had been used to for two-plus decades. He didn’t know what to do with himself. Even as John looked forward to encouraging his wife’s continued career climb, since “she had been so supportive of me over the years,” the walls started closing in.

Chrystie nods. “John had left his parents’ house for the Marine Corps after high school and spent all those years following orders, being told where to go and what to do. That keeps a Marine alive. Now it was like, ‘Here, start thinking on your own. What do you want to do with your life?’”

John had a penchant for woodworking, so he plied his hand at that from their home. “I was isolated, and that lack of community took a toll,” he says. The couple both realized something needed to change. Gradually, they became more involved in Knoxville-area veterans groups, and that engagement radically improved John’s outlook on life.

Meanwhile, Chrystie, while remaining in the reserves, was working at the Air National Guard Training and Education Center (TEC) at McGhee Tyson ANG in Knoxville. The TEC serves as a premier Air Force schoolhouse for enlisted professional military education, specialized training, and multimedia support. Chrystie was tapped to serve as director of education, and that’s what had brought the family to East Tennessee.

In 2019, she shifted into a position that she still holds today, as a process-improvement trainer for compliance at Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. “I love it. It fits right in with my passion for helping and serving others,” she says.

Now both retired from the military, the Shawhans remain busy volunteering in the community, not to mention parenting their two kids, essentially the family’s first Knoxville natives. On the service front, their work with Irreverent Warriors is especially meaningful.

“The transition out of the military can be hard,” says John, speaking from hard-fought experience. Civilian life “is just different. If you don’t have people you can count on, places you can go, it’s easy to slip into isolation.”

Thanks to John and Chrystie, fewer of their fellow veterans have had to suffer alone—and, if they have their way, even fewer will do so on their watch as they continue to give back to our community with tireless passion and purpose. ◆