Retired major general recalls: ‘I built people’

M ajor Gen. Kerry L. Muehlenbeck (Ret) never set out to wear a uniform.

“There was no familial connection to me, at least with the military,” the Gilbert veteran said. “I learned later on that my dad had done some time in the Air Guard, but no, I didn’t have any military connection.”

What she did have was a hunger for a team.

“I’d been involved in athletics as a young girl through high school, and then Division I athletics in college. When I went to law school, I wasn’t an athlete anymore, and I missed that kind of team setting where you build a team, you rely on a team, and you have this collective effort toward something bigger than just you.”

That yearning sent her down a corridor few law students travel. During her third year she noticed a U.S. Air Force poster for the Judge Advoc