For 25 years, former United States Air Force Col. Pualani Zuniga lived by the motto, “Service before self.” Although she loved her work, she considered her time in the military to be an offering she gratefully gave to her country.
Zuniga is now retired from the Air Force and working as a Realtor in the greater Chattanooga area. But she’s still living by the same motto. Instead of serving her nation, however, she’s attending to her family and local community.
In particular, Zuniga is devoting her life to a single citizen of the country of 332 million people in which she resides: her granddaughter, a 5-year-old “sweetheart” stricken with several debilitating medical issues.
“She has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, and we just found out she needs a kidney,” Zuniga says. Her voice is candid and steady, as though she’s repeating a simple fact for the thousandth time. “We’re still coming to terms with that.”
When Zuniga says “we,” she’s referring to her immediate family, which includes her husband, son and granddaughter. The four of them live together and care for Zuniga’s granddaughter – who’s unable to walk, talk or eat on her own – around the clock.
Zuniga says decades of regimented living and working in the USAF mentally prepared her for the taxing schedule her family maintains.
“When you’ve been in the military for any length of time, you know how to manage your time. In our household, we have two calendars that contain two months of appointments so we can see who’s doing what.
“On the refrigerator, we have a weeklong rolling calendar for the house. When Tuesday is over and it’s Wednesday, the Tuesday on the calendar becomes the Tuesday of next week.”
The rolling calendar prevents Zuniga and her family from experiencing the things other people enjoy, such as weekends off from work. In her household, every day is the first day of a new week.
“If you manage time well, there’s nothing you can’t do,” Zuniga continues. “You just have to find a rhythm. We used to have a four-month calendar, so we’re thrilled to be down to two months.”
Zuniga says her granddaughter’s difficulties were a factor in her leaving the Air Force. At the time of her retirement, she was serving as a cyberspace operations officer and cyberchair of the National Defense University. She was also teaching master’s level classes in a government leadership program focused on cyberpolicy.
Her work would have required her to move regularly, but Zuniga says her family needs roots.
“When you get up there in rank, the military wants you to take charge,” Zuniga explains. “Part of that is the expectation that you’ll be moving every two years. But given my granddaughter’s medical challenges, we need to stay put for her.”
These same issues also played a role in Zuniga becoming a Realtor last year.
“If something happens to my husband or me, my son won’t have anyone to help him with his daughter,” she says, her voice still even. “So, I want to leave a legacy for him and my granddaughter.”
If someone asks Zuniga if she likes her new line of work, she could point to the back of her laptop, where she’s affixed an “I love real estate” decal like a bumper sticker on a car.
During her 25 years in the Air Force, Zuniga moved 19 times and lived in or visited 35 countries.
Wherever she was, she found herself drawn to the local architecture and how it was unique from everywhere else she’d been.
When it was time for Zuniga to begin a new chapter in life, she was already planning to become a Realtor.
“Real estate is another way to serve my community,” she says. “Buying or selling a home is stressful, especially if you’ve never done it or it’s been a long time, and helping someone through that is rewarding.”
As someone who’s moved more times than most people would be able to count and bought and sold several houses, Zuniga is the voice of experience. She says this enables her to empathize with her clients.
“I’ve felt their pain,” she says, laughing for the first time. “When the military moves you, it provides someone on the other end to answer your questions. I was often that person for someone else. I’m still doing it but for clients who are coming to this area.”
Zuniga aims to do more than hold the hands of her buyers and sellers, though; she also tries to help them make smart decisions.
“The military trains you to be a strategic thinker. When you do something, you not only make sure you take care of it for today but also that you set it up for success in the future. So my goal is to help my clients build wealth through home ownership.”
Sometimes, Zuniga says, making a good choice means waiting.
“I have a client who won’t be ready to buy a house for a year. She was feeling discouraged but I told her to not give up,” Zuniga says. “When she’s ready, homeownership will make a big difference in her life. Once she’s stabilized the largest portion of her budget, she’ll be able to do amazing things.”
As Zuniga thinks forward to one year from now, she seems to enjoy stepping outside the confines of her calendars. Her mind freed from the here and now for just a moment, she thinks back in time to when she was growing up in Hawaii and peopled called her “Deborah Lynn Pualani.”
“Pualani is actually my middle name,” she explains. “It means heavenly flower.”
Zuniga explains that her maternal aunt gave her the name Pualani in accordance with Hawaiian custom, which encourages the elders of a family to contribute to the naming of a newborn.
Her father is from Iowa, however, and decided her first name would be Deborah, resulting in a name that’s equal parts ordinary and exotic.
Zuniga joined the Air Force and moved stateside at the age of 26 to receive assistance with a master’s degree. Before she was done, she’d earned three, including degrees in strategic intelligence and strategic studies through the National Intelligence University and a degree in project management.
By then, Zuniga had also turned was she’d thought would be a brief stint in the Air Force into a career.
“When you love what you’re doing and you feel like you’re making a contribution, you stay where you are.”
Saying this brings Zuniga back to the here and now, but not to her calendars, or her endless conversations with insurance companies and doctors, or her granddaughter’s critical need for a kidney. Instead, she spends a few minutes talking about the garden behind her Signal Mountain home.
There, Zuniga finds pleasure in baking and gardening. She jokes about being capable of tending only perennials (“I don’t have the time to deal with something that needs to be replaced every year,” she insists) and says she’s pleased with the blueberries, peaches, apples, pears, strawberries and rhubarb she’s coaxed out of the earth.
“I found the best spot for rhubarb. It likes the morning sun,” Zuniga notes as she searches her phone for a picture of one of the plants. “I make a mean strawberry rhubarb tart. I bring them to my clients as a closing gift.”
A moment later, she stops scrolling and turns her phone around to reveal a photo of a rhubarb plant with leaves the size of a baby elephant’s ears.
Sitting in the midst of the leaves is Zuniga’s granddaughter, looking like she blossomed out of the plant.
Seeing the picture of her granddaughter brings Zuniga back to where her calendars, endless conversations with insurance companies and doctors and granddaughter’s pressing need for a kidney weigh on her.
“When you live with someone who’s dealing with life-threatening medical conditions – especially if it’s a small child who has seizures – you get PTSD. We deal with PTSD in the military because we’re put in certain situations; people who are living with someone who has medical challenges experience the same thing.”
Zuniga’s voice is candid and steady again, as though she’s repeating a simple fact for the thousandth time. And then she adds a touch of reflection.
“I have a fulfilling life,” she says. “Service before self has always defined me – and it always will.”