Lisa McCawley developed a strong love of the water after spending a total of 30 years serving in the US Coast Guard and then the US Coast Guard Reserve. As a matter of fact, she missed being on the water so much after her retirement in 2015 that she picked out a pontoon boat for her whole family to enjoy.
After 9/11, McCawley was deployed twice to the Middle East, the first time to Bahrain and the second to Kuwait. Her mission was to protect the ships entering and exiting the port with supplies for the troops. While she served her country overseas, McCawley always made the best of her situations, showing resilience, bravery and creativity.
While she was in Kuwait, McCawley painted scud bunkers and Texas barriers around her camp during her down time, a practice that brought some color and positivity into her fellow soldiers’ lives and her own. She always kept a good sense of humor even when she spent Christmas in the Middle East away from her family. Surrounded by desert with the port of Ash Shuaybah, Kuwait on one side and living in a tent, she decorated her tent with battery-operated Christmas lights and garland to bring some Christmas cheer.
Serving in the US Coast Guard and US Coast Guard Reserve helped to shape the course of McCawley’s life, molding and refining her into the outstanding and courageous person she is today. In fact, it was during her deployment in Bahrain that McCawley met her future husband Dave Kindlesparger, another veteran who served his country in the Navy.
During their time in Bahrain, they would take a boat out at times and go fast to help relieve stress. They called the ritual “Chasing Demons,” an appropriate name since this was an effective way to drive away unwanted emotional strain and anxiety. In honor of this practice that got them through the hard times, the couple decided that Chasing Demons would be the perfect name for their pontoon as well.
Their boat Chasing Demons is a Manitou Xplode XT which has the perfect amount of horsepower for speeding around and driving away any negativity.
“As you can imagine, our boats would travel pretty fast,” explained McCawley. “I wanted my pontoon to do that same thing.”
McCawley and Kindlesparger like to keep their boat moored at a local marina near their home in Illinois for easy access. Even their dog Mitzi loves the boat and enjoys joining them when they go fishing or riding around on the lake.
McCawley utilized her GI Bill for college while in the US Coast Guard Reserve and is now a system imaging informatics coordinator at Southern Illinois Healthcare. Both she and her husband are parents and grandparents and both share their love for boating with the whole family. Together they show their family and friends what they found to be one of the most effective ways to unwind after a stressful day with the help of their pontoon Chasing Demons.
“Chasing demons is how we relieved stress while overseas,” shared McCawley. “There is something about traveling fast over the water that feels so free!”
