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JANUARY 2007 BY Chris Koch Mid-Atlantic Region Coordinator
I want to start by wishing everyone a Happy and Joyous New Year. The holidays are over and it’s time for all to get back to work. That is of course assuming that you got time off from work; time to spend with family and friends that we so often take for granted. Well, I know of a very special member of the ARMA family, a good friend to many of you, who had to work during the holidays. In fact, you might say she is on one long continuous mission, otherwise referred to as a deployment. That special person is Joanne Smith. Joanne is a Chief Warrant Officer in the Virginia Army National Guard and she got to spend her holidays commanding a multi-national task force of soldiers in Kosovo, Serbia.
If you have ever had the pleasure of meeting Joanne, you know exactly what I mean when I say she is special. You will never find such a good-hearted and warm individual wrapped up in such a small package. While Joanne’s exact height remains a mystery to me, I feel as though she must be at least 10 feet tall the way that so many people look up to her. In addition to her duties with the military, she is also the current President of the Richmond Chapter of ARMA and is employed by Chesterfield County as the Records Supervisor for the Department of Utilities.
Now, you may be wondering how Joanne managed to find herself leaving the safe confines of her office in Chesterfield and winding up on a military base in Kosovo; to understand that you first need a little more information about Chief Smith. Joanne has spent more than twenty years in military service. For the last several years she has served as a Casualty Officer where she was called to active service to help families during the horrible events of “9/11” in New York. Since then, Joanne has provided disaster relief to victims of hurricane Katrina and most recently she has been assisting the families of fallen soldiers from Virginia during the conflict in Iraq.
Last spring Joanne learned that she was being considered for deployment. She had been through this process before. It usually takes a while to evaluate all the candidates for a particular deployment; this usually includes multiple interviews. In the past, for some reason or another, Joanne had not been picked for an extended deployment, particularly one out of the country. As she was called back for each interview, Joanne kept telling me how the number of soldiers being considered kept dropping. I remember saying that she did not think there was a real possibility of her being selected, considering that she was up against past members of the military’s elite Special Forces. She was also looking at herself, five feet tall and married with a son going off to college. But Joanne was overlooking one important detail, the military always wants the best; someone willing to give 110% in everything they do and that described Joanne perfectly. So, I was not surprised when she broke the news to me that she had been chosen for the deployment. There was however, a certain amount of irony to this whole scenario. Joanne’s husband, Colonel Paul Smith, US Army, Retired, had participated in many deployments and was in the process of retiring from service while Joanne was going through the selection process. It was the day after Paul’s retirement was official that Joanne found out that she had been selected and that it would be her turn to be away from her home and family.
Joanne left home in July to begin some very rigorous training. She eventually moved to Germany for a short period and finally to a military camp in Kosovo this past November. With any luck, Joanne will be home for the holidays next year. I want to wish Joanne a safe and quick return home; although she may regret coming back when she finds the amount of work that has piled up on her desk!!!
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2006 Articles
JESSE RICKS President Charlotte-Piedmont Chapter
Mike Keohane, CRM, President Triangle Chapter-NC
Linda Clearly President Diamond State Chapter
August
Tammy Wheeler
June |
Mid-Atlantic Region News