{"id":24871,"date":"2016-09-19T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/fort-wainwright-soldier-earns-spirit-of-service-award\/"},"modified":"2016-09-19T08:00:33","modified_gmt":"2016-09-19T15:00:33","slug":"fort-wainwright-soldier-earns-spirit-of-service-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/fort-wainwright-soldier-earns-spirit-of-service-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Wainwright soldier earns Spirit of Service award"},"content":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS \u2014<\/strong> Cpl. Bryce Wolford joined the Army to serve his country, but it was his service to his community that earned him national recognition early in his military career.<\/p>\n

Wolford recently received the Spirit of Service Award from the American Legion. The 25-year-old intelligence analyst at Fort Wainwright accepted the award with members of the three other armed services on Sept. 1 at the group\u2019s annual convention in Cincinnati.<\/p>\n

Wolford is originally from Redmond in central Oregon, reported the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (http:\/\/bit.ly\/2cVkmGH). He enlisted in the Army two years ago after earning a bachelor\u2019s degree in psychology and justice. He was assigned to Fort Wainwright as his first duty post.<\/p>\n

He approaches community service similar to how he approaches national service in the military.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of really good opportunities in my life,\u201d he said recently after returning from Cincinnati. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t be who I am or where I am if hadn\u2019t had some really great privileges just from being an American.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Army encourages service members to volunteer in their community, but few put in as many hours as Wolford. He\u2019s helped raise money for the Red Cross, coached soccer for 7- to 8-year-olds and he drives a van for the Soldiers Against Drunk Driving program. He and his wife each mentor children through the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.<\/p>\n

Labor Day weekend was especially busy for Wolford\u2019s volunteer commitments. Because of the long weekend, there was more SADD work to be done and he also spent a few hours with his \u201clittle\u201d from Big Brothers Big Sisters. In all, he volunteered about 20 hours during the long weekend.<\/p>\n

Wolford described the experience of receiving the Spirit of Service award as \u201chumbling.\u201d The American Legion convention typically attracts about 9,000 people and was a campaign stop for both major U.S. presidential candidates this year.<\/p>\n

A highlight of the convention for Wolford was meeting Hershel Woodrow \u201cWoody\u201d Williams, the last living World War II Medal of Honor recipient. Wolford enjoyed meeting veterans at the convention, but found it a bit disorientating to be congratulated on the award by World War II and Vietnam War veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere I am, I\u2019ve been in the Army just over two years, I haven\u2019t done anything super exciting, I haven\u2019t deployed. For the most part, I sit at a computer. I do a lot of work, but a lot of times, it feels like your work doesn\u2019t have a big impact,\u201d he said. \u201cAll these guys are like, \u2018Oh my God, thank you for your service,\u2019 and I\u2019m like, \u2018What are you doing thanking me? Thank you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolford is proud to be in the Army, but his ambitions are to one day work in law enforcement, ideally the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He describes his interest in the FBI as a fascination with a childhood game that he kept into adulthood.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it kind of never left me. I still like the idea of cops and robbers,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to grow up to be the good guy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS \u2014 Cpl. Bryce Wolford joined the Army to serve his country, but it was his service to his community that earned him national recognition early in his military career. Wolford recently received the Spirit of Service Award from the American Legion. The 25-year-old intelligence analyst at Fort Wainwright accepted the award with members of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":24872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-24871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24871"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=24871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}