(WJBF) – For Bernadette Phillips, her time serving her country was all about taking care of others.
“I served this Army for thirty years,” she said. “I was a 42 Alpha, which is a human resource specialist. So what that is, is basically taking care of soldiers and their family members, and I also deployed. I served in every staff job, as well as every leadership job. Up from a Drill Sergeant, all the way to a brigade level, Command Sergeant Major, in my 30 year tenure.”
Once Bernadette started serving, she realized that this was her purpose.
“For me, when I first came in, I was thinking about how I was committed to the military and about how I wanted to serve and serve my country, how I wanted to be a good student to the people around me, but after I got in, and I started serving, I started thinking that it’s not about me any more, but about others and about having that connection with the people around me, so that became a milestone in my career and became the purpose of my career, taking care of soldiers and their families, making sure that not only are they taken care of but the people around them was taken care of, and also bringing people up behind me, so that was my most important journey that I did in my 30 years.”
Phillips isn’t the only one in her family to serve.
“My father was in the marines, he served three times in Vietnam, so of course being in a household with a marine every day kind of made me say ‘Hey, when I get out of high school I don’t really want to go to college, I want to go straight in to the Marine Corps, but somehow I ended up joining the Army, and I loved it every day.”
Phillips work isn’t done, and she’s still helping others to this day.
“So out at Fort Gordon, I work at a place called DPTMS and we do the operations for Fort Gordon. Most of what I do is making sure the soldiers are trained and going out there to honor the military funeral honors, and any type of ceremony that they have on the installation of off the installation I support, so doing that every day and also in the community just volunteering down at the DAV, down at the VA, down at any type of volunteer service that they need me for. I like to go back to Maya Angelo because she always talks about that people will forget what you say, people forget what you did, but they’ll never forget the way you make them feel, so that’s what I get up and do each and every day.”
When Phillips found out she was receiving the Salute to Service Award, she was humble.
“I don’t ever look for reward but when I do get them I’m like ‘oh thank you,’ someone seeing exactly what I’ve done and said ‘you don’t see it but someone else is seeing it.’ I just want to say thank you and a big shout out to my mother, she’s definitely been a huge inspiration, her and my grandmother making sure that I became a better me each and every day, and continue to put in me as I put in you and we will be great. I would not be able to do this without the people in my life. I feel like God is always first and then my family is next, so it wouldn’t be possible for me to be me if I couldn’t have those two things in my life. So thank you again, thank you for always believing in me and pushing me to be the best version of me each and every day.”
WJBF’s Brandon Dawson thanked Bernadette for the special interview. Bernadette is a fan of the “Your Hometown Roadtrip” show and has an invite to be a guest taste tester!
If there’s someone you’d like to nominate for the Salute to Service award, you can fill out the form here.
