Subscribe
YOKOSUKA, Japan -Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka (CFAY) leaders, service members and family members said thank you to Yokosuka ombudsman for their service at an appreciation dinner held Sept. 21.
Adm. Elmo Zumwalt established the Navy ombudsman program 42 years ago asking for volunteers to act as liaisons between family members and commands. Every year on or near Sept. 14, the anniversary of the group’s founding, the Navy takes time to thank those community members who have stepped forward and volunteered their time and energy.
“With my three tours as a command master chief, one of the people I work closely with, especially when deployed is the ombudsman,” said CFAY Command Master Chief Martin King. “They push the information to the families and also push information back to me so I can get it to the captain. These ombudsman work extremely hard, they do incredible work, they don’t get paid, they volunteer for this, and I think that this is pretty incredible. Any recognition we can give them is well deserved.”
This year more than a hundred people from local ombudsman groups and their commands gathered in the CFAY Adm. Arleigh A. Burke Officers’ Club for the official ceremony. CFAY Commanding Officer Capt. David Owen personally thanked the ombudsman for their hard work during the year.
“Over here, we can run into different sorts of challenges because we are in Japan we have the language barrier, the culture barrier, different resources but we work with those things and make them our strengths instead of a weakness” said Brenda Ray, Yokosuka ombudsman coordinator.
Some of the ombudsman are the same ones who help families and commands during the March 11 earthquake and tsunami last year and some ombudsman are new to the area and volunteered after being here only a few months. Ray explained that the diversity of the group helps ombudsman understand what families are dealing with whatever it may be.
The newest ombudsman and the CFAY commanding officer are traditionally chosen to cut the cake. Accompanying Owen this year was USS George Washington (CVN 73) Ombudsman Sharmana Perkins.
“I think that all of us [ombudsman] were happy to get recognized,” said Perkins. “But, for us, this is something we’ve done from the heart, we happy to do it even without an award.”
After the dinner was served, Owen took photos with each of the ombudsman while handing them their certificates of appreciation. The ombudsman also received a bag full of gifts from the community.
| Date Taken: | 09.21.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 09.27.2012 01:05 |
| Story ID: | 95351 |
| Location: | YOKOSUKA, KANAGAWA, JP |
| Web Views: | 50 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, CFAY holds awards dinner for ombudsman, honors service, by Joseph Schmitt, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
LEAVE A COMMENT