Top USO Honor Goes to Vice Chief, Wife

By Terri Moon Cronk

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2014 – Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Navy Adm. James A. "Sandy" Winnefeld Jr. and his wife, Mary, were honored yesterday with the USO’s Distinguished Service Award, marking the first time a military leader and his spouse were handed the honor.

The USO of Metropolitan New York gave the award to the Winnefelds as the city hosted the 53rd Armed Forces Gala & Gold Medal Dinner. The vice chairman said he and his wife were honored to accept an award from an organization they admire and respect.

“We should be awarding [members of the USO] for the things that you do each and every day,” he said.

Winnefeld recognized the military family members in the audience and particularly Gold Star mothers, calling the military a family business.

The vice chairman singled out his wife for her decades of work on behalf of the military community.

“I’m fairly certain we are here tonight primarily because of her,” he said.

Mary Winnefeld Dedicated to Military Causes

Mary Winnefeld has helped military families for 30 years by cooking meals at Fisher Houses, comforting thousands of newly deployed sailors’ families shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, and remains a strong advocate of wounded warrior care, their caregivers, and hiring veterans, the admiral said.

She went “undercover” at the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center as “Aunt Mary” to see, first-hand, how wounded troops and their families were treated there, and her efforts resulted in numerous improvements, Winnefeld said.

“She got up in the middle of the night recently and drove nearly an hour from home to help find and recover a wounded warrior with severe [traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder], whose wife was out of town ...This person had wandered away from his care center. No problem,” the vice chair said.

“She has a heart of gold and I’m so very proud of her,” he said.

Vice Chair Calls USO Members ‘Remarkable’

While the couple has dedicated themselves to helping the “home-team” Metropolitan Washington-Baltimore USO, they’ve traveled on USO tours to visit military men and women around the world with celebrities and major sports figures, including Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning.

“And no matter where we go, we always find the remarkable men and women of the USO,” he added.

“Your remarkable employees and volunteers are always there with a smile in the middle of the night, helping lift the spirits of our people and lighten the load of military service,” he told members of the USO.

Remembering Troops in Combat

The vice chair reminded those attending to remember the U.S. troops “in every time zone across the globe, who are hot, tired and dirty, who are sailors standing the watch on a ship’s bridge or in an engine room, or soldiers or Marines gearing up to go outside the wire, or airmen getting an airplane ready to launch out at some remote desert airfield.”

And to the “amazing millennials” who look after U.S. security, he said, the nation has four simple but solemn obligations, which are the essence of the magic of leading these young men and women:

“We will hold them to high standards. We will only send them into battle for something that really matters to this great nation. We will ensure they always have what they need to do their job,” he said, “And we always will take the best possible care of them.”