Photo By 1st Lt. Brianne Roudebush | Rear Admiral James R. McNeal, commander of the Navy Reserve Naval Expeditionary...... read more read more
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – On Aug. 24, a small room at the San Diego Convention Center is bustling with activity and chatter: a photographer prepares his camera while men in suits greet guests, pass out name tags and make introductions. In the next room over, an awards banquet awaits.
Exuding confidence and dressed to the nines in his Army dress uniform, Sgt. Deven Ortiz walks in flanked by his family. Ortiz, an engineer with 216th Engineer Mobile Augmentation Company and a member the California National Guard Counterdrug Task Force, is set to receive the National Defense Industrial Association San Diego Chapter’s Twice A Citizen Award.
The award recognizes National Guard and Reserve service members who demonstrate outstanding performance in both their military and civilian capacities.
“I’ve undoubtedly seen a lot of wonderful write-ups of really great people but I have to tell you, I’ve never seen a nomination package like the one for our next awardee,” Gar Wright, the NDIA Twice A Citizen committee chair, said during the award presentation. “There are way too many contributions to squeeze into a simple citation… the bottom line is: in a field of great performance, his great performance stood ahead.”
As the 578th Brigade Engineer Battalion’s Soldier of the Year, Ortiz embodies excellence. The Soldier of the Year competition includes fitness tests, weapons qualifications, land navigation, radio communication, a ruck march, drill and ceremony and both written and oral tests. Ortiz not only won, he dominated the competition, scoring 22 percent higher than the Soldier in second place.
In addition to his leadership position with the engineer company supervising five Soldiers, Ortiz has been a member of CDTF since 2010. Currently, he is a sensor operator in the Joint Harbor Operations Center is San Diego.
“In this role, he provides excellent operational support to the Coast Guard and their cooperative law enforcement missions between state, local and federal agencies,” Wright said.
Along with his team – a joint effort led by the Coast Guard – his actions are directly responsible for the apprehension of drug smugglers, the seizures of illegal drugs and stolen assets, and the development of key intelligence that lead to the dismantlement of an illegal drug ring, Wright said.
Most recently, Ortiz aided in a successful search and rescue operation. After receiving a radio alert from the spouse of a free diver who had drifted away, Ortiz maintained communications with Coast Guard assets, ensuring their ability to quickly and effectively conduct their search.
“Thanks to SGT Ortiz and his team, a helicopter from Air Station Los Angeles was able to ultimately recover the diver approximately four miles from his vessel and return him safely to a grateful family,” Wright said.
Sitting in the audience listening to the list of his accomplishments, his mother beams while his sisters turn to each other, saying “I never knew he did all that.”
“Every night Ortiz is on the radio, coordinating with the Coast Guard, Border Patrol and the Office of Air and Marine to converge and interdict [suspicious and illegal activity],” Maj. Justin Goldman, the CDTF San Diego district commander, said. “It truly is a joint interagency mission and he has excelled at it.”
“The entire JHOC crew have really put together a skillset,” Goldman continued. “That’s why they are so valuable to the Coast Guard.”
Goldman explained that the JHOC mission was eliminated for four months in 2015 due to budget constraints. During that time, the Coast Guard saw a huge spike in narcotics trafficking. The mission was reinstated January 2016 and the team made an immediate impact; they made a dozen detections in the first few weeks, Goldman said.
Receiving the Twice A Citizen award lets Ortiz know “that what [he] is doing is making an impact and that people value his contribution as a team member,” Goldman said.
Ortiz, who dedicates his off-duty hours teaching self-defense and healthy lifestyles to youth, said that “the award means a tremendous amount.”
“It makes me feel even more recharged about what I do,” he said. “To be recognized on a grand scale like this in front of all these people, is awesome. It’s a direct reflection of my chain of command, my family, and I couldn’t do it without my team – it represents all of us. I was the awardee today but all of us played a part in it.”
| Date Taken: | 08.24.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 09.08.2016 15:33 |
| Story ID: | 209086 |
| Location: | SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 547 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Twice A Citizen: an award well-deserved, by 1LT Brianne Roudebush, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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