Command Sgt. Maj. Deborah Collins remembers meeting Maj. Gen. William Wofford during the summer of 1976, just days after receiving her first assignment with the Arkansas Army National Guard's 217th Maintenance Battalion.
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Wofford, then a command sergeant major, chastised then-Pvt. Collins for losing the rest of her convoy on the drive from Russellville to Fort Chaffee.
"That's how I started out -- with one Sgt. Maj. Wofford," Collins said at her retirement ceremony Saturday afternoon. "Some things never change."
Almost three decades later, Collins found herself working alongside Wofford as senior enlisted leader, the state's highest-ranking noncommissioned officer, a position she held for more than six years.
During her retirement ceremony in front of a standing-room-only crowd, Wofford commended Collins on her 39 years of service.
"I'm proud to call her my battle buddy, my wing man; someone who has shared with me the thrill of greeting our soldiers and airmen when they return from deployment and the sorrow of laying one of our fallen comrades down to rest," Wofford said. "Sergeant Major, I will tell you today: You made a difference."
Collins, 57, was born in Booneville and graduated from Russellville High School in 1974. She enlisted in the Arkansas Army National Guard on July 30, 1975 -- exactly 39 years before her official retirement.
Before being named the state's command sergeant major in 2003 and the senior enlisted leader in 2008, she took on a variety of positions in Arkansas and overseas. She retired from full-time employment with the Guard in 2011 and said her final goodbyes as an enlisted officer Saturday.
As the state's first senior enlisted leader for both Army and Air Guardsmen, Collins served in an advisory role to the Guard command and acted as the link between Wofford's team and noncommissioned officers in the field.
"For those of us who have come to rely on her leadership and commitment, this is going to be a tough day for the Arkansas National Guard," Wofford said.
A few hundred people packed into the auditorium in Militia Hall at Camp Robinson to watch what Wofford called a "bittersweet" retirement. Enlisted soldiers and airmen, active and retired military leaders, and Collins' family and friends laughed -- and cried -- as Collins received awards and personal tokens of gratitude, including letters from President Barack Obama and U.S. Army Gen. Frank Grass.
They watched as photos popped on screen of Collins as a baby, in high school and in uniform in the 1970s, '80s, '90s and 2000s.
"Thirty-nine years and 17 uniforms later, here we are," Collins said, prompting laughs.
She thanked her family -- namely her husband, Mike, and son, Brent -- and gave a final piece of advice to enlisted Guardsmen.
"Know today that you, too, can be anything that you want to be, sometimes in spite of those who don't want you to succeed," she said. "You must give your best to whatever job you do, and you must do it with integrity, to standard, and always with the welfare of your soldiers and airmen in mind. If you use those things as your guide, you can achieve any goal."
Metro on 08/03/2014