Woodstock Man Named Reserve Sailor of the Year

Submitted by Navy Operational Support Center Atlanta

Woodstock, GA -- Operations Specialist 1st Class (EXW) Greg Rikel, a member of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Detachment 802 at Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) Atlanta, was recognized in December as NOSC Atlanta’s Reserve Sailor of the Year.

Rikel, who lives in Woodstock, has been a member of the Navy Reserve since 2005, the Navy Operational Support Center said.

As leading petty officer of his unit’s training and readiness department, he coordinates general military training with the NOSC Atlanta staff.

Senior enlisted members of the unit praised his growth over the past several years. As a petty officer second class, Rikel was a hard worker but stayed in the background, said Chief Yeoman Valerie Wilson, the leading chief petty officer of the supply department in Detachment 802.

“As soon as he made first class, he made a decision,” she said. “He wanted to be out front.”

Since then, Rikel has done everything that anyone could expect of a chief.

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“If we could pin anchors on him, we would,” said Chief Intelligence Specialist Robin Day, the leading chief petty officer of the training and readiness department in Detachment 802.

“There’s an old saying: Grow where you are planted,” Day said. “He exploded.”

Rikel, a Raton, New Mexico, native and graduate of Eastern New Mexico University, runs youth sports leagues as the associate director of recreation at First Baptist Church of Woodstock. He joined the Navy Reserve after being seated next to a recruiter on a flight home from a training project for his church.

At 30 years old, he thought of himself as too old to enlist and didn’t think he had anything to offer, he said. Now, he has been judged to be among the best of 1,300 Navy Reservists assigned to nearly 30 units in Atlanta.

“I think that if you come, and you’re proud to be here – proud to wear this uniform – then you’re here for the right reason,” he said.

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Image via Navy Office of Community Outreach