By: Gordon Williams, Northwest Region Volunteer

For most Red Cross workers, deployment means a couple of weeks of sheltering victims of fire, flood, or some other disaster. For Red Cross staffer Emily Woodford, deployment meant four-and-a-half months at a U.S. military base in Poland. Her mission was to boost troop morale and to field requests for emergency help for service members during times of family crisis.

She found the work deeply satisfying and found the soldiers she served grateful for her efforts.

“The command was wonderful to us,” she said. “They treated us as if we were part of their organization.”

On a personal level, Woodford says the experience gave her a broader view of the world.

“It was incredibly impactful,” Woodford said.

Mostly, the American Red Cross operates within the U.S. The American Red Cross does send workers to foreign disasters, but that doesn't happen often. Most workers never leave the United States. But the Red Cross Service to Armed Forces (SAF) program is a different sort of operation.

SAF provides all manner of assistance to members of the military—active and retired—and their families. Red Cross volunteers help service members cope with the rigors of military life. The SAF Hero Care Network helps military families navigate crises, and hundreds of SAF volunteers work at the Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis McChord near Tacoma. Beyond all that, SAF sends workers to overseas military bases, including the one where Woodford served.

Woodford says the Red Cross now supports U.S. military bases in 25 overseas locations: Poland for one, but also Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Kuwait, Iraq and Djibouti. Normal duty tour is anywhere from four and a half to six months. Workers volunteer for the overseas assignment, but can’t specify where they want to be sent.

“They choose for you,” Emily said. “I found out three weeks before I deployed where I was going. Until then I had no idea what to pack."

However, Emily said, the Red Cross is increasing efforts to allow people to choose their overseas destinations in cases like this. 

To be chosen, Red Cross volunteers or staff need to obtain security clearance and pass a military physical exam. Once chosen, they undergo military training, so they understand how to function on a military base. The base where Woodford was stationed was a U.S. Army facility. There were 1,800 service members on base there to support NATO units in the region and to operate Patriot missile batteries.

Some U.S. units stationed in Poland are housed on Polish military bases. The unit Woodford was with was entirely U.S. Army operating under the command of the 10th U.S. Army Mountain division.

The primary mission for Woodford, and a Red Cross co-worker, was to keep troop morale high. Toward that end, she said, “We did lots of really cool stuff.”

They taught such subjects as painting and yoga, had movie and spa nights, and ran tournaments in such sports as volleyball and cornhole.

Woodford said she knew she was making an impact when the base executive officer showed up for training in tie-dying.

“He had never tried it before and he was excited about learning to do it,” Woodford said.

She and her colleagues were prepared to handle emergency episodes but, thankfully, relatively few arose.

“We only had 10 or so Hero Care Network cases,” she said.

Woodford got to meet U.S. military leaders who paid duty calls on the base. Among the visitors was General Randy George, chief of staff of the U.S. Army. Woodford says she spent a full day hosting General George’s wife.

Much of her work simply involved being present and having a friendly word for soldiers who were in a strange country, far from home.

“It was just saying hi to someone,” she said. “Asking them how they were, showing them a friendly face, just getting someone to smile."

In turn, Woodford found the soldiers welcoming and deeply appreciative of all the Red Cross was doing.

“Everyone was respectful to us,” she said. “They knew we were there to support them, and they let us know they considered our work important."

Woodford is still a relative newcomer to the Red Cross, signing up as a volunteer in March of 2021. She was studying for a degree in social work and needed an internship to gain on-the-job experience. Her college advisor said the Red Cross might offer just what she was looking for. Among her first Red Cross jobs was as a member of a Disaster Action Team (DAT), the Red Cross teams that respond to disasters. When she needed more hours as an intern, she joined SAF.

SAF was a natural fit for Woodford: a military wife twice over. Her first husband was in the Navy, and her current husband Zachery is in the Army. Once in SAF she became a caseworker and then a paid Red Cross staffer.

Now that she is back in the U.S. she's working on overseas outreach, resiliency training and Hero Care casework for SAF. She is what the Red Cross calls  a mobile employee. Being mobile means she can be asked at almost any time to deploy to a distant location, either in the U.S. or overseas.

”I have to be ready to go at a call,” she said.