Fort Bragg names Family of the Year, lights Christmas Tree

Fort Bragg’s latest Family of the Year is continually juggling service to their nation and their community.

Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Clark and his wife, Tracie Clark, are first and foremost an Army family — veterans of four deployments and moves from Fort Bragg to Alaska to Kentucky and back to North Carolina.

They are also small business owners, running Triple E Medical Solutions; coaches, spending 10 months out of each year teaching basketball and soccer at the Stoney Point Recreation Center; and volunteers, working with several community organizations.

On Thursday, Fort Bragg honored the Clark family, which also includes 18-year-old Dreshon, 12-year-old Demaree, 10-year-old Dezariyah, 7-year-old Devrae and 2-year-old Damir.

After local organizations showered them with gifts, the family switched the lights on for the Fort Bragg Christmas Tree during the annual start of the holidays event at the Main Post Parade Field.

“It’s a great honor and it’s a privilege,” said Clark, who serves with the 307th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

Clark and his wife said the family doesn’t seek recognition.

“We do what we normally do,” he said.

But Tracie said she hopes the honor will encourage others to get out into their communities.

“We tend to hide behind each other,” she said of military families.

The Clarks learned the importance of giving back to their communities at a young age.

They said they have tried to encourage their children to follow in those footsteps. After Hurricane Matthew struck the region in 2016, they carried the children to nearby shelters to deliver supplies.

Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, the commanding general of Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps, said families such as the Clarks are an important part of what sets Fort Bragg apart.

The Army asks soldiers to do what they’re told. And they expect families to take care of their households, he said. But a community is blessed when there are families who go above and beyond.

The Clarks are one such family, as are the 30 other families who were nominated for the honor of Family of the Year.

In the past year, volunteers – largely from families – saved Fort Bragg about $16 million through various efforts across post, Townsend said.

“You represent the best of our community,” he said.

Townsend attended the post’s annual holiday celebration for the first time.

Last year, Townsend was deployed along with hundreds of paratroopers from the Corps serving in Iraq, Kuwait and Syria while helping to lead the fight against Isis. The year before, he was away on Army business.

Those absences made this year’s celebration, which was expected to draw several thousand people, all the more special.

Townsend said families are an important part of the Army. And over the past 16 years of war, many families have marked the holidays with their soldiers away from home.

He said he has seen soldiers celebrate the holidays in foxholes, bunkers and guard towers, with scraggly trees decorated with lights and Christmas cards.

Those deployed this year include at least one other soldier whose family was nominated for Family of the Year. Others spend much of the previous year deployed.

Townsend asked that the community remembers the thousands of Fort Bragg soldiers serving in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and those “manning the nation’s walls at night to keep us safe.”

The 31 nominations for Family of the Year were made by each soldiers’ units and chains of command.

Cathy Mansfield, of Army Community Services, said a panel selected six finalists for the honor before a second panel decided on the winning family.

Each family considered was asked to describe themselves in one word.

The Clark family selected “relentless.”

“Although we lead a busy life, we never let that stop us,” the family wrote. “Regardless of what storm may come about, we are there pushing through as a unit, a team, a well-oiled machine.”

Military editor Drew Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3567.