Wisconsin Soldier Answers the Call
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This cross-post from AFSCME profiles Sgt. 1st Class Chet Millard, one of hundreds of AFSCME members serving their country in the active military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Millard was on the Oct. 12 cover of Time magazine.
Every day, public service workers answer the call of duty. Many—police officers, firefighters and corrections officers, for example—take enormous risks to save lives.
Others keep our roads in good repair, make sure our children arrive safely at school and perform back-breaking work caring for the sick and disabled.
Others, like the hundreds of AFSCME members who have been placed on active military duty since 2001, have gone an extra mile by serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or in the United States.
Sgt. 1st Class Chet Millard is one of these dedicated public service workers. Employed as a corrections officer at the Jackson Correctional Institution in Black River Falls and a member of Local 219 (Council 24), the 32-year-old commander of Wisconsin National Guard’s 951st Engineer Company has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003.
What Drives You to This Dream?
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Earlier this month, Timothy Ryan, Asia/Europe director of the Solidarity Center, traveled to Afghanistan and spoke with Farida Nekzad, managing editor and deputy director of Pajhwok Afghan News and vice president of the South Asia Media Commission. A champion of press freedom and women’s rights in Afghanistan, Nekzad works under tremendous pressure at a time when women journalists in her country are being threatened and killed for their reporting. In this cross-post from the Solidarity Center website, Nekzad shows she is committed to staying in her country and continuing her work.
“What drives you to this dream?” That was the question I asked Farida Nekzad, a courageous woman pursuing her journalism career in an increasingly dangerous Afghanistan. I met Farida in Kabul, where the Solidarity Center was conducting a program with print, TV and radio journalists and their unions. We were trying to pull together disparate media outlets and worker organizations for a common purpose: to establish press clubs in Afghanistan.
The media mirrors the geographic, ethnic and political fragmentation of Afghanistan society and politics. Over the past few years, the Solidarity Center had worked with Afghan union partners and the International Federation of Journalists—which represents 600,000 members worldwide—to find ways to help build a national labor organization.
