A year has gone by since Captain Joel Smith and his wife Captain Nikki Slaughter-Smith have sat and laughed together at their kitchen table. They returned home mid-October after serving time in combat zones in the Middle East. Both work a very important mission, keeping our soldiers sound of mind.

“We embed with them, get to know them, build trust and then we provide behavioral services to them,” Capt. Smith said.

That even included having a little fun, as Smith calls it, earning the trust of thousands of soldiers in Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, and Syria as part of the 327th Combat and Operational Stress Control Detachment in the U.S. Army.

“I got to work with a lot of really great people during this deployment, so I look at it like I am getting recognized by this, but really it’s a lot of people,” Capt. Smith said.  

But that’s not all Smith did. He also made sure the unmet needs of some of his units didn’t stay that way. Like making sure they had coffee, and work gloves for medical units, logging on to virtual meetings to help soldiers beyond his physical reach overseas, going above and beyond the soldier’s creed.  

Left surprised, and humbled, as Smith describes, his wife Nikki says, “He’s awesome, I think he likes to just distract from his awesomeness,” on how his astounding work overseas has earned Smith this award.

“He’s very diligent in whatever he does, he is very focused; just generally a dedicated hard working person,” she said.

Hard work they can now sit and reflect on in their patriotic room, surrounded by well wishes and each other, sharing the lesson to serve and not be served.

“Just being humbled by other people’s sacrifices, when you are having a bad day, missing your spouse, missing your family, you just have to look around and think about the other sacrifices people are making,” he said.

That's why Capt. Joel Smith is Your 2020 American Red Cross Military Hero.