Captain gets his soldiers involved in volunteering

From military discounts offered at many businesses to annual events like the Military Appreciation Banquet, Fairbanks residents make it clear that they like having the military around and will do just about anything to show their support.

With a regular deployment schedule and heavy training, it's less common for soldiers to show their appreciation for their host town, but Capt. Justino Lopez has been making a point of getting his soldiers involved in the community since their most recent deployment.

Lopez, the son of a soldier, knew he always wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and be a soldier as his family traveled the world from Germany to Korea.

After graduating from Fort Valley State University in Georgia, he immediately joined the Army. Following stints in Korea and Fort Benning, he was among the first group of soldiers in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Lopez has been an active volunteer since high school, but he said he felt he could do more to encourage others to volunteer after his fourth deployment to Iraq ended last year and he had command of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Field Artillery in Alaska.

"It's like a two-way street," he said. "You've got a community that supports the military, and to me it's only right to support them back," he said.

Lopez lets the more than 80 soldiers under his command know about upcoming volunteer activities at early morning formations. Participation is completely voluntary, and between 10-15 soldiers show up for each event, he said.

Lopez first got a group of soldiers to volunteer last November when they helped pack food for the Fairbanks Rescue Mission just ahead of Thanksgiving. They followed the next month by showing children at the Boys and Girls Club some of the basic physical training Army soldiers go through.

That month, they also volunteered with Santa's Clearinghouse and held a battery toy drive that brought in a massive stack of toys about five feet high and five feet wide.

This year, they've been just as active, providing crowd control at the start of the Yukon Quest in February and helping local Boy Scouts with cold weather training. They spent a day cleaning up the side of a highway.

"We try do about one a month, squeezing it in where we can," Lopez said. "The neat thing is that soldiers are starting to come to me with events."

Even one soldier who couldn't make it to the highway clean up told Lopez he intended to go clean up a portion of the road on his own time. And Lopez isn't shy about encouraging other units to get in the spirit of volunteering.

"I think the bottom line is that I encourage other companies to go out and support the community and give back to the community what they've given to us," he said.