Cotton Valley Chief of Police Terry Brown has hired “four or five National Guard and Reserve members during my 12 years as chief, and they are excellent. They’re trained when they come here, they know how to do a lot of things.”
On Thursday, Brown earned special recognition from the Department of Defense through a Patriot Award, an honor handed to employers who support members of the guard and reserves when they are called to active duty.
“Thank you for taking care of our men and women in service,” Jim Hill, who made the Patriot Award presentation, said. Hill is area chair for the Northwest Louisiana Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, the organization that hands out the coveted award.
Hill, a Shreveport attorney who volunteers to travel the area making the presentations, retired after 30 years in the Judge Advocate General’s Corp.
Brown was nominated by one of his former officers, Ricky Hart, a sergeant in the 844th Engineer Company of the La. National Guard.
“This is not an automatic nomination,” Hill told Brown.