SUNNY POINT, N.C. - Another year of annual training begins for the 514th Military Police Company, but this year's annual training is not like any other.
This year, the Soldiers participate in an exercise designed to improve communication and coordination with state and federal partners in case of a major disaster in an exercise dubbed Operation Vigilant Seahawk.
Among those Soldiers is Pvt. Noel Weeks, who joined the North Carolina National Guard in 2015.
This this year is her first time experiencing annual training and initially she was nervous and feeling intimidated.
"I was assigned the Tactical Operations Center and was not familiar with the equipment I was assigned to work with," Weeks said. "I soon became familiar with it and was comfortable enough to manage the equipment on my own and show others how to use it."
Operation Vigilant Sea Hawk is a two-week regional homeland security exercise with disaster response missions designed to test and improve communication and the response of the North Carolina National Guard and partners within the state and federal agencies.
Weeks is the first in her immediate family to join the military. "My family is really patriotic, with a grandfather and uncle who were in the military; I joined because I really wanted to deploy in order to serve my country."
Her close family bond helped her to integrate into her unit. She said that her family values taught her to put others first. Her family is proud of her military service and her mom cried at her enlistment ceremony.
"In the TOC I work on keeping communications with battalion, making sure everything is running well," said Weeks. "I also keep logs of who's coming on base and who's going off, everything like that."
On the civilian side, Weeks is a volunteer EMT who wishes to start her own sports medicine practice that conducts home visits. Her motivation? Her father, who suffers from severe back pain and has to travel one hour each way for therapy that leaves him feeling worse after all the traveling.
Over the past few days of Operation Vigilant Seahawk, Weeks has learned one of the most important lessons - teamwork.
"The biggest lesson I have learned from this annual training is to work as a team and not to let my frustrations get in the way of my work ethic," Weeks said.