Mac Franklin named LAR of the Year

By Summer BarkleyMay 29, 2012

Mac Franklin named LAR of the Year
William H. Rutherford, deputy to the commander, 401st Army Field Support Brigade, presents the Linda J. Villar LAR of the Year award to Mac Franklin, a Sustainment LAR supporting the 172nd Brigade Combat Team, during an awards ceremony at Bagram Airf... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan--Mac Franklin received the 2011 Linda J. Villar Logistics Assistance Representative of the Year award during a ceremony at the AFSBn-Bagram, 401st Army Field Support Brigade headquarters May 23.

Franklin, a logistics management specialist assigned to the 405th AFSB in Kaiserslauten, Germany, is deployed as a Sustainment LAR with the 172nd Brigade Logistics Support Team. He has been a LAR since 2003 and has deployed six previous times to Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I didn't' even know about it [being nominated for LAR of the Year] until I was selected," Franklin said. "It's a pretty big honor whey your commander picks you and says this is the person I want to send forward. There are a lot of great LARS in ASC [Army Sustainment Command]."

Franklin said one of the greatest rewards as a LAR is to "meet a Soldier you had a desk-side training with years back and he comes up and asks if you remember him and tells you your training 'made me a hero'."

His advice to new LARS is to "pick your mentors well, develop comradeship with the supported unit and focus on what you do to support the Soldiers."

The Linda J. Villar Logistics Assistance Representative of the Year award is named in honor of a LAR who was killed during an insurgent attack at Camp Liberty, Iraq on June 3, 2005.

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