Myself and all of us at the New Santa Ana blog would like to pass along a hearty congratulations to Chief Paul Walters and the Santa Ana Police Department on being named one of the winners of the Secretary of Defense Freedom Award for the year 2009.

As you may remember in a post written by me on June 25th I announced that the department had been named a finalist for the prestigious award.  Chief Walters received the good news from the folks in Washington D.C. yesterday letting him know that he and the department had won.

As I stated in my June 25th post, the award is the U.S. Government’s highest recognition given to employers who go above and beyond the call of duty when supporting employees and their families while the employee is serving in the military.

Chief Walters let the terrific men and women of his department know of this tremendous honor via email yesterday.  I too received a copy of the Chief’s email and would like to share it with all of you:

From: Walters, Paul
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:24 PM
Subject: Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award 2009
Importance: High

To All Employees:

I am so very pleased to announce that the Santa Ana Police Department is one of 15 employers nationwide to receive the Secretary of Defense Freedom Award for 2009. I just received telephone notification today from Washington DC and we are in the process of working out the details of this prestigious national award.

The Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award is the highest recognition given to employers for support of their employees who also serve in the National Guard and Reserve.

The 15 recipients for 2009 were selected from the nearly 3,200 employers nominated for the Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award, the U.S. government’s highest recognition for efforts made in the civilian lives of America’s citizen-service members which make up roughly half of the nation’s armed forces.

Thanks so much to all of you that supported our National Guard and Reserve employees and their families. It is truly because of your tremendous commitment and efforts that we were able to receive this national recognition for the department.

Sincerely,

Paul M Walters

Chief of Police

This is a tremendous honor for our police department and we should all be very proud of their efforts.  I called Chief Walters yesterday to offer my personal congratulations and he told me that he and others will be flying back to the nations capital sometime in early September to receive the award on behalf of the department.

If you would like to learn more about this program or the award you can do so by clicking here.

Once again from the New Santa Ana blog family to the men and women in blue, congratulations and keep up the good work.

UPDATE: Click here to read the Orange County Register’s article about this topic.