COLORADO SPRINGS — Bill Reed was there for every homecoming ceremony, hugging soldiers and sharing in joy.
He also was there for every departure, often passing out tissues to tearful spouses as soldiers headed to war.
Few gave thought to how well he did his job managing Fort Carson’s Special Events Center until the Vietnam veteran died last year.
But now, the retired master sergeant who spent 48 years working with troops will be remembered by everyone who sets foot in the facility at the center of the post, which on Friday was renamed the Bill Reed Special Events Center.
“He will forever be smiling down on this place,” Col. Joel Hamilton declared in a ceremony to celebrate the center’s new name.
Reed served two tours in Vietnam and earned the Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart for valor shown and wounds suffered. After 20 years in uniform, he retired to a civilian job at Fort Carson, where he did much more than manage a cavernous gymnasium until his death on June 11, 2014.
“His call to action — ‘What have you done for your soldiers today’ — is something he told me every time he saw me,” said Sgt. Maj. of the Army Dan Dailey, the service’s top enlisted man who flew in from the Pentagon to honor his mentor Reed.
Reed was a boxer with the shoulders and biceps to show for his skill. He took the post’s athletes under his wing, helping establish the World Class Athlete Program, which has sent 14 Fort Carson soldiers to the Olympic Games since 2008.
“He gave you the hard truth, and that’s what made it real,” said the program’s boxing coach, Charles Leverette. “He was a father figure to me.”
When he wasn’t coaching soldiers, Reed was coaching their children. Some of it was formal as he led youth teams. Much of it was informal as Reed opened the gym he managed to the children of deployed troops on the post.
“Moms dropped their kids off at the Special Events Center for a day of learning basketball, and they would be better kids by the end of the day,” said Dailey, who served at Fort Carson for more than a decade.
Wally Wininger, the post’s senior civilian worker, said Reed wanted to fill in for soldiers who were overseas.
“He was a surrogate father while the dads were deployed,” Wininger said.
His care for children was evident at the hundreds of welcome and farewell ceremonies for soldiers held at the gym since 9/11.
As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ground on, Reed went to greater and greater lengths to care for kids, bringing in bounce houses and movies to entertain children during the frequently long waits for soldiers to leave or come home.
When little ones cried, Reed was often spotted scooping them up for a hug.
“He never lost that passion for taking care of soldiers and families,” his daughter Hope Kennedy said.
A large bronze plaque will be mounted at the Special Events Center.
