Black and White Category Winner – Jonathan Jaskulsky
This is TSgt Andrew Hopp. He's one of those people who commands a room the moment he enters it. We work at one of those units where it's definitely a challenge to find the glamor and bravado the recruiter promised us when we joined. Sure, our conversations are interrupted every half hour or so by the F-16s taking off but at the point where I took this picture, I definitely struggled to feel like what we were doing was important. This day was starting out very much like so many others: paperwork and boredom awaiting. Like the sunshine slapping you in the face through drapes pulled open, TSgt Hopp tore into the office with a gym-rat's caffeine enthusiasm and his smile spread with inexorable contagion. He rattled us out of the murmuring office and took us out, hard-hats, steel-toes and gloves to teach us the grunt work of our job with a patient confidence. Not only did that day result in some of the hardest work and the best stories thus far, but it also grounded us again in the reality of where we were and what we were doing.