Linda Yehle volunteers full time with the Red Cross at Fort Gordon as its station chairwoman.

"I always tell my volunteers during orientation that I'm one of these people who will fill whatever time I have," she said. "I don't feel that by coming in every day that I'm not getting as much done at home. If I stayed at home all day, I would do other things and not really get around to doing much housework until late anyway."

Mrs. Yehle has been volunteering for the Fort Gordon Red Cross Station at Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center since 2000. She became a Red Cross volunteer at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., when her husband, retired Lt. Col. Michael Yehle, was stationed there 14 years ago.

Her duties as station chairwoman include managing volunteers, providing orientation for new volunteers, ensuring that volunteers complete what the medical center requires of them and filling in when the station manager is deployed.

She provides companionship for the volunteers and staffers.

"If someone needs to come in and just talk, we talk," she said. "I don't mind."

She began volunteering full time in 2001.

"I'm one of those people that, if I say I'm going to take on that job, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability in whatever time it takes," Mrs. Yehle said. "So, I find myself here every day of the week almost."

She volunteers at the Fort Gordon Service Club and the Fort Gordon Health Services Auxiliary, too.

"I consider myself a professional volunteer," she said. "I do whatever I can to help."

In 2003, she received the President's Volunteer Service Award for having more than 4,000 hours of volunteer service.

"I enjoy every bit of it," she said. "So, if you're a people person like I am, then volunteering is the thing to do."