Jackson VA celebrates employee’s 55 years of service
Employees at the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center (GVSMVAMC) celebrated a combined 500 years of service during a virtual ceremony held on Sep. 28. During the ceremony, the facility’s longest tenured employee celebrated 55 years of service to the Federal government and his 85th birthday.
Hematologist Dr. Bernard Dreiling, a long-time Jackson VA employee, was honored during the ceremony for his more than five decades of dedicated service to the federal government.
“I’ve taught a lot, and I’ve learned a lot,” Dreiling said about his more than half century of working as a hematologist.
Dreiling began his VA career in September 1967. Dreiling, a Kansas native, served several years in Boston, Massachusetts and St. Louis, Missouri before making his way to Mississippi in 1969.
“I originally only planned to be in Mississippi for only a year because I had never been south of St. Louis before. The University of Mississippi Medical Center was opening a new hematology department and my good friend asked me to join him and the rest is history,” said Dreiling.
Dreiling, identified in the 2001 medical school yearbook, The Medic, as “Kansas’ Gift to Mississippi” plans to continue to serve our nation’s heroes. When asked if he had big plans to celebrate his 55 years of service and 85th birthday, he said, “I’m going to get one of my favorite meals–scallops and shrimp.”