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Hamburg Woman Nominee for Military Spouse Award

Honoring Military Families & Fallen Soldiers

HAMBURG, N.Y. — It's a marriage of love, devotion, and duty for Samantha Gomolka and her husband Michael who is a Chief Warrant Officer as a National Guard Special operations soldier. 

In their Hamburg home they have been blessed with three children. That is all as Michael has been deployed numerous times overseas in their 14 years together. Samantha covered the home-front while starting her career as a physician's assistant. 

"When there's a deployment the soldier is the one who's away but the family is left still going through the day to day activities...you're just doing it with that big hole. You know they're challenging and they're hard and I think I've grown as a spouse from you know the young wife before we had children to a new mom," said Samantha.

To honor her shared sense of duty and sacrifice with her husband, Samantha has been nominated for the 2019 Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year Award. 

The nomination for Samantha also owes to her efforts with her husband to start the Project 33 charity to honor fallen special operations soldiers. It features a Memorial Day event as more than 70 runners proceed through seven miles of Hamburg carrying American and POW flags. She says her husband came up with the idea to honor his friends and colleagues who have been killed in action since 9/11.

You can vote for Samantha Gomolka in the first round of voting here through Tuesday at noon. A final round of voting is set for early March with the winner announced in early May.    

And if Gomolka would win this Military Spouse honor with votes from the public at large and military families, she has her own stated mission stressing child care, family and service. 

"To have a platform to speak to the military issues that still affect the families. You know...what's interesting about this conflict is that it's been going on for so long...that it's not always in the forefront of our minds...that soldiers are still sacrificing and families are as well."

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