Warrior of the Week: Staff Sgt. Emily Wilczek

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Rachel Waller
  • 319th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
GRAND FORKS AIR FORCE BASE, N.D. --  Staff Sgt. Emily Wilczek, 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron aerospace ground equipment quality assurance inspector, was discovered in a dumpster outside of Auto Skills by Col. Don Shaffer, 319th Air Refueling Wing commander, Col. Tammy Knierim, 319th Mission Support Group commander, and several others during a facilities tour.

The 26-year-old was dumpster diving for a usable set of tires to give to one of her Airmen.

"It was embarrassing," said Sergeant Wilczek. "At first, I felt like I was in trouble because of who was standing around me. Then I was worried if it would be appropriate to salute from the dumpster."

The self proclaimed dumpster diver said her dad got her started on dumpster diving when she was 5 years old.

"I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Montana," recalled Sergeant Wilczek. "My family didn't have a lot of money growing up but sometimes people would throw away good car parts and other good stuff that we could use."

Throughout Sergeant Wilczek's life, she said she continued to dumpster dive.

"Dumpster diving became a way of life for me, I even did it while deployed." said Sergeant Wilczek. "I would go through the scrap metal pile to find parts to fix equipment. Sometimes there would be usable pieces on parts that were broken that we needed so we would take off those pieces and fixed what we needed. It was better than waiting for two or three weeks for the new part to come in."

Sergeant Wilczek has been in the Air Force for eight years.

"I knew I was going to join the Air Force when I was a sophomore in high school because I knew I didn't want to go to college but I also didn't want to work at Wal-Mart," said Sergeant Wilczek.

Sergeant Wilczek plans to make a career out of the Air Force.

"I am hoping to make technical sergeant next year," said Sergeant Wilczek.

When Sergeant Wilczek isn't dumpster diving, she said she spends her free time working on her house.