Just had dinner last night with a good friend of mine from Missouri. He's with the Missouri Search and Rescue team. Turns out that he was in Ohio with a bunch of the SAR folks from Fairfax, Virginia (the Fairfax Urban SAR Unit). They cut their dog training sessions short after Katrina hit. Half of my buddy's unit deployed immediately (the other half stays back so they can rotate out every ten days). He came east to the Northern Virginia area and brought two of the Fairfax guys with him. Fairfax SAR got sent out a few days ago. He's now heading back to Missouri to hook up with his unit so he can catch the next rotation into New Orleans. The amazing thing that he told me was that every single SAR team in the United States is heading down to Louisiana and Mississippi to help with rescue and relief misisons. Teams from as far away as California are down there. This has NEVER been done before. AND those teams were in place and on the ground in a matter of a couple of days. Gotta love the dedication of these woefully underpaid public servants. Now if only the rest of the federal government can get its act together . . .
JC
JC
