By Curtis Drafton | Veteran Team Leader
For almost 7 full weeks and two weekend relief trips since landfall, we were blessed to assist the people of Wilmington, New Bern, Swansboro, Emerald Isle and Fayetteville, NC after Hurricane Florence.
You learn a lot about humanity in general in an event like this.
You see towns come together and help heal broken communities one piece at a time. You see fellow veterans come out and grab the banner that we held high for so long when we were active duty, and go to service in helping men and women that they may have never known: but the inward call and assignment to to better mankind comes forward.
We feel blessed. We have purpose again.
To see the progress made daily to getting these people’s lives back together (even if only to a minimal degree) is fulfilling. The fact that we see progress in many areas is a major spirit lifter for us.
As a beacon of hope, to see flags going back up, to hear lawn mowers going and to see street cleaners rinsing out gutters it is so refreshing to see… Life.
So, as we are now focused on Hurricane Michael hit areas, we take hope and new experience with us to Florida to know that we CAN make a difference!
As veterans we take a great pat on the back from the community leaders in North Carolina with us, new experience, lessons learned (about severe flooding rescue and relief) and a fresh mission to go in and do what we do best: help and protect our neighborhoods and communities domestically.
We can also use the statistical geographic and topographic data to help preparedness efforts in the event that new storms arise in the next hurricane season, which appears to be inevitable.
Every second, every moment and every day of this experience has and will continue to be useful.
We cannot thank our partners from corporations, community leaders and organizations enough. It means the world to see a single mom or a blue collar worker like ourselves come out to support us with labor, their last extra dollar or a meal and prayer.
From the bottom of our hearts... thank you all for your help with Hurricane Florence relief support. It really feals like we had a team of dozens instead of just the 7 of us.
The most enriching experiences in humanity happen in disastrous moments and we saw the hope of humanity rekindled through all of this… and it feels good.
We love you all...
Curtis (Captain America), Jeff (Batman) and ALL of the Veteran Response Team
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