Helping out the local Coast Guard

Ok, so the title of this post is misleading, but an interesting segway nonetheless. I woke up at 5:45 this morning (EST) in order to make my 8 am flight to New Orleans via La Guardia. On my flight from La Guardia a young gentleman sits one seat away from me. I look over a couple of times and first see him put his dog tags on, and then place his wallet with his badge showing back into his back pocket. I am intrigued at this point and wonder if there is an issue with the flight I am on that would warrant having someone "official" on board. I was going to say something but he seemed busy flipping through every magazine in the pocket in front of him, and then held his head in his hands and looked like he was crying as we headed to the runway.

We then sat on the runway for 45 minutes and I started chatting with him and the flight attendant who was seated across the aisle from us. It turns out that he is deathly afraid to fly and has only ever been on a plane 2 times prior(a trip to Disney World that I learn about later), so I chat it up with him in hopes that it distracts him during takeoff. I asked why he was flying this time, and he told me that he was to be given an award that night in New Orleans for helping with the rooftop rescues following Katrina. It turns out his badge is an EMS badge, and he recently finished serving 4 years in the Coast Guard 3 months of which were in New Orleans. He flew down to New Orleans with many others via helicopter (which he is not afraid to fly in, strangely enough) and took part in the rooftop rescues in the days following Katrina. He told me that there were over 250 private and military aircrafts in a 20 mile radius all trying to get as many people as possible out of harm's way. He worked 12 hour shifts and evacuated close to 120 people a shift. His helicopter was shot at by people as they fly by to rescue others in need first and because his chopper was military equipped they fired warning shots back (no where near people). He even told me that they had to equip civilian choppers with guns in order to protect themselves as well. How crazy is that?

After rooftop rescue, which only lasted a couple of days for him, he was doing small boat "rescues." I unfortunately put that in quotes because according to Chris (coast guard I sat next to), at that point they were not recovering many people who were still alive. He said the devastation after hurricane Katrina was the worst thing he had ever seen, and he is currently working as an EMS supervisor in a bad neighborhood in Queens dealing mainly with gunshot and stab wounds.

It was really incredible to get a first person account of what happened down here, because like many people I was just sitting in front of the TV watching bits and pieces on CNN.

I was able to keep Chris's mind off of the flight, although he had worse time with the landing than the take off, and help get him to his hotel. Grey drove him to where he was staying and he said it was strange to be back there without being armed standing guard... When he returns back to NYC he plans to enlist in the army to be a medivac and he understands that he will most likely be stationed in Iraq. He just wants to be where he can do the most good, on the front line. I could never do it, but I wish him the best of luck!