As our community honors our fallen on Memorial Day, we’d do well to note the extraordinary effort to preserve life on the part of the nearly 1,000 California Air National Guardsmen of the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Federal Airfield. Their selfless dedication to saving lives during combat overseas and emergencies here at home is deserving of our recognition.
This dedication was highlighted when the Wing reached an impressive milestone May 18. It performed its 1,000th life-saving rescue in the high desert of Southeast Afghanistan. HH-60G helicopter alert crews and para-rescuemen from the Bay Area responded to save the life of an Afghan national policeman critically injured with a gunshot wound. Like so many before him, the Afghan was rescued, treated and safely transported to advanced medical care so that he may live another day.
Perhaps more impressive than the 1,000 lives saved milestone is the realization that 70 percent of these missions have been performed within the past 10 years, 40 percent were performed in combat, and the rest were performed here in the states across a broad range of environments and crises. Highlights include recovering injured climbers stranded on Mount Shasta, rescuing critically ill sailors and fishermen beyond the range of the Coast Guard in the East Pacific, pulling hurricane survivors from torrential floodwaters during hurricanes Katrina and Ike, extracting trapped motorists from beneath the collapsed Cyprus structure following the Loma Prieta Earthquake, hoisting flood victims from the Russian River and saving firefighters from devastating wildfires in the most remote areas of California.
While these missions may seem routine, each presents unique challenges that require skill and experience aided by innovation and advanced technology developed right here in Silicon Valley. The blend of talent and diversity uniquely available in the Bay Area is key to the Wing’s success and defines both its culture and place in the Silicon Valley community.
The 129th Rescue Wing is part of an elite force of airmen that are specifically trained and dedicated to perform the mission of personnel recovery. As such, the Wing is often called upon to execute missions that are either too risky or beyond the capability of other forces. These heroic deeds would not be possible without the contributions of a larger team of service members soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and Coast Guardsmen – who volunteer to serve and sacrifice time away from family and full-time jobs to saves lives and property and preserve our American way of life. They live and work among us, and proudly don their uniforms when duty calls.
In celebrating this extraordinary milestone, we should also pay tribute and honor the memories of 129th Airmen who made the ultimate sacrifice in laying down their lives in the course of executing their mission. Like those they rescued, the lives of their families were forever changed. We will never forget these heroes, as they epitomize the 129th Rescue Wing motto, “These things we do, that others may live.”
Col. Steven J. Butow is commander of the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Federal Airfield. He wrote this for this newspaper.
