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Katrina hits, next thing you know it, I'm on an aircraft
taking off to Louisiana.
This time, I'm not going over there to
be an aircraft mechanic.
I'm there now fulfilling a police role.
So I'm given a weapon.
I'm having to leave my job.
I'm having to leave my wife who was pregnant with our son.
I left the home construction process that I undertook
earlier that year, an efficiency apartment because
we were building this home.
So I had to drop everything.
And then having to deal with my civilian employers
thinking, oh, there goes Herman, off to another
vacation with the military.
Well not necessarily this time.
This was more real than anything else because of
people's lives were at stake with this incident.
And I was gung ho at the time because I
knew what was at stake.
But I remember that cargo door opening.
As soon as they open it up, you just feel that vaccuum.
And it was a smell and a sight that I still
remember to this day.
It was in evening, we landed at 7:45 PM.
And everything just smelled wet.
It was like a war zone.
Helicopters were coming in and out, there was ground
controllers controlling aircraft, there was jets
taking off, they were landing, we had just landed.
And this was just Operation Task Force San Antonio and
there to go help how.
I didn't know it was coming, but when they said we need to
get 16 weapons qualified, I knew.
Three days later we're at the convention center.
And that's where it really hit me.
Because as we're clearing out, securing the premises, there
were still some stragglers in the front lobby.
That we had to tell them to leave so that we could put all
of our military assets there.
We were now occupying that space.
People, vehicles, we needed to set up satellite
communications.
So I'm there, again as an aircraft mechanic, just
securing the place.
And it was, again, a sight and smell that I had never seen
because I've never been exposed to
something like that.
I remember telling the guy to leave with his dog.
And it was the hardest thing for me to do because I wanted
to help him more than he was helping himself because he
didn't have the care that we had as military soldiers.
But I knew he had to leave, it was just part of the process.
As I'm doing that, I looked down, and I see in a circle
information about a woman that had graduated high school, had
graduated college, she had a personal belongings there.
It was as if she was sitting there, but she was not there.
It's as if this person, this spirit, was there looking at
their things and all of a sudden they just were gone
because they were on the next bus to take them somewhere
else, whether it be to the Superdome or wherever.
But she left her belongings there.
And I started having some backflashes about my life,
about my credentials, and what I need to do
to safeguard them.
This girl's personal belongs were right there
and gone, even keys.
I never knew what happened to that girl.
I never met her, I only saw her through photos, keys, and
her credentials, her personal belongings and that was it.
You look around, there was food, half eaten turkeys.
It was just a site that was just devastating.
But I knew they I had to maintain my gung ho attitude.
And I've held everything else in just to kind of make sure,
we're here to do a job.
I've never left.
I'm still in Louisiana.
I'm still overseas because I carry that with me.
Because I'm just passionate about what we
do as military soldiers.
And it's not as if I can just go into my brain and just kind
of, well I don't like this particular file, I'm
going to delete it.
Or how about this, I'm going to purge that, throw it in the
recycling bin.
I can't do that.
So it makes me go in today and it charges what I do today to
be out there for other veterans with what I do.