There are very few organizations or people in the world that do truly wonderful things without any expectation of recognition of personal reward.  Team Rubicon is one of the magnificent few.

Team Rubicon is a Disaster Response Veteran Service Organization.  As in responding to disasters in places like the typhoon wracked islands of the Philippines, Haiti, Chile, Burma, Pakistan, Sudan, and in the United States.  They are a growing group of dedicated veterans who bring the skills they learned in uniform (things like flexibility, teamwork, leadership, work ethic, dedication, sense of duty and commitment to duty) to a new form of warfare: fighting against the disasters that ravage communities and threaten the lives of innocent men, women, and children.

They are incredibly agile, and are often among the first relief and assistance agencies to hit the ground.  The credit for such agility is the committed deployability of the members of the team; they have all answered the call to arms for their nation and in doing so have become incredibly motivated, proactive, and prepared to grab their gear and catch a flight to wherever in the world disaster strikes.

Today they are conducting Operation SEABIRD in the Philippines at the same time that Operation HONEST ABE is underway to help with the damage wrought by the tornadoes that blew through the region this past weekend. To say that they do amazing work is an understatement of epic proportions.  They are the best our country has to offer, continuing to serve after hanging up the cloth of the nation.

My hat’s off to them.

To learn more, go to their website.  Also, here is a link to a great story in Stars and Stripes.