Crossposted with slight alterations from my other home.<\/p>\n
Most of you probably remember Team Rubicon, but for those who don’t, here’s a\u00a0recent American Legion Magazine article written about them, but if you haven’t read it yet, you can do so at this link.\u00a0 (CLICK HERE TO READ IT<\/a>.)<\/p>\n The moment he saw the destruction on TV in January 2010, former Marine scout-sniper Jake Wood knew he had to get to Haiti. He called a few friends, posted a quick note on Facebook \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m going to Haiti. Who\u2019s in?\u201d \u2013 filled some duffel bags with first-aid supplies and headed for the airport.<\/p>\n Team Rubicon was born.<\/p>\n Forty-eight hours later, Wood joined seven other volunteers \u2013 Marines, firefighters, physicians, a priest and a former Special Forces medic \u2013 at the Santo Domingo airport in the Dominican Republic and headed for the Haitian border. Six days after the magnitude-7 earthquake devastated the region, they were running a makeshift emergency room in the courtyard of Port-au-Prince\u2019s largest hospital.<\/p>\n By the end of the mission, Team Rubicon had treated thousands of Haitians and started a rapid-response group that has since dispatched combat veterans to natural disasters from Alabama and Indiana to Burma and the Sudan.<\/p>\n \u201cI self-responded to Hurricane Katrina with a buddy from high school, and I saw how poor the response could be when things got overwhelming,\u201d Wood says. \u201cNo one is better qualified than veterans to do this. This is an opportunity for them to feel like a part of a team, to engage in a mission. This is the opportunity I\u2019ve been looking for since I took off the uniform (in 2009).\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here’s a video about that trip:<\/p>\n