Below is an excerpt from the October 2005 issue of NATIONAL GUARD. It's part of a periodic series of historically significant articles from the magazine 's archives.
Historic Response
Sgt. John Jackson had much on his mind as he checked portable-radio batteries beside the partially flooded Louisiana Superdome three nights after Hurricane Katrina.
The single father's five children were safe with his parents in Texas; however, his house in New Orleans was under water, prompting a series of troubling questions. Could he and his kids ever return to their home? How would he support them in a city where there were no longer any jobs? What would he do?
But all that seemed to take a back seat to the task at hand.
Sergeant Jackson is a National Guard soldier. He had been called out for what had morphed into a catastrophic storm. He was attached to the Louisiana Army Guard's engineer task force. And he was determined to complete his duty.
"This is still a great country," said the man who had served in Iraq and who, once again, had put his personal life on hold to help others.
And so it was with the more than 50.000 other National Guardsmen who quickly left behind families, homes and civilian jobs to respond to Katrina. Some, like Sergeant Jackson, were from the affected states. ...
But the bulk of the force came from elsewhere in a spontaneous nationwide movement of personnel involving all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. ...
It was an unprecedented Guard response necessitated by an unprecedented calamity. Much of the attention in the Katrina's wake has focused on the flooding in New Orleans. But it was the Mississippi Gulf coast that took the direct hit. The hurricane's 145 mph winds and 30-foot storm surge flattened whole communities, some several miles inland. ...
The total affected area covered 90.000 square miles. ... Inside, tens of thousands were homeless. ... Hundreds of thousands more were without power, food, water and medicine. And with telephone lines and radio, television and cellphone towers and repeaters down, most were also disconnected from the outside world.
Did You Know?
The Army National Guard is authorized only 62 percent of its Army-validated requirement for full-time manning.
© 2007 National Guard Association of the United States Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Source: National Guard
