(Music) (Emergency Siren and Radio Communications) (Airline Pilot/Tower communications - simulated) (Airline terminal announcements) The very first hospital, on the very first
day, of the very first mission, was this hospital that had just lost one of their own because
of suicide because of the stress of the environment, the stress of battling the pandemic, and we
made a point to look up the reaction of that hospital because we knew what they were going
through and we could see that the co-workers were crying, hugging each other, clearly an
emotional event for them, and that captured the essence of our connection with the ground. Folks who are on the front lines battling,
and what we're doing to try to help them in the air, beginning what would become one of
the most significant missions I think both these teams have ever conducted in our entire
history. The idea actually came from the Thunderbirds
to provide a bit of inspiration to our medical workers, the doctors, the nurses, the surgeons,
the First Responders who are out there truly on the front lines against a global pandemic
and give them just a couple of minutes of respite and a way to honor them and to say
thank you. And we are so proud to go out there and honor
everyone who's battling covid-19 in their own way. I'm Rick Pollock, President and CEO of the
American Hospital Association. Over the past two years, we've faced the biggest
Public Health crisis in a century. At a time when our brave Health caregivers
continued to work around the clock, working to compassionately care for our patients and
protect the communities we serve, the flyovers by the U.S Air Force's Thunderbirds, and the
U.S Navy's Blue Angels, as part of "America Strong", it was really appreciated and it
was a great morale booster. While much of the world had come to a stop,
and many were in lockdown, hospitals, and health systems and our courageous frontline
healthcare workers, they never stopped caring. And it was a team effort from the nurses,
doctors, and respiratory therapists, to those who clean the rooms, bring the food, and secure
the facilities, it was all hands on deck, from the corner office to the back office to the
boardroom. You know the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels
represent America in so many ways and their skill, bravery, teamwork, and professionalism
are traits that we've seen reflected in our Healthcare Heroes. Knowing that America was flying with us provided
real inspiration in our battle against covid-19. You couldn't help but be moved by the sight of
these magnificent aviators streaking across the sky bringing a message of hope, strength,
and unity. The flights reminded us that even in the darkest
of times it's always possible to lift our eyes to the skies and come together to take
a take a moment to recharge. On behalf of the women and men of America's
hospitals and Health Systems and all the front-line providers and responders... thank you so much for your recognition and
support it's really appreciated. (Dramatic Music) Being on this team is an incredible challenge
but it's also an incredible opportunity. The flying is unlike anything else you've
ever done in your career if you're a fighter pilot. In addition to that, the maintenance work, the
public affairs work, the back shops, all the support that we get, it's unique because no
matter what you do, you have your primary job but then you also have the job to recruit,
retain, and inspire, and be that representative of the United States military to the civilians
who are out there on the road. Each year we're on the road about 233 days out of the year
and we'll go to roughly 40 show sites and execute 65 to 70 air shows any given season
that's our normal battle rhythm. And it means that we're going to be traveling anywhere
from beginning of March to the end of November conducting air shows all across America but
even in some cases we'll travel internationally and conduct air shows overseas as a sign of
good faith and to be the "Ambassadors in Blue" as they call us, for the United States military.
And it's a team effort, so it's not just that individual folks can make it to these milestones
on their own, we have to make it there as a team, so we're continually progressing and advancing
learning together and forming our team identity in the training season. The team is signed
off and certified and we're ready to take our show on the road to inspire the millions
of people who are waiting to see the Thunderbirds perform, both on the ground and in the air.
So in 2020, we had the opportunity to train and we trained hard, and the team was ready
prepared we were motivated and ready to go out on the road and perform our first air
show when the pandemic hit. The pandemic hit in March of 2020, and immediately we knew that this was going to be something that was going to have a dramatic effect on the team. We immediately
canceled our first show, we had in fact already deployed our Thunderbird 8 our Advanced Pilot
Narrator who was on site at Laughlin Air Force Base, and the rest of the team was just getting
on the C-17 when we finally made the decision that we need to stop the movement and we need
to take a pause to see what's actually happening with the outbreak of this virus. Everything was set up very nicely and on track, and then I go to my first "advance" which like I said
I leave Wednesday ahead of the team, I get there, we do our advance meeting, everything
again is looking good, and that is when I get the phone call. As soon as our Advance meeting
is done, I get the phone call from the boss hey we're going on a 24-hour slip, there's this
virus that could potentially be spreading and we're not sure so we're just gonna take
a pause for about 24 hours. As the threat landscape changes we can reorient ourselves, as the tactical picture changes we can create new tactics, and that's what we train to do in the military
to be flexible. We're always prepared to engage the enemy or an opportunity no matter what
the challenges are associated with that. And what we develop in the military is resiliency.
Resiliency both in our personal lives and our professional lives and with our job. We
knew that we weren't going to be able to hit the road because there was certain public
safety health issues that were clearly present at the time, and we wanted to make sure that
we were doing our part to keep everyone safe on the team and in the community so we decided
staying here at Nellis and just assessing the situation was the best thing to do. But
immediately it changed the way that we operate, naturally, we're a team that relies on flying
airplanes and executing a demonstration and we couldn't do that so we had to find a way
to operate from our our house and still conduct normal Squadron functions while being in our
living room with our kids running around who are also in quarantine and figuring out how
to move the needle how to continue to make the Squadron successful and do the normal
functions even though all of our normal tools and resources are not at our disposal. I was driving into the Squadron to go to the first show and they're like hey guys you know we're
on a 24-hour slip to the next day, and I was like okay, interesting. And then I'm driving in
to work for the next day and they're like hey we're canceled like hard canceled and
we're on freeze and everyone go home and you know quarantine and I was like wow, yeah
this got real really fast. When I saw the battle that the medical care workers were going through I immediately was empathetic. The situation really looked like combat, where you are putting
your gear on in the morning, you're going into the into the field of battle and you're battling
something. Now in this case it was it was a virus it wasn't an actual person or entity, it
was a virus. But they were conducting battle. I immediately had an incredible
amount of respect that they were doing this day in and day out, being completely exhausted,
unsure of the future of are things going to get better are they going to get worse, fighting
for the survival of their patients, fighting for their own survival, and knowing that they
may be bringing that risk into their own household. So, we just had an incredible amount of respect
and we wanted to make sure they felt like we are with you in this battle, even though
I don't know how to fight covid-19, we are still supporting you because we know what
you're doing is for the defense of this Nation, for the health of this country, and it's because
you reflect some of the best of us, you reflect the character and the integrity of the American
people and we know that that's what motivated them to go in day in and day out and face
a daunting enemy but do it in a way that was courageous and inspiring. These missions were not easy, I mean it
was on the level of combat, the the preparation both from the maintenance
personnel, the public affairs, the pilots, the mission planners, I mean it was it was a lot.
I mean we mission plan these things down to the turn radius around the specific hospitals
or certain sites and it had to be that way because in a town, you know, if you're flying
over Los Angeles or New York then I mean you're literally, you're studying the imagery like
you would study like combat imagery of something and you're you're deciding how exactly you're
going to fly around these specific points in space and you're linking all these turns
together and you're scripting it out. I mean we had to look at things we never
looked at before, how much smoke does the airplane even produce, because we never ran into a situation
where we'd run out of smoke before, but if we want to put the smoke out for every hospital and every, you know, first responder along the route so we had to start thinking
outside the container about how we were going to do that. We knew that we could do something
with our formations and take this visible symbol of strength and unity to the people
that are out there doing their part to battle covid-19. Through the neighborhoods, through the streets,
over the grocery stores, but more importantly to honor the health care workers and that's
where we started the idea of America Strong, where the idea came about that we can salute
everyone out there who's doing their part, but specifically to show the medical care
workers that we are here, that we support you, we're thinking about you, and we're in this
together. When we saw how much covid was ramping up, when I saw that, and realizing the strain
it was putting on to the medical community, I felt for them. I felt for them in a way that
I would feel to my comrades who are about to deploy, who are about to go to an austere location, working hours that they could never even dream about, because hours no longer matter, days no longer matter, getting the mission complete is what mattered. The hard part was that covid wasn't something that you can see, it wasn't something that you could take in the sense of a traditional battle. It was something that was invisible and it was something that you could only really measure how well you were battling it based off of the reaction that
was happening weeks or months later so you never got the instantaneous, you know, hey we're
doing a good thing or we're getting better or we're getting worse it was very difficult
to judge and because of that the strain that it put on the health care community was unbelievable.
I can't imagine how difficult it was to essentially go into work and not really know how long
this battle rhythm was going to continue, how long were these 12-hour, 14-hour, 24-hour days
going to continue? And there were some days I imagine where there were very, there was,
there was very low volume and it seemed like oh this isn't too bad it's getting better
just to find out the very next week that you're getting slammed with cases, and you just you feel like you can't catch up or you can't catch a break. We wanted to take this
mission and execute it first in our backyard. We wanted to show our support to our local
community. We're part of this community, we're part of the fabric of Las Vegas, we're part
of its identity, in my opinion, and our families you know work with folks who live here, our
kids go to the same school, and we knew that we wanted to make sure that Las Vegas knows
that your Thunderbirds are here to support you during this dark moment. Flying a six-ship Delta over 18 hospitals in the Las Vegas area, major metropolitan area, with over 2 million people, low altitude, with all the hazards that are out there we've never done it before, nobody's ever done that before, not for that duration, for that extent, with that I would say ambitious of a flight plan. So we knew that if we were going to fly these missions we needed to do
it somewhere that would be our proving ground and there was no better place than right here
in Las Vegas because this is where we're from, we're part of this community, and we wanted
to honor the folks who are here in our local community first. You know a lot of division started to happen in the country, you had the frontline workers the health care workers working crazy hours, they don't have the P.P.E. they need, no one knows when this is going to end. So for us to be able to take, you know, a kind of a patriotic symbol of red, white and blue jets and to show the unity and the patriotism and go over their cities
and like specifically targeting the hospitals I mean we're flying formation we can't look
around but there are some instances where we would be in a turn and I would be looking
right through the formation and we'd go over a parking ramp at a hospital and you could
see everyone in their scrubs lined up on top, so you just get a glimpse of the crowd
down there, of the people, the doctors and nurses that had come up to see us and you'd land
and get the videos afterwards that people would send you and people will be in tears,
like they, it was just such a beacon of hope in a dark time. We had an incredible sense
of pride because we had the opportunity to go out there and represent, to highlight, the
struggles of the medical community, the health care workers and even if it was for a brief moment
we had the opportunity to brighten their day a little bit, to give them a little bit of
encouragement so that they could go in and continue doing the job that they have been
doing day in and day out, and at the end of the day that feeling, that satisfaction, of
knowing that we did that, albeit a very small portion of the battle in covid, gave us an
overwhelming sense of satisfaction. And we knew that this was an important mission right
then and there, on the ramp, as we were climbing out of the jets, exhausted tired, we knew that
what we did was good for the country, we knew it was good for the community and we knew
that this would make a difference and help brighten people's day. America Strong for us was definitely an outstanding opportunity to highlight the great work that was being done by the medical professionals, first responders, the essential workers that were helping keep the American way of life intact during the pandemic, we were able to be a bright spot
in an otherwise very, very dark time in America. So, what I would say is look for that in
your everyday lives, look for something that you can latch on to, look for the positives
in every scenario, and that's definitely an enduring message of America Strong that I
think can continue regardless of the circumstances. We look back on the mission and we reviewed
all of the planning, we reviewed the route, we reviewed the technical aspect of it,
the tactics, and what we realized was close coordination with the civilian authorities,
with the FAA, with towers, with RAPCON, they had a huge role to play in the success of
these missions and it would later lay the foundation, the groundwork required, that
lesson learned, that knowledge that these people are absolutely critical to successful execution
of these flyovers laid the groundwork for the cooperation and relationships that we built
later that made America Strong in the larger cities New York, Baltimore, D.C., it's what made
it possible. It was the realization that everybody has a role to play in the successful operation
of America Strong sorties, and immediately we set out with our eyes on Colorado and those
lessons learned, knowing that we wanted to take what we just did for the Las Vegas community,
the experience that they got to have with the Thunderbirds and the rallying cry that
it was in this battle against covid-19, we wanted to take that to Colorado, because
that was our next stop. We had a plan to fly over the (USAF) Academy for the graduation. It was
a first covid-19 graduation, socially distanced, and so we weren't allowed to go and operate
out of Peterson Air Force Base which we normally do, we flew it as a round-robin, meaning we
left from Las Vegas, we flew all the way to Colorado and flew all the way back without
ever landing anywhere other than Las Vegas. So the plan was ambitious, where we were going
to make the two-hour mission to get to Colorado, we were going to hold and fly over the Academy
for their flyover, join up with other tankers and then start on the northern half of Colorado
and slowly work our way to the South and fly over as many medical facilities as we possibly
could to show them the same support that we showed the Las Vegas community. The overwhelming success we had in Vegas, really lent itself to giving Colorado a shot, and Colorado didn't start out as an America Strong flyby, it was simply right over the Academy, the Chief of
Staff (USAF) had seen what we'd done in Las Vegas and then from there it really kind of took
on its own life. And the Thunderbirds worked with all the State of Colorado, quite a few
of the hospitals, and they kind of, that was really the dress rehearsal for America Strong
at that point. So we'd proven that it would be well received by the community when we
did it in Las Vegas, this was more of a large State, basically up and down I-25, it was an
unbelievably difficult mission for them. The weather wasn't good, Commander/Leader did a fantastic job, everybody came home safe, but people don't understand how dangerous it was that
day for them to do that. In and out of the clouds, there was there was quite a bit of
weather, and they were able to execute perfectly, and I think Colorado, again, the feedback was
fantastic, but that really was at that point America Strong, I think the Pentagon realized
they had something here that could really bring a ray of hope to the whole Nation. If we missed a hospital by a mile then the intended effect just wasn't going to be achieved, so I knew how important it was that I knew the approach angle for these hospitals, I knew
what it looked like, I knew what the hospital where it was situated I knew what side we
wanted to fly on, we knew where the people were going to be at, we decided whether we
wanted to see the top side of the jet with smoke or the bottom side of the jet with smoke,
and so all these things were items that we had to study and we had to figure out, but
the first step in that is where are the hospitals, and it turns out that our Flight Doc, so Thunderbird 9,
was in a perfect position to dig up that information for us and he became the primary
source of data to find where all the hospitals are located and he created a Google Earth
overlay for every city he went to with all the major medical facilities. We could see it building. You could see it developing and we thought you know what we need to make this bigger, we need to go to the next step because we're having this positive effect and we need to spread this out as far and wide as we can get in the country. Literally, we just
no more than just called the Blues up, and I think it was our "7" talked to his equivalent over
in the Blue Angels, we have a really good relationship with them, how about we invade your home and
come live with you for the next week and we're going to put together a flyover and let's
do the East Coast. So it took a little bit of planning, a little bit of flexing, but
we managed to get local authority to fly out there very organically, this is not from on
high, we just rolled out to Pensacola, landed, and started planning with the Blues. Our capabilities
and integrating with them, it just developed from there. And so, all of a sudden word
gets around that, hey the Thunderbirds are in Pensacola with the Blue Angels the two major
air demonstration squadrons in the United States military of the Department of Defense are together
in Pensacola and so from higher up, you know the Secretary of Defense and Chiefs of
Staff, we told them what was going on through our PA (Public Affairs) and operational channels and said hey we have this great idea, worked great, we've "Ops-tested" it, we want to spread this out and
spread this word to the rest of the at least bring a little bit of inspiration to the rest
of the community, the rest of the country I should say. When it was presented to me, I initially
liked the idea but I did have some concerns. I was concerned that we did not come across
as, you know, business as usual while the Nation and our International teammates were all suffering
greatly through the worst days of the pandemic. So, we really talked through, and thought through,
why are we doing this, but how are we going to do that to align the how and the what with
the why. And so we worked hard with the local leadership in each of the cities to make sure
that our routes were appropriate and that the word got out and we stuck to our purpose. This was not about going out there doing an air show. This was certainly not about recruiting, you know, during a global pandemic. This is about honoring First Responders. We hit as many Hospitals and Clinics and emergency response units as we could possibly do. I'm very proud of the way it came together and perhaps, and by the way, this was not easy flying. it was as challenging and as dangerous as anything we do in an air show because during an airshow you have essentially a box that you clear out, and there's no obstacles, you pre-fly the mission, you get a chance to practice beforehand, you know about everything that you need to know about that particular location when you go. Not so when you're flying close formation
over a city for the first time. You've got towers, tall buildings, birds, you name it, and it's
all on the leader. Hospitals were not designed, at least the way that they were mapped out in terms of their construction, they were not designed in a way that makes it easy to
fly over all of them. They're just normally located just scattered about kind of landscape
in the major urban areas and so we had to come up with very creative ways of how we're
going to go from one hospital to the next to the next and still keep it in a way that
is executable with the six ship of aircraft flying in close formation very low to the
ground. So, it was a lot of research generating a data set handing it to the pilots and the
pilot sitting down and plotting those and then the pilots coming up, and support officers,
coming up with a route of travel that was going to maximize the exposure of the team
to the hospitals on the ground. Two hundred and forty-eight (248) major medical facilities total when all was said and done at the end of America Strong, which was no simple feat, and as I said, each one of those
hospitals we put an incredible amount of study, detail, and consideration to make sure each
one got the appropriate flyover at the right time, at the right altitude, at the right angle
every single one. We put that level of detail into, and attention into, because that's how
important it was to us to make sure that they saw the team and they knew that we were thinking
of them and trying to show them the visible sign of the strength of this country and a visible
sign of the support of the people in it. Knowing that we're doing something way better than
ourselves to represent the Air Force, the team on a national level to inspire those workers
to continue doing what they do. How America Strong just erupted, flying over many hospitals, all of the cities, America saw that the Thunderbirds cared about the first line supervisors, health
care workers, first-responders, and that gave them a big salute from our team. And it just
expanded from city to city, over the hospitals, just local communities, keep hope alive,
keep the faith, there's nothing that's too big that we can't overcome. If you talk to any of the old fighter pilots,
there's a lot of them around that have done a flyby or two. They've flown over the Super
Bowl, or they've flown over the Hudson River, or they've flown over a parade, but none of
them have flown over about eighteen disparate individual events perfectly timed with twelve airplanes,
you know this was a massive operation for the two teams to pull off. I mean going into
the most crowded airspace in the world, Manhattan, with unbelievably tall buildings and maneuvering
two massive formations of fighter jets all within three feet of each other in order to
perfectly hit the time-on-target on all these hospitals that are just reeling from covid-19
effects, for the team to pull that all off and to get their fuel on time, and come back
and land safely was truly, all that heavy lifting done early in the preparation, the
mission planning, and the practice, but no doubt the day of the execution was an unbelievably
heavy lift for both teams to pull off perfectly like they did. We did some after-action analysis,
really of mostly social media because there's just some objective data that you can collect
from that. Likes, interactions, posts, shares, comments, tweets, and we ran some algorithms
on that and we found that there was 13 billion social media global interactions on just the
first day of America Strong. So, it dominated the news cycle. It was on CNBC, Fox News, CNN,
all the local news stations, and it was ubiquitous on social media to the point that 13 billion
people did something in response to those flybys. It was truly remarkable. At this point, I think we'd been locked down for over a month and these were folks that hadn't left their house, that hadn't
seen their neighbors in a month, that I think we're starting to feel the effects of doom
and gloom and all the negativity that was surrounding covid, rightfully so, and we
saw it as an opportunity to bring light to people, to have people walk outside of their
doorstep and realize that the sun was still shining, and that while maybe it's not today
that at some point in the future there was going to be a light at the end of this tunnel
and that we were all going to be okay even though we were in this together, that we were
going to come out the other side because we're strong and resilient as a Nation, and as the
Thunderbirds, we knew that we could represent that for people, that we represent America
with our red, white, and blue aircraft that fly our flag, that are an easily identifiable symbol
of this country, and this Nation, and its strength, and we wanted to go out and lay down a demonstration
for people to show that hey the United States is still here, America's still here, we care
about you, we're here for you, we're supporting you, and we're all in this together and we're
going to make it through. It meant a lot to me, just because there are always, you see everywhere, showing support for the military, you know, before covid you didn't really see this happening
for your medical field, so it allowed me to say thank you back and show my support
to them. It was very inspiring the fact that we were able to impact so many people, we were
able to, you know, bring hope to those people that were honestly like struggling at that
time, you know, and it was scary, it still is scary in some cases, you know, but at that point
in time it was extremely scary for a lot of people and so, it was all about them. As a Thunderbird, I really appreciate everything that frontline workers did, all the medical personnel did throughout this pandemic, and coming from me, I just want to say thank you. Coming
from the team, thank you for everything you've done. When America Strong actually happened,
it was so amazing. It was so amazing just to be able to join forces with the Blue Angels,
to be able to see the looks on people's faces you know, every single flyover that we did
I'm watching the live stream because I want to see everything that people are saying in
the comments, I want to see exactly how the jets look, all the people that are reposting,
the people that are coming outside of their houses, standing in their backyard, sitting
on their roofs, just so they can get a little bit of a glimpse of hope, because that's
what it was. I have friends back home that are nurses, so talking to them when everything happened and seeing how busy they were was definitely, it was eye-opening
because you don't really see that side of it. I think America Strong was special to
the people that work in the hospitals, it gave them, you know, that mental break, even
if it was a 30-second break you could step away and see an aircraft flying over dedicated
to them, because they're the ones out there putting the work in and doing everything they
need to do. A glimmer of hope for all the nurses, and all the medical staff, and frontline fighters... fighting the covid battle, and just having that in my mind while I was at work
trying to accomplish this mission, it was life-changing, it means a lot. When people look at the Thunderbirds, they see the
pilots and they see the aircraft, a lot of times what is not realized is all the maintainers,
all of the support personnel, the contractors, it is a total force that helps get this team
on the road to a location, it takes an entire team, it's just not the pilots that you see
executing, it's hundreds that come together to make that happen. When you look at what
it is the Air Force does as far as the precision, the discipline, the professionalism, the Thunderbirds
are a manifestation of that. When you look at where they go, how they showcase what it
is that we embody as a force, they're a national treasure, national asset, and a way for us
to communicate America you can be proud in your Air Force because this is who they are,
and they are the Thunderbirds. The thing that I liked about this whole thing the most is that
it was a bottom-up idea that blossomed not from the top, not as a publicity stunt, not
as a PR thing, but as a genuine salute to those people who, unlike us in uniform who swear an oath
to put ourselves in harm's way, these are people who were working in grocery stores or First
Responders, the medical people, scores of medical people that were putting themselves in harm's
way, they never took an oath but they're doing their duty. America Strong represents not
just an event, but a feeling. It represents the best of what we are when we're performing
at our best. It represents that thing that is, indeed, something bigger than yourself. It represents a consideration for others that we need to recapture in this Nation, so I encourage you not just to watch this but I encourage you to pass it on. Pass it on with enthusiasm. This event did attract a degree of unity that we would not have otherwise have had at that particular moment. Much like 9/11 brought all Americans together for the
humanitarian aspects of acknowledging the sacrifices that all we're going through during
this particular time, and if only for a brief moment, but I think it actually lasted a little
longer than that, if only for a brief moment we were able to show ourselves at our very best.
Not only the teams that were performing but also the acknowledgment of the American
people that this is appreciated, that our military would take the time to salute the
American people for what they were going through. America Strong mission was born out of this
capability that the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels have to create a groundswell of patriotism publicly.
The perfect audience for the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels was to directly go to those
people that were combating covid-19, and that is the frontline health care workers,
and flew over multiple institutions and multiple hospitals and there were covid patients
in there. What did it do, it elevated the ethos of the American public similar to the
resistance of what it would be if you were at war. We're going to see through this and
we're going to survive, it took their entire thinking level and brought it up, and that's
the kind of impact that these national assets, that Thunderbirds particularly, they have. Thunderbirds were like a ray of light, you know, like a beam of light coming through the clouds. It's a moment in a dark period in American history. where the Thunderbirds were able to
have the Nation see that things would be better ahead that there was hope on the horizon,
and there was hope because these First Responders across America we're bringing hope and
and solving the problem. You know, we're telling you about something you already kind of knew about because you saw it nationally publicized, however, this is what it really was. And so,
it's important, and I think people will see that, people will see that, their American Spirit
will see that. When you look up and you see the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels they're doing this to show we are in this together. They're doing this to say thank you. They're
doing this because they want us to realize there is hope, you're not alone, you may think
you're alone, you're not. We're all in this together, and by the way, we're doing all of
this for you. If it helps just a little bit, if you get just a little bit of relief and
inspiration from it, then it was all 100% worth it. And I can tell you, I've been in those situations
and my sincerest hope is that everyone will know that you are who we're flying for.
You are who we're doing this for. If you're asking if it was for you, the answer is yes. To combine our desire to continue our mission of recruit, retain, and inspire, as well as highlight the First Responders, the medical personnel, those essential workers that were keeping
us safe, America Strong was born. To have the opportunity to do that was something incredible
and it'll you know be something that kind of goes down in the team's history as a really
unique time, and it was kind of what the U.S. needed at that point. It's one of those times
in your life when you look back and you say I can't believe I was there when that happened.
It's one of those events, similar to 9/11, when you look back and you know that the world
will never be the same based off the events that are happening right now. I think what we need is to kind of just have compassion for your fellow man, or woman, and the sooner
that you can do that, the sooner that these problems in the world, pandemics, wars, things
like that, they're not going to seem so big and out of reach, they're not going to seem
so unattainable. I think the more that you can learn who it is that you're working
with, that's you know, riding next to you on the subway, whatever it is, the faster
that we can conquer problems like this in the future and the better off that we'll
be in general. Everything that they did, and fought through, and relied on their training to heal people and help battle us through this pandemic was absolutely incredible, and
I can't think of a better way, in my position, where we're at, to have tipped-the-hat to them
and salute them and everything that they did so thank you so much for everything. We wanted these folks, these Americans, to know that we had their back, and as a Nation, that there were
people that supported and cared about them, that at the end of their 10th 12-hour shift
in a row that there were people that were thankful for them, and that were grateful
for the work that they were putting in. So, the fact that we could go out and honor all
these folks and just show them, as a Nation, really represent on behalf of an entire country,
just what these folks have done for us. It was worth every moment of energy and then
some. I always told the guys, and gals, that this is a mission that we need to leave
everything on the field, all that you have every bit of energy. We're gonna look back
on this and want to have no regrets. So, we're going to make sure that we fly these missions,
we fly them in a professional way, and that we do everything we possibly can to share
this message of support, of unity, and encouragement to as many communities, as many areas as we
possibly can. When we learned about the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels
America Strong missions, we knew that this historic demonstration of hope and
appreciation could be shared with the American people, and the world, in a way that you could
take a moment to sit down and relax, and learn about this inspiring true story. For so many
people that were too busy to stop for more than just a moment during the pandemic, as
Thunderbird #9, the team's flight surgeon put it so well, "...this is for you." While the America Strong mission will live on in American history, as we look to the future, we believe it's important that you share America Strong with your friends and family, and to
those on the front lines who have done so much for all of us... and to those who are still
in need.
