Los Angeles Fire and Rescue Team Flies to Japan (VIDEO)

Via the website Airboyd comes this video below of relief aid and Los Angeles Fire and Rescue Team members shipping off for Japan.

According to Airboyd, the video (shot by 4th Combat Camera Squadron/SMSgt. David Smith) shows a C-17A arriving at March Air Reserve Base (formerly Air Force Base) near Riverside to upload 11 pallets of equipment and 3 personnel from Los Angeles Fire and Rescue Team. Aircraft departs and flies direct to Misawa Air Base in Japan to support the relief efforts:



And here's the other end. Video from the American Forces Network (AFN) at Misawa Air Base (200 miles north of Sendai) of the Los Angeles Fire and Rescue (as well as a fire/rescue team from Fairfax, Va.) landing.

What's interesting here is how quickly all of this went down: One of the L.A. fire/rescue members asks where they are.. while the military personnel seen on camera tells the volunteers that they may know more than he does, as the electricity at Misawa had just been restored:



Speaking of Misawa, here's video from the base's AFN bureau immediately after the quake. I love the beginning shot with the kids, describing the quake, when the giant voice of the base command starts talking:

Los Angeles Ad Town: Air Force Edition

Over at his blog, Will Campbell points to this futuristic ad for the U.S. Air Force. In the spot, a CGI-enhanced Los Angeles plays a post-disaster city, with the action taking place on the 6th Street Bridge. (Notice the L.A. river, which is filled with water thanks to special effects).

Oh, and by the way, those Transformers-esque planes aren't real. Yet.

Here's how the ad is described on YouTube:

Set partly in the future, this commercial highlights the U.S. Air Force's capability to respond to humanitarian situations like natural disasters anywhere in the world with aircraft configured for critical care transport and staffed with high tech Air Force medical support teams.

In Tribute To Our Vets

I'm proud to have grown up in a military household -- and want to give shout out to my dad, a Vietnam vet and retired Air Force man, in addition to all the veterans out there. (Check out the pic above, taken by me in the mid-1980s, when my dad was younger than I am now!)

Below, here's a pic of all the veterans in my dad's current job at the FAA. Thanks to all who have served our country.