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The Unconventional Honors of Hurricane Helene Response Misadventure

In a grand display of commitment to chaos and calamity, the Civil Air Patrol’s Hurricane Helene Response Team — comprising over 400 enthusiastic adventurers from the North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee wings — has been lauded with the 2025 Air Forces Northern Command (AFNORTH) Commander’s Award, presumably for their penchant for either chasing storms or sheer audacity. Representatives from each wing graciously pretended to be surprised as they accepted the award, an annual ceremony recognizing whichever CAP mission managed to generate the most paperwork the previous year, delivered strictly on a need-to-attend basis by U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Daniel C. Clayton, who had nothing more pressing on his calendar that day.

The whole charade unfolded on Aug. 16 during the Summer Command Council meeting in Atlanta, where the accompanying citation generously applauded the team’s heroic tale of a monthlong battle with a Category 4 storm. The storm, Hurricane Helene, had ostensibly chosen to wreak havoc and set demolition records in the Southeast U.S. from Sept. 22-29, arrogantly boasting a body count of 221. Meanwhile, the CAP response team, impervious to bad weather, conducted search and rescue missions, essentially arguing with the tempest and occasionally conducting impromptu swimming parties on land.

Their tall tales include executing 223 sorties over waters muddied by Helene’s wrath, totaling a staggering 442.9 flight hours—one can only imagine how they accounted for that mysterious 0.9. Beyond air shows, the team also occupied the incident command post for 31 long days while orchestrating 141 ground sorties, solidifying their reputation as the indispensable Total Force partner nobody asked for, yet everyone needed in the 11th hour.

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