RICHMOND, Va. –
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin recognized Virginia National Guard assets including aviators assigned to the Virginia Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team and Soldiers assigned to the Virginia Beach-based 529th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 329th Regional Support Group during his State of the Commonwealth address Jan. 13, 2025, in Richmond, Virginia.
The HART team, including rescue specialists with Chesterfield Fire Department, received recognition for their efforts participating in rescue missions in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s effects on Southwest Virginia, the first real-world rescues the team has performed.
The governor also recognized the 529th and their commander, Lt. Col. Carlos Maldonado, for their recent deployment to Poland.
“In a world where freedom is not free, we must say thank you,” said Youngkin. “Our military heroes make us all so much better. Just returning from deployment in Poland as a member of the Virginia National Guard is one of those heroes, Lt. Col. Carlos Maldonado. And therefore, on behalf of 8.8 million Virginians and a grateful nation, thank you.”
Maldonado led approximately 40 Soldiers during the 529th’s mission in Poland. The 529th took responsibility for logistics, maintenance, and supply missions based at Forward Operating Site Karliki, Poland, in March 2024, and acted as the headquarters element for Task Force Cavalier. They oversaw operations and training for more than 550 Soldiers from four different subordinate units from active-duty Army, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. The unit returned from their deployment in late 2024.
The governor also heaped praise on HART while discussing the rescue missions conducted in Southwest Virginia in September, when rains from Hurricane Helene devastated several communities, including Damascus, Virginia. There, the VNG aviators and rescue specialists from CFD were able to rescue a man who had been swept away from his flooded home, while his wife remained trapped inside.
The aviation team of pilot Chief Warrant Officer 2 Charlie Jackson and crew chiefs Sgt. Ashley Lockmiller and Staff Sgt. Schuyler Burton were on hand for the governor’s address, along with their Chesterfield partners, including HART rescue specialist James Bourdon, as well as the couple they rescued, Carl and Linda McMurray.
“I was struck by the story of an amazing couple I met, a couple married for 57 years, Carl and Linda McMurray.” Said Youngkin. “They lived in Linda’s childhood home in Taylor’s Valley, just off the Creeper Trail in Washington County, when the floodwaters split their house in two. Carl was swept away, while Linda was left in what remained of a second-floor bedroom. Carl used his belt to fasten himself to a bush in the middle of the rushing water for hours, until the rescue team in a Black Hawk helicopter spotted and saved him. Neither knew if the other had survived, but when Linda finally walked into Carl’s hospital room, their prayers were answered.”
For the members of HART, the McMurrays’ rescue and other rescues performed during emergency response missions were the culmination of years of intense, realistic training to prepare for these exact types of missions.
HART members present at the Capitol were able to reunite with the McMurrays.
“It was great to go down and help people out,” said Jackson. “That’s what we train on. We don’t want it to happen, but when it does happen, we want to be able to go out there and help the people of Virginia.”
"It was pretty dire. Where he was at in the river, he was probably not going to survive if he had gone any farther," Bourdon said. "So that was just miraculous in itself. That rescue felt smooth and it felt efficient on our side because of our training, but hearing Carl's story that his wife was missing, we also looked for her. And there was a little bit of a sense of loss, for Carl, in the moment, and then to find out ultimately that she had survived, and was still in part of the building and she was rescued the next day, that, it made the whole story complete for us."
Read more about HART at https://vngpao.info/mujhke9f.
Read more about the 529th’s deployment at https://vngpao.info/2dkf6twp.