Humanitarian
Pakistan Earthquake Relief
A massive earthquake tore through the mountains of northern Pakistan and Kashmir, flattening villages and stranding survivors in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth, with winter closing in fast.
The roads were gone. The only way to reach the injured and the freezing was from the air, and that is where the Marines came in. Helicopters thundered up into the high valleys, hauling relief supplies to people cut off from the world, lifting out the wounded, and beating back the clock before the cold could finish what the earthquake had started. There was no enemy here, only the mountains and the weather and the desperate scale of the disaster. The Marines threw their aviation and their logistics at it, flying mission after mission into terrain that made every sortie a gamble. It was lifesaving work, far from any battlefield, the kind that rarely makes headlines but means everything to the people on the ground.
Record no. 63