Hovering 70 feet over a battle zone, about to be lowered to the ground on a cable dangling from his helicopter, medic Staff Sgt. Emmett Spraktes drummed up the necessary courage by picturing the parents of the injured Soldiers below.

Hovering 70 feet over a battle zone, about to be lowered to the ground on a cable dangling from his helicopter, medic Staff Sgt. Emmett Spraktes drummed up the necessary courage by picturing the parents of the injured Soldiers below. “We’re up there, and we know we can’t land and there’s a risk, but I imagine looking into the eyes of a [Soldier’s] parent and saying, ‘I can’t do this,’” Spraktes recalled. "How could I talk to the mother or father of one these boys and say, 'I was just too afraid to go’?"

The California National Guard’s 146th Airlift Wing performed its weeklong annual training and certification with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) in South Carolina this year alongside nearly 400 pilots, loadmasters and ground and support crews from around the country. Firefighters conducted classroom training, discussed interagency coordination and performed about 75 water drops a day.

At the Van Vleck Ranch, approximately 20 miles outside Sacramento, members of Company C, 1-168th General Support Aviation Battalion teamed up with members of the Sacramento Fire Department’s technical rescue program to practice performing hoisting operations on land and water.