Pedro Inspired the Vikings

by Michael Yon

Note: I asked Danish journalist Camilla Fuhr Nilsson to write a couple of stories about the Air Force Pedros.  After publication of her first installment, she emailed from Afghanistan, surprised to have gotten “thank you” notes from readers.  As a journalist, Camilla had never gotten “thank yous” before.  In the about five years I have covered the wars, it is safe to say that British and American service members, their families and others, have thanked me 100% of the time, for each of hundreds of dispatches.  That would be tens of thousands of thank yous…maybe more.  If not for those thank yous, I would have quit after just a few months in combat.  The power of a sincere “thank you” can never be measured.  And now Camilla’s second story:

By Camilla Fuhr Nilsson
Published: 30 September 2009

“These things we do that others may live” is the current motto of the US Air Force combat search and rescue team, or Pedro as they are called when deployed to Afghanistan. They fly into the battlefield with their smooth Pave Hawk helicopters and evacuate the wounded infantry soldiers and Marines. On a recent evacuation of two Danish soldiers in the middle of a battle with the Taliban, the Viking ancestors made a memorable difference to the 129th American Air Force Pedros crew. (more…)