MINOT, N.D. - The men and women of the National Guard are unique: Citizen-Soldiers and -Airmen ready at a moment's notice to jump into a domestic emergency and help neighbors.
Sometimes, Guard members choose to answer a call-to-action and help those who have lost everything – despite the total loss of their own property.
"I've been on flood duty since it started," said Army 1st Sgt. Scott Mai, 164th Engineer Battalion, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, first sergeant.
"I've been with it since it was a small Minot [National Guard] company working the flood [here], and when they realized that the flood was going to be a lot bigger … they grew to about a thousand Soldiers.
"Initially, there was a lot of hope that we could beat the flood. Out in Burlington – my hometown – there was a lot of hope in that town, too, that we would beat the flood.
"We were doing an outstanding job staying ahead of the river until we had some unfortunate rain events in Canada – and those rain events pushed a lot more water down into North Dakota than we could handle."
Like many Soldiers, Mai suddenly felt the stress of not only how to help his neighbors, but also how to help his own family.
"I had to juggle the task of being on duty, as well as having to take care of getting my house evacuated, my furniture evacuated and getting my family someplace where they're safe," he said.
"My family right now is between two different locations; my littlest boy is with his grandparents in Bismark, and my daughter and wife are living out of a borrowed trailer on the south side of town.
"I guess multitasking really became my middle name."
With the help of friends and neighbors, Mai saved what he could, but he still feels the flood's sting.
"We were able to move out most of my personal property and get my family to a safe place. Unfortunately, though, the town of Burlington lost the battle against the Souris River. I probably ended up with water at my house up to two feet high on the main floor, so I'm looking at damage to the basement of my house as well as the main floor."
Mai, who works for Customs and Border Patrol in his civilian life, still gets choked up recalling what happened, but the first sergeant appears to be managing the stress well.
"Obviously, you're working two-fold, … and that becomes very hard," he said. "The Guard has been really, really great with the Soldiers … who are in my situation – ensuring that they can get away from what is going on here to take care of their personal situation."
Soldiers like Army Sgt. Victoria Goodman, also from HHC, 164th Engineer Battalion – and a Minot resident inside the evacuation zones.
"When they did the second evacuation two weeks ago, my unit let me go home … to move and pack all of my stuff up, … so we moved everything out – my boyfriend and I, and lots of family and friends," Goodman said.
"Like anyone else in the town," Mai said, "we ended up with a lot of the same challenges like, 'How do I get equipment together to move my stuff?'
"I knew a lot of people with pick-up trucks; we ended up doing lots of loads with lots of pick-up trucks, and now we run into the challenge of, 'Now that I've got it out, what do I do with it? Where do I put it? Is it going to be safe if I store it?'
"Then we run in to the challenge of housing our family when were not in our own house. Minot is experiencing an oil boom right now, so hotel space already was at 90 to 95 percent capacity before this flood started, and then you have approximately 11,000 people in the Minot area looking for a place to live.
"I'm living in a borrowed space. My family is living in a trailer that somebody was kind enough to allow them to use, and I'm living out of the armory.
As the waters slowly begin to recede, the victims of this flood – including Guard members – can only sit back and wait to see what is recoverable.
"I'm hopeful that my house will be recoverable," Mai said, "but a lot of times, us that are victims of the flood, we live kind of by the same model as the flood – first we were all trying to fight the river, then we realized that now we have to protect safety and property.
"Now … we are in a maintaining stage – we're waiting for the river to go down – so there's not a lot to do. Like a lot of people in the community, I have a lot of the same questions: What am I going to do for housing? What am I going to do to get my family back together? What am I going to do to just make sure that my life goes on?"
"It's tough to say how long it could be … so we'll have to wait and see," Goodman said.
Mai said it is exactly what he and other Soldiers are going through that makes the Guard truly special.
"We take on stateside missions, it's what makes us different from the active duty," he said. "We're in the middle of flood fights; this is the hometown to two units, so there … is some real personal attachment to this fight."
Goodman – who has lived in Minot her whole life – said it's helped having all of her friends and family here: "It keeps you going, but you walk around realizing, 'Wow, I used to live on that street,' or, 'I grew up in that house.'"
That personal attachment is evident in the spirit of the Soldiers who keep coming back to duty even after suffering their own losses.
"After taking care of my stuff," Goodman said, "I called back to see if I needed to return that night, and they said, 'No, come back tomorrow morning.' I stay because it's just easier to stay busy instead of worrying about something that you can't control."
"There are people [in Minot] that need help," Mai said. "There are Soldiers that have come off duty for numerous reasons, and they have returned right back to duty – I'm one of them.
"That's the one advantage that I may have over some of the other people that aren't in my situation – when I start talking to someone in the public, they know I understand immediately, because I can tell them, 'Hey, I'm there right now along with you.'"
Mai said he and others like him have received help and support from the Guard.
"The National Guard and the state of North Dakota have been tremendous about making sure that we have assistance available for Soldiers – from chaplains' assistance to social workers for anybody that may be having issues come up related to the flood – and we're bending over backwards to make sure they have the time to take care of their issues and their families," he said.
"The one thing about the Guard in the state of North Dakota is that since we have such a small population and a large amount of people in the Guard per capita … everyone … knows somebody or has a friend of somebody who is personally affected by this. This isn't something that's happening halfway around the world – this is our backyard, and this is what we do.
"We make ourselves available to assist in times of emergency, and it is one of our motivating factors that we are so personally tied into this mission."
Mai said he and many others are doing the best they can do for the community and to make sure Minot rebounds.
"My family has been great," he said, "but obviously I'm sure there are times and issues that have come up where my wife would like me to be there.
"I've been in the Guard … longer than I've been married, so my wife understands the Guard and [its] mission. My family's support is strong, and it's one of the reasons why I can be here right now – my family is capable of handling things without me, and obviously I'm just a phone call away."
As the situation in Minot has changed, Mai and Goodman have had to meet changing mission requirements.
"My mission here in the Guard has changed drastically as the flood has changed – we've done everything," Mai said. "One thing I can say about the citizens of Minot, though, is that they've been outstanding – when we've asked them to do something or move out of an area, they've cooperated without hesitation.
"It's incredible the amount of damage we've had in this town, and we haven't had anybody seriously injured or killed.
"With that being said, we're still here to ensure that people aren't going into the river, and we're watching constantly … to make sure they stay safe.
"Unfortunately for some people who have launched boats into the river, they've ended up talking to local law enforcement officers."
Mai said that, just two days ago, he was talking to a young gentleman on one of his patrols who was wondering why the water was moving the way it was.
"That led us to finding one of the major water-main breaks, and it's important, as infrastructure starts to struggle through this flood, that we can stay ahead of the damage," he said.
Mai said that because the Guard community is so closely knit together in the Minot area, the concern and generosity from Soldiers around him has not waivered – even if he is the first sergeant.
"The one thing that I have noticed about the Guard in this community is the support I get from the Soldiers around me," he said. "I have people constantly coming up to ask me about my house, how am I doing and how my family is doing – even if they're not personally having issues.
"We've really grown to be a good, tight group of people, and those people are always available to check on me.
"It's good to have those kinds of people around you. The person who takes care of the first sergeant can be as simple as the specialist driving the vehicle with me, or if I'm sitting in the company commander's office having a conversation. They know my situation, and they know that they can come up to me and ask if everything's okay."
Mai said he has no plans to go anywhere until the flood has finally ended.
"Even though I'm in a situation where my family's also involved in this flood, there are 11,000 people in this town that need help … and rely on us to be on duty – that's my motivation to continue to do what I do."
These are Guard members – a unique brand of Citizen-Soldiers who have put their lives on hold so they may help others get through the very same situation their neighbors, their friends and their families are going through.
As the waters of the Souris River recede, you can expect that they – along with their fellow Soldiers – will stay the course through this flood fight.