Nevada Guard rewards employers with flight over Tahoe

You haven’t really seen Lake Tahoe until you’ve seen it from the sky.

July 27, the Nevada National Guard decided to reward a variety of Nevada employers with a ride in a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter. The ride was a thank you from the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve organization to employers who went above and beyond to help soldiers with their employment.

“As a reserve force, the Guard includes a great number of people fulfilling a dual role as military reservists ready to answer the call for the state and federal government,” said Sgt. Emerson Marcus. “And as a reserve force, the Nevada Guard also includes a large portion of people working civilian jobs in the community. Events like this serve to thank those civilian employers who often see their employees leave as they fulfill military obligations.”

One of the biggest problems soldiers in the National Guard face is employment because of their hectic schedules with training and deployment requirements — often with many of them working one weekend a month and two weeks a year. So the ESGR works to support a culture where employees support and value military service as well as provide military members with help and resources to mediate issues that arise because of their military responsibilities.

“We can’t thank you enough as employers, as Guardsmen and Airmen because when we get deployed it hinges your business,” the soldiers expressed. “We appreciate what you are doing for your country and state.”

Employers from real estate agencies to the courts to the VA gathered at Stead Airport to take the ride of their lives.

Civilians lined the walls of the helicopters, strapped into red fabric seats with nothing more than airplane seatbelts with two guardsmen standing in the middle hooked to the ceiling by only a strap. Earplugs were inserted as the whirling blades above drowned out any other noise.

Then we were off.

As we soared through the air, the Guardsmen lowered the ramp in the back of the helicopter so we could see a larger view of the landscape below us. And we got to see it all, the blues of Lake Tahoe, the green lush trees surrounding Truckee and the browns of the hills surrounding Reno.

Though the one with the best seat was the Guardsman who sat perched on the edge of the opened ramp throughout our hour-long ride.

Sometimes you forget how beautiful this area can be, how diverse the landscape really is and it makes you thankful to live in a place like this.

So, even though the trip was a thank you to the military supporters, maybe, we should have been the ones thanking the Guard for giving us such a unique experience.