A National Guard Humvee passes through flood waters on a New Orleans street in early September 2005. (Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector)
In 2005, as a reporter embedded with a Missouri National Guard unit in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I witnessed one of the largest disaster relief operations in American history.
On the ground with the men and women of a Missouri Guard military police company, I was far removed from the decisions — and the blunders — that would ultimately mar the massive rescue effort. Instead, I saw firsthand how average Americans coped with the hardships and uncertainty of being thrown into a situation without precedent…