The sheer desire to help others,
To just be a part of something outside yourself,
It’s innate in every one of us.
Once I understood this, like, my life changed.
Both my parents were Air Force.
So, I guess you can call me an Air Force brat.
Throughout my whole life, we just traveled from base to base.
Man, I moved so much,
Like, I’d build friendships and then those would dissolve,
and I’d have to re-build new friendships.
It was hard for me to find some sense of identity.
Back home, I used to work for beach safety.
And what that entailed was the lifeguarding for Okaloosa County’s beaches,
and their Swiftwater rescue team.
I really found those roles rewarding.
And when I started to look into the military,
And I came across the Navy, and I came across rescue swimmer.
I thought about those experiences,
And how I really liked helping people.
I was like, man this just sounds like me.
This just sounds like something I could really dig into.
I just took the time,
and the effort,
to applying myself, to getting this role.
I didn’t want any ambiguity in like, “Hey, let’s pick this guy.”
I knew what was needed of me,
and I didn’t want to just provide the minimums.
I wanted to crush it.
SAR!
Yeah, swim at him, hey,
swim at him and front head hold, release.
There were no issues, everything was secured.
Nothing was tangled, so.
I couldn’t wait to get in that kind of environment.
To get in the helicopter and start doing search and rescue.
The motto of Aviation Rescue Swimmers,
is “So Others May Live.”
You’re there face-to-face with somebody who is in need.
And, I got a sense of completeness from it.
There might not be a constant, immediate need for search and rescue.
It was kind of a drag when I was like,
“Wait, I’m not out there responding to calls every day.”
But, as I progressed in the Navy,
that motto, “So Others May Live,”
started to find ways in other avenues of my life.
And I realized that it wasn’t just a job,
It was a lifestyle,
It was who I am.
Our goal is not to run around, pass out the food, and feel good about ourselves.
We want someone to feel good about themselves out here.
They’re probably in the worst situation of their life.
I’m still serving that purpose.
Just in a different role.
Yeah, no worries.
God Bless. Yeah, have a great night.
So around 7:15, we’ll start walking around and finding people.
And if anybody’s hungry, and we still have some, we’ll hook ‘em up.
So look out for us next Monday.
Here we go.
Good for him, too.
Yeah, absolutely.
When you remove yourself out of the equation,
And it becomes more community-driven,
there’s so much more fulfillment out of it.
Helping others, this notion of selflessness,
These things aren’t incredibly hard, they’re not.
They’re not lofty ideas, or unattainable,
or scary,
They’re definitely doable.
It’s looking at others not in a caste system,
not as an inferiority / superiority,
or any kind of stereotype.
That’s what it really means to encompass the notion of selflessness.
It can infiltrate every part of your life.
My name is Jamison Ware.
And I am an Aviation Rescue Swimmer in the United States Navy.