Dear TR Nation,

Yesterday we released Team Rubicon’s Alabama-Missouri After Action Report, detailing our first domestic missions: Operation Roll Tide and Operation Janis.

The report analyzes our work in Tuscaloosa, AL and Joplin, MO after devastating tornadoes swept through both towns and their surrounding areas. Each area of analysis includes a summary, recommendations, and action steps we will take to improve upon future missions.

For the first time since our initial Haiti operation, Team Rubicon raised more money than the cost of the mission. We offered our donors a portion of their money back after Haiti, and in keeping with our commitment to be transparent and accountable, we are doing it again. Everyone who donated through our website during Tuscaloosa and Joplin can elect to receive the percentage of money back not spent on those specific operations. People who donated during the Tuscaloosa operation can receive 52% of their money back, and people who donated during the Joplin operation can receive 78%.

We are proud that our measure of success is not money raised or dollars spent; but rather by the number of lives we impact. If you decide to invest the remainder of your donation in Team Rubicon, we guarantee that your funds will go 100% towards future disaster response missions. All money donated through our website—at all times—is restricted to funding our missions. TR currently has three paid employees, and all money raised for salaries is covered through private donors.

If you specifically wanted your money to go towards Joplin or Tuscaloosa, we understand completely, which is why we offer this pledge. We do hope, however, that you’ll join us in continuing to grow Team Rubicon by investing the remainder of your donation with TR. We’re on a mission to change the paradigm of disaster response, but we can’t do it without the ongoing and generous support of our donors. As always, your donations do double duty with TR — helping veterans while continuing to help those who are in crisis.

Sincerely,

Jake Wood and William McNulty
Co-Founders of Team Rubicon

Donation Return Information

If you donated during the Tuscaloosa (Apr 30th – May 8th) or Joplin (May 23rd-28th) missions, and would like the unused percentage of your money back, please email us within 30 days via our contact form with the following information: Your full name, mailing address, contact phone number, amount donated, and indicate Tuscaloosa or Joplin. Look to your inbox for this information will also be sent out in an email.

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Filed under: Alabama, Missouri, News, Thank You by William on June 29, 2011
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Filed under: After Action Report, Alabama, Missouri, News, Region 7 by William on June 28, 2011
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RIVAL SOUTH SUDANESE CATTLE CULTURE CLASHES AS THREAT TO THE “NEW STATE”: A COLLABORATIVE WAY OUT OF THE IMPASSE
By Glenn Geelhoed

For many observers at a distance, it would seem that the new not-yet-declared “nation-state” of the Republic of South Sudan’s problems are now behind it and a bright new future is already underway. In only a very superficial sense, this is partly true. After twenty eight years of Civil War of the Arabic-speaking, Islamic Sharia-law industrialized North, the GOS (Government of Sudan) under President Bashir in Khartoum had signed a US-brokered CPA (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) in Arusha Tanzania with the pastoralist Christian or animist cattle culture tribes of the South and the long war of the SPLA (Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Army) had transformed into the political party of the SPLM to now form the fledgling state the GOSS (a hypothetical state called the Government of South Sudan) with the signature of the Dinka leader John Garang calling off the North/South conflict. By the strict terms of the CPA, monitored carefully by the USA and international brokers, a referendum would be held in five years in January 2011 in which the Southern provinces that comprised the potentially breakaway piece of Africa’s largest nation and that vote would be self-determination of secession for independence. The referendum vote was held as mandated by the CPA and not postponed as querulous details such as a strict definition of the borders had not yet been resolved; it was carefully monitored by international observers and declared to be free and fair, and largely unmarred by violence.

The results were not close. The peoples of all the tribes of South Sudan whether they were the members of the largest tribe, the Dinka, or the second most numerous split from the Dinka, the Nuer, or the Murle or the other Nilotic and Bantu peoples, from the Nuba Mountains to nomadic herders following their cattle in the shift from dry to rainy season– voted 98.83% for secession. They elected independence to be free of the North and its GOS, and to establish their own “Republic of South Sudan” which is due to be declared in July 2011, only a month away. This new nation-state which will be recognized by the UN and other international bodies which can now organize aid through their designated capital of Juba will have a birthday quite close to the 4th of July of its principle benefactor.

All should be well, and world attention might now shift to some other impending crisis regions such as the Arab Spring nations.
(more…)

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Filed under: News, Sudan by William on June 23, 2011
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1)The current violence is Murle/Nuer at a distance from our area, much like the Nuba Mountains recurrent warfare in armed struggles over the oil patch among tribes that have nothing to do with either Murle or Dinka.

2) Our Dinka/Peace Initiative has held ROCK SOLID and has been the ONLY thing in South Sudan’s history that has succeeded as an initiative for peace among perpetually feuding cattle cultures.

I hope that the Peace Initiative between the Murle/Dinka Bor at PiBor might spread, but I do not want Ajak at risk in harm’s way to go over to the other borders, which he himself acknowledges as getting between Murle and Nuer as a Dinka. That is why I advised that the subprefecture chiefs, and particularly the paramount Murle chief to show the Nuer how the Murle have benefited from the Peace Initiative.

They are looking forward to our return, for which we have pre-positioned some of the supplies, particularly for the mobile surgical mission, all of which have been stashed in MCH with the last container. I have gathered up some big ticket items beyond our capacity to carry in, such as the two dozen hospital beds, but have NO plans to ship another container this year to Werkok. For one thing, we have successfully accomplished this at MCH and have used the supplies that were so desperately needed as a bargaining chip to get the cross rivalries supplied across ethnic lines. We will not need to supply Werkok again any time soon, and I do not want PCC to get accustomed to our regularly sponsoring a container which they might fill with items of their choosing. We will need to supply the LaKungya Clinic after a period of time but only after it is restored, and we are seeking to get that accomplished through another source of funding. Each of our mission sites will need major supplies for which we are accumulating but not until NEXT year, and we will carry in the items we need for this year’s missions as seen on the itinerary through Werkok/Bor/Leprosy Clinic, PiBor/Akobo and then on to Chad and then into CAR. Besides, I am holding photographs of the supplies and an inventory we can promise to them as a bargaining chip for the continuation of and expansion of the Peace Initiative as a further incentive in the Peace Bonus.

The team will be about the same size as this year, with the addition of two med students, who, like this year, will probably split the time. There will also be the Mobile Surgical team from Ecuador so that they will know we are not “colonizing” them from Super Powers, or UN or NGO blank checks, but just one group of volunteers helping another, with emphasis on one poor developing country expertise to another.

We will be chartering the Cessna 208 from AIM Air–meaning it will be with us throughout the PiBor onward to and through CAR and Chad, giving us both added mobility and security, as opposed to being dropped off and picked up on a later schedule. We will be flying many more miles with larger number of passengers and using more fuel since we have a three-nation series of venues. This would mean our costs would go up, but I am pleading for our charter rate to go down. Our increased mileage will be offset by the fact that I do NOT plan on adding a container being shipped in our budget, so that the total costs to be budgeted should be just over that which we had to spend this year.

With almost the same cost, we should get a large amount more return since we will have the entirety of the S Sudan field now expanded through five venues (Werkok, Bor, Leprosy Village, PiBor and Akobo) re-enforcing our Peace Initiative and attempting to get the Lakungya Clinic supported, then through two venues each in Chad and CAR.

So, with all this advanced careful pre-planning and supplies pre-positioned, we may be able to do far more on the itinerary already fixed by our pilot for not much more than we spent this year. We are trying!

Doc G

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Filed under: News, Sudan by William on June 22, 2011
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TEAM RUBICON 2 min Promo from TEAM RUBICON on Vimeo.

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Filed under: Video by William on June 21, 2011
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Civic Enterprises report here.

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Filed under: PTSD, Volunteers by William on June 19, 2011
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Veterans help disaster survivors, themselves
By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
15 June 2011

When Kasey Sands and her family returned home last month a few days after a tornado flattened much of Joplin, Mo., a dozen strangers were removing trees toppled in their yard.

“I asked them who they were, and they said they were veterans,” says Sands, 27. “They said they like to help with peace and not just with war.”

They were Team Rubicon, a non-profit group of veterans formed after the 2010 Haiti earthquake to help in the immediate aftermaths of disasters. They also raced in after tornadoes struck Alabama in April and following earlier crises in Chile, Burma, Pakistan and Sudan. More than 500 people have volunteered; 25 were in Joplin for a week.

The name refers to the Rubicon, a river separating ancient Gaul and the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar’s crossing of it led to its modern meaning: passing a point of no return.

Jake Wood, Team Rubicon’s president and co-founder, says responding to tragedies “is the most obvious fit for veterans who have so much to offer.” Many members are doctors, paramedics and nurses. Besides aiding survivors and searching for victims, members help one another adjust to life after war, he says.

In long-ago wars, troops left their hometowns together, served together, returned home together and shared their experiences and problems at local VFW and American Legion posts. “Now,” Wood says, “they just get jettisoned into civilian society.” Participating in Team Rubicon “is mostly about giving them an outlet and a reason to come together,” says Wood, 28, a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who lives in Los Angeles.

Searching for camaraderie

Tyler Tannahill, 24, heard about Team Rubicon soon after it was formed and was intrigued. He watched video of the team working in Haiti on its website, teamrubiconusa.org, and liked what he saw. He had left the Marine Corps in 2009 after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and missed “the camaraderie, the adventure.”

He enrolled in college back home in Kansas and felt little connection with fellow students. “You’ve seen different things, you’ve experienced different things,” Tannahill says.

His first mission with Team Rubicon was in Joplin, and it lived up to his expectations. “It was like we’d known each other for years,” he says. “You automatically have this working relationship and trust.”

The team helped with search-and-rescue operations and cleared debris.

The fellow veterans he worked with in Joplin “understand what I’ve been through,” Tannahill says. “I’ve been hesitant to tell friends, classmates, even family everything that happened” in Iraq and Afghanistan. “There’s still that fear of being judged or looked at differently after they know. With these guys, they don’t care. ”

The next time there’s a disaster, Tannahill will be ready to go. Donations help Team Rubicon pay members’ travel expenses.

Ford Sypher helped Team Rubicon with tornado recovery in Alabama and Joplin. Sypher, 25, is from West Lafayette, Ind., and served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He misses the Army and says working with Team Rubicon is a way to continue to help people. Fellow veterans, Sypher says, “become the kind of friends that you would hang out with. The common ground just happens to be military service.”

A college student, Sypher has stayed in touch with fellow team members since returning home, and he’ll be ready to go again. “It’s very fulfilling,” he says.

No complaining

Roby Hopkins, 28, a pharmacy technician and former National Guard member who lives in Strafford, Mo., saw a TV story about Team Rubicon’s work in Joplin. He drove 80 miles to help them clear debris and pull trees off houses in Duquesne, Mo.

Because of his own military background, Hopkins says, “I just knew it would be an organized group that wouldn’t complain.” After spending a day with Team Rubicon, he filled out an application to join. “They’re amazing,” he says.

In April, one of Team Rubicon’s original members, Wood’s best friend, committed suicide.

“Veterans are having a tremendously difficult time transitioning back into society,” Wood says. “Reutilizing veterans’ skills for continued humanitarian service can stem the tide.”

Sands says Team Rubicon did more than remove debris from her yard. They helped her husband, Robert, 28, cope with the tornado’s aftermath. The couple and their children, Steven, 9, and Madison, 5, rode out the storm in their bathroom.

“After talking with them, my husband was able to get a decent night’s sleep,” she says. “They took a lot of stress off him.”

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Filed under: In The Media, News, Region 7 by teamrubicon on June 15, 2011
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Congressman Spencer Bachus, longtime representative of Alabama, meets with TR's Jake Wood in Washington DC.   Team Rubicon discussed TRs involvement in the Tuscaloosa tornado response.

The Congressman was invited to TR's fundraiser until Wood discovered he was an Auburn football fan.  Says Wood, "Auburn beat my Badger team my junior season….I can't associate with that."

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Filed under: Photos by teamrubicon on June 14, 2011
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TR discussed Wounded Warrior initiatives to help returning servicemen transition into society through domestic disaster relief projects

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Filed under: News, Photos, PTSD by teamrubicon on June 14, 2011
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Filed under: In The Media, Sudan, Video by Joanne on June 9, 2011
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