On the morning of Sept. 27, 2024, Spc. Brandon Moore of the Tennessee National Guard grabbed the go-bag his father had packed for him and headed off for another day of disaster response in the wake of Hurricane Helene. He and Spc. Ethan Ward loaded into an up-armored LMTV, the second truck in a four-truck convoy tasked to help evacuate citizens stranded on the rooftop of Unicoi County Hospital.
By the end of the day, the two men had narrowly escaped drowning in rushing floodwaters and rescued six civilians from the same fate.
In response to their heroic actions, Moore and Ward were named the 2025 National Guard Members of the Year by the USO. They will be recognized at the annual USO Gala on May 29.
“I’m honored and humbled to be able to represent the National Guard on a world stage,” said Ward, who joined the Tennessee Guard in 2022 after three years on active duty. “I’m just a quiet professional, just got a job, got to do it. This is what I signed up for.”
Shortly after Ward and Moore left the armory in Elizabethton, they received a call from the first truck in their convoy warning them the waters down the road were rising swiftly.
“Before we proceeded, we looked at each other and were like, are we willing to accept the risk that’s at hand?” said Moore, who has served in the Guard for over five years.
Both men decided saving people outweighed the risk.
But the flood waters did overtake the vehicle. The truck hit a pile of debris, lost momentum and tipped over. Despite having opened the windows, both men initially found they could not fit through, and the force of the water was too powerful for them to open the doors.
“Ward was like, ‘We’ve got to keep trying,’” said Moore. “‘If we don’t, we’re going to die.’ I remember him saying that.”
The water filled the truck completely. “It’s pitch black, the water’s ice cold, you can’t see anything,” Ward recalled. “We’re stuck in this metal coffin.”
Both men experienced a moment of calm. “All I can remember thinking is, I’m never going to see my son again,” Moore said.
With what both men thought were their last breaths, they finally escaped. Moore managed to wriggle through a window, and Ward somehow opened a door.
“That took everything I had in me,” he said, “pushing the door up at an angle against the current.”
As they recovered atop a debris field, in shock, they saw more people rushing by. The guardsmen pulled six civilians out of the flood, checking them for injuries and ascertaining that there were 10 more people possibly in the water.
“When we were still on the debris field, I heard a woman scream from the water twice but couldn’t see her,” Ward remembered. “If I had seen her, I’d have dove in without a second thought. Because that’s just the job. Unfortunately, it was just really hard to see people.”
All eight people were eventually retrieved via helicopter — women first, then men, then Moore and Ward. “Even though we’re just as beat as they are, they’re still the priority, that’s still the job,” Ward said. “The job never changed.”
Despite their exhaustion and injuries, both men were ready to go back out almost immediately — Ward returned to the armory the next morning, Moore the day after.
“There’s still people missing, we’ve still got a job to do,” said Ward. “This is our bread and butter. This is what the National Guard is for. That’s why we’re here.”
Moore, from Portsmouth, Virginia, and Ward, from Virginia Beach, Virginia, both currently serve with the 776th Maintenance Company in Elizabethton, Tennessee.
