MEDITERRANEAN SEA – Staff Sgt. Corey Bond, a dedicated, loving family man and proud American Soldier. A Soldier that not only salutes the flag, but one who brings a genuine, American-made flag everywhere he goes during the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) humanitarian aid mission.
Bond has been serving as an 11B, infantryman, for 12 years in the Georgia National Guard, 48th Infantry Brigade, Able company. He is on his second deployment and says JLOTS “is nothing we’ve seen in our lifetime.” He added, “it’s incredible because we’ve done the pier before but as far as the security element and delivering humanitarian aid with all the tools and equipment combined, it has never been done before.”
Bond has taken the flag with him in Israel, aboard the British Ship Cardigan Bay, the Diamon XI and the USNS Benavidez. He said. “This flag has been with me every single time I've walked onto the pier [and] it was on the pier the day it stabbed [to the Gazan shoreline].”
“I go to a pier everyday off the Gaza Strip
in a war-torn country to help deliver humanitarian aid.”
His goal is to have the flag signed by the force protection team from the beach head portion of the pier. After, he plans to get an official memo written about the places it’s been and then present it to his dad. Bond says, “for as incredible of a man as my dad has been, it’s the smallest gesture I could ever give to him to say, ‘thank you.’”
“How do you go home and tell people, I was a part of the greatest humanitarian aid efforts in the modern century? I go to a pier everyday off the Gaza Strip in a war-torn country to help deliver humanitarian aid,” said Bond. “On top of that, working with the IDF [Israeli Defense Force], working with the British and all the American units involved in this, it’s incredible. It’s cool to see this many people get together for one cause.”