{"id":20408,"date":"2017-03-17T00:21:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T00:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20408"},"modified":"2017-03-17T00:21:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T00:21:16","slug":"this-story-just-keeps-getting-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20408","title":{"rendered":"This story just keeps getting better"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/airman.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-20409\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/airman-254x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"254\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Consider this\u00a0item to be the &#8220;gift that keeps on giving.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It involves a teenage girl from Mississippi and a U.S. Air Force pararescue jumper who became acquainted\u00a0at a time of intense national\u00a0tragedy:\u00a0Hurricane Katrina.<\/p>\n<p>LaShay Brown was struggling to escape Katrina&#8217;s wrath in New Orleans in September 2005. Airman Michael Maroney rescued her from the torrent. The picture of them embracing after the rescue went viral.<\/p>\n<p>They reconnected a decade or so later. They have remained BFFs ever since that reunion.<\/p>\n<p>LaShay is now 14 years of age; Maroney is set to retire from the Air Force. But they have a date to keep. LaShay has invited the man who saved her life to her junior ROTC ball in Waveland, Miss., where she now lives with her family.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/good-news\/%E2%80%98katrina-girl%E2%80%99-to-bring-air-force-vet-who-rescued-her-during-2005-hurricane-to-junior-rotc-ball-%E2%80%98i-would-do-anything-to-repay-the-hug%E2%80%99-he-says\/ar-BBycKOQ?li=BBmkt5R&amp;ocid=spartandhp\">Maroney says LaShay saved his life too. <\/a>Her embrace of him that day meant the world to the young airman.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/2015\/09\/emergencies-often-build-lifetime-friendships\/<\/p>\n<p>The above link is of a blog I posted in 2015 of the two getting reconnected. It warmed my heart then to read of the initial rescue and of Maroney&#8217;s efforts to catch up with the little girl he pulled from Katrina&#8217;s wrath.<\/p>\n<p>The idea that he now would be the girl&#8217;s &#8220;date&#8221; at an ROTC ball warms my ticker even more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am proud of her no matter what she does and will support her in everything she does,\u201d\u00a0Maroney says. \u201cI think she understands service and I believe that she will do great things no matter what she chooses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hearing of this upcoming event makes my day.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Consider this\u00a0item to be the &#8220;gift that keeps on giving.&#8221; It involves a teenage girl from Mississippi and a U.S. Air Force pararescue jumper who became acquainted\u00a0at a time of intense national\u00a0tragedy:\u00a0Hurricane Katrina. LaShay Brown was struggling to escape Katrina&#8217;s wrath in New Orleans in September 2005. Airman Michael Maroney rescued her from the torrent. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20408\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">This story just keeps getting better<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2221,5587,5037],"class_list":["post-20408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-hurricane-katrina","tag-rotc","tag-us-air-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20410,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20408\/revisions\/20410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}