Being proud of our country and the men and women who work to defend it and the freedom it represents, Pyrotechnic Innovations has helped to make 4th of July a memorable day for our troops overseas on multiple occasions.

In the last week of June 2005, Mike Tockstein was contacted by a military officer in Sadr City, Iraq through the Pyro Innovations website. The officer was looking for a fireworks video to play for the troops in Iraq, since real fireworks were not an option. The streaming fireworks videos that are available for download on our website were not sufficient length or resolution to project on the giant screen they planned on using. Knowing that mailing a DVD to Iraq in a few days was not possible, Mike uploaded a full length, high resolution video to a directory on the Pyro Innovations server that the officer could access. The video contained footage from one of our previous 20 minute 4th of July fireworks displays, fully choreographed to patriotic music. Mike filmed and added a "thank you" note to the troops to the beginning of the video. In the days leading up to the 4th of July, the troop fireworks video was mentioned on CNN. It was also written about in two printed news publications, the Aerospace Corporation's "Orbiter," and the University of Southern California's "Daily Trojan." Mike received a medallion, certificate, and letter from the military in the subsequent weeks for his support of our troops overseas. You can read the letter here.

A few years later we produced a similar video, this time for the troops at sea with an updated "thank you" note added to the beginning. It was given to a sailor currently serving on the USS Nimitz.