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 were available for download on our website at the time were not sufficient length or resolution to project on the giant screen they planned on using. Mailing a DVD to Iraq in a few days was not possible. So after Mike quickly filmed and edited a "thank you" note to the troops, he uploaded a full length, high resolution video with the thank you note at the beginning 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. 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. Mike was humbled after receiving a letter and challenge coin 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 who was serving on the USS Nimitz.