Post by wrblack on Nov 12, 2011 9:32:14 GMT -5
or his mom?
Great, now I'm crossposting from FB.
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Our communities have always drawn strength from our veterans’ leadership. Think of all who have come home and settled on in a quiet life of service — as a doctor or a police officer, an engineer or an entrepreneur, as a mom or a dad — and in the process, changed countless lives. Other veterans seek new adventures from taking on a new business to building a team of globetrotting veterans who use skills learned in combat to help after a natural disaster.
There are also so many in this young generation who still feel that tug to serve, but just don’t quite know where to turn. So on this Veterans Day, I ask every American, recruit our veterans. If you’re a business owner, hire them. If you’re a community leader — a mayor, a pastor or a preacher — call on them to join your efforts. Organize your community to make a sustained difference in the life of a veteran because that veteran can make an incredible difference in the life of your community.
If you’re a veteran looking for new ways to serve, check out Serve.gov. If you’re a civilian looking for new ways to support our veterans and our troops, join Michelle and Jill Biden at JoiningForces.gov. Find out what you can do. There is no such thing as too small a difference. That effort you make may have the biggest impact.
I say this because recently, I received a letter from a Vietnam veteran. She wasn’t writing to tell me about her own experience. She just wanted to tell me about her son, Jeremy. Now, Jeremy isn’t deployed, Jeremy’s not a veteran, or even in the military at all, as badly as he wants to follow in the footsteps of his family and enlist. You see, Jeremy has Down Syndrome.
So Jeremy chooses to serve where he can best -– with his local Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Beaver, Pennsylvania. He calls them “the soldiers”. And one day last spring, Jeremy spent the day with several of these veterans cleaning up a local highway.
“He worked tirelessly,” wrote his mother. “He never asked to take a break. He didn’t stop to talk about his beloved Steelers. He didn’t even ask for anything to eat or drink. He only asked for one thing, several times –- ‘Mom, will President Obama be proud of me for helping the soldiers?’”
Well, Jeremy, I want you to know, yes, I am proud of you. I could not be prouder of you, and your country is proud of you. Thank you for serving our veterans by helping them to continue their service to America.
And Jeremy’s example — one young man’s example — is one that we must all now follow. Because after a decade of war, the nation we now need to build is our own. And just as our Greatest Generation left a country recovering from Depression and returned home to build the largest middle class in history, so now will the 9/11 Generation play a pivotal role in rebuilding America’s opportunity and prosperity in the 21st century.
We know it will be hard. We have to overcome new threats to our security and prosperity, and we’ve got to overcome the cynical voices warning that America’s best days are behind us. But if there is anything our veterans teach us, it’s that there is no threat we cannot meet; there is no challenge we cannot overcome. America’s best days are still ahead. And the reason for that is because we are a people who defy those voices that insist otherwise. We are a country that does what is necessary for future generations to succeed.
You, our veterans, fight so our children won’t have to. We build and we invent and we learn so that we will know greater opportunity. America leads so that the next generation, here and around the world, will know a more hopeful life on this Earth.
So today, I thank you all for making that possible. God bless you. God bless our veterans and our troops, and God bless the United States of America. -- Barack Obama, 11/11/11
Great, now I'm crossposting from FB.
----------------
....
Our communities have always drawn strength from our veterans’ leadership. Think of all who have come home and settled on in a quiet life of service — as a doctor or a police officer, an engineer or an entrepreneur, as a mom or a dad — and in the process, changed countless lives. Other veterans seek new adventures from taking on a new business to building a team of globetrotting veterans who use skills learned in combat to help after a natural disaster.
There are also so many in this young generation who still feel that tug to serve, but just don’t quite know where to turn. So on this Veterans Day, I ask every American, recruit our veterans. If you’re a business owner, hire them. If you’re a community leader — a mayor, a pastor or a preacher — call on them to join your efforts. Organize your community to make a sustained difference in the life of a veteran because that veteran can make an incredible difference in the life of your community.
If you’re a veteran looking for new ways to serve, check out Serve.gov. If you’re a civilian looking for new ways to support our veterans and our troops, join Michelle and Jill Biden at JoiningForces.gov. Find out what you can do. There is no such thing as too small a difference. That effort you make may have the biggest impact.
I say this because recently, I received a letter from a Vietnam veteran. She wasn’t writing to tell me about her own experience. She just wanted to tell me about her son, Jeremy. Now, Jeremy isn’t deployed, Jeremy’s not a veteran, or even in the military at all, as badly as he wants to follow in the footsteps of his family and enlist. You see, Jeremy has Down Syndrome.
So Jeremy chooses to serve where he can best -– with his local Vietnam Veterans of America chapter in Beaver, Pennsylvania. He calls them “the soldiers”. And one day last spring, Jeremy spent the day with several of these veterans cleaning up a local highway.
“He worked tirelessly,” wrote his mother. “He never asked to take a break. He didn’t stop to talk about his beloved Steelers. He didn’t even ask for anything to eat or drink. He only asked for one thing, several times –- ‘Mom, will President Obama be proud of me for helping the soldiers?’”
Well, Jeremy, I want you to know, yes, I am proud of you. I could not be prouder of you, and your country is proud of you. Thank you for serving our veterans by helping them to continue their service to America.
And Jeremy’s example — one young man’s example — is one that we must all now follow. Because after a decade of war, the nation we now need to build is our own. And just as our Greatest Generation left a country recovering from Depression and returned home to build the largest middle class in history, so now will the 9/11 Generation play a pivotal role in rebuilding America’s opportunity and prosperity in the 21st century.
We know it will be hard. We have to overcome new threats to our security and prosperity, and we’ve got to overcome the cynical voices warning that America’s best days are behind us. But if there is anything our veterans teach us, it’s that there is no threat we cannot meet; there is no challenge we cannot overcome. America’s best days are still ahead. And the reason for that is because we are a people who defy those voices that insist otherwise. We are a country that does what is necessary for future generations to succeed.
You, our veterans, fight so our children won’t have to. We build and we invent and we learn so that we will know greater opportunity. America leads so that the next generation, here and around the world, will know a more hopeful life on this Earth.
So today, I thank you all for making that possible. God bless you. God bless our veterans and our troops, and God bless the United States of America. -- Barack Obama, 11/11/11
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