I'm excited to be here to speak about vets, because I didn't join the Army because I wanted to go to war. I didn't join the Army because I had a lust or a need to go overseas and fight. Frankly, I joined the Army because college is really damn expensive, and they were going to help with that, and I joined the Army because it was what I knew, and it was what I knew that I thought I could do well.
Drago mi je što sam ovde da pričam o veteranima, jer se nisam priključio vojsci zbog toga što sam želeo da idem u rat. Nisam se priključio vojsci jer sam imao želju i potrebu da odem preko okeana i borim se. Iskreno, priključio sam se vojsci jer je koledž prokleto skup i trebalo je da mi pomognu sa time, te sam se priključio vojsci jer sam to znao i to je ono što sam znao i što sam mislio da mogu dobro da radim.
I didn't come from a military family. I'm not a military brat. No one in my family ever had joined the military at all, and how I first got introduced to the military was when I was 13 years old and I got sent away to military school, because my mother had been threatening me with this idea of military school ever since I was eight years old.
Ne potičem iz vojne porodice. Nisam vojni potomak. Niko u mojoj porodici se nikad nije priključio vojsci i prvi put kad sam se upoznao sa vojskom bilo je kada sam imao 13 godina i kada sam poslat u vojnu školu, jer mi je majka pretila tom idejom vojne škole od moje 8. godine.
I had some issues when I was coming up, and my mother would always tell me, she's like, "You know, if you don't get this together, I'm going to send you to military school." And I'd look at her, and I'd say, "Mommy, I'll work harder." And then when I was nine years old, she started giving me brochures to show me she wasn't playing around, so I'd look at the brochures, and I'm like, "Okay, Mommy, I can see you're serious, and I'll work harder." And then when I was 10 and 11, my behavior just kept on getting worse. I was on academic and disciplinary probation before I hit double digits, and I first felt handcuffs on my wrists when I was 11 years old. And so when I was 13 years old, my mother came up to me, and she was like, "I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm going to send you to military school." And I looked at her, and I said, "Mommy, I can see you're upset, and I'm going to work harder." And she was like, "No, you're going next week." And that was how I first got introduced to this whole idea of the military, because she thought this was a good idea.
Imao sam problema tokom odrastanja i majka bi mi uvek govorila stvari poput: "Ako ne središ ovo, poslaću te u vojnu školu." Pogledao bih je i rekao: "Mama, potrudiću se više." Kada sam imao 9 godina, počela je da mi daje brošure da mi pokaže da se ne šali. Pogledao bih ih i rekao: "U redu mama, vidim da si ozbiljna i potrudiću se više." Zatim kada sam imao 10 i 11 godina, moje ponašanje se pogoršavalo. Bio sam na akademskom i disciplinskom ispitivanju pre nego što sam napunio 10 godina i prvi put sam osetio lisice na svojim zglobovima kada sam imao 11 godina. Kada sam imao 13 godina majka mi je prišla i rekla: "Neću više ovo da trpim. Poslaću te u vojnu školu." Pogledao sam je i rekao: "Mama, vidim da si uzrujana i potrudiću se više." Rekla je: "Ne, ideš tamo sledeće nedelje." I tako sam se prvi put upoznao sa čitavom tom idejom o vojsci, jer je mislila da je to dobra ideja.
I had to disagree with her wholeheartedly when I first showed up there, because literally in the first four days, I had already run away five times from this school. They had these big black gates that surrounded the school, and every time they would turn their backs, I would just simply run out of the black gates and take them up on their offer that if we don't want to be there, we can leave at any time. So I just said, "Well, if that's the case, then I'd like to leave." (Laughter) And it never worked. And I kept on getting lost.
Nisam se uopšte složio sa njom kada sam prvi put došao tamo jer sam bukvalno u prva 4 dana pobegao čak 5 puta iz te škole. Velika crna ograda je ograđivala školu i svaki put kada bi okrenuli leđa, ja bih samo pobegao kroz crnu kapiju i prihvatio ponudu da ako ne želimo da budemo tamo možemo da odemo bilo kada. Rekao sam: "Ako je tako, želeo bih da odem." (Smeh) I nikad nije funkcionisalo. Nastavio sam da se gubim.
But then eventually, after staying there for a little while, and after the end of that first year at this military school, I realized that I actually was growing up. I realized the things that I enjoyed about this school and the thing that I enjoyed about the structure was something that I'd never found before: the fact that I finally felt like I was part of something bigger, part of a team, and it actually mattered to people that I was there, the fact that leadership wasn't just a punchline there, but that it was a real, actually core part of the entire experience. And so when it was time for me to actually finish up high school, I started thinking about what I wanted to do, and just like probably most students, had no idea what that meant or what I wanted to do. And I thought about the people who I respected and admired. I thought about a lot of the people, in particular a lot of the men, in my life who I looked up to. They all happened to wear the uniform of the United States of America, so for me, the question and the answer really became pretty easy. The question of what I wanted to do was filled in very quickly with saying, I guess I'll be an Army officer.
Ali onda nakon ostajanja tamo neko vreme i nakon kraja te godine u toj vojnoj školi, shvatio sam da zapravo odrastam. Shvatio sam da su stvari u kojima sam uživao u vezi sa tom školom i u vezi sa tom strukturom bile nešto što nisam otkrio ranije: činjenica da sam se konačno osetio kao deo nečega većeg, deo tima i zapravo je značilo ljudima što sam tamo, činjenica da liderstvo nije bilo samo naređenje, već je bilo pravi jezgroviti deo čitavog iskustva. Kada je došlo vreme da je zapravo trebalo da završim srednju školu počeo sam da razmišljam o tome šta želim da radim i verovatno kao i većina učenika, nisam imao pojma šta to znači i šta želim da radim. Mislio sam o ljudima koje poštujem i kojima se divim. Mislio sam o mnogim ljudima, posebno o muškarcima u svom životu na koje sam se ugledao. Svi oni su nosili uniformu Sjedinjenih američkih država, za mene je, pitanje i odgovor bio prilično jednostavan. Pitanje o tome čime želim da se bavim bilo je ispunjeno veoma brzo rečima: verovatno ću biti vojni oficir.
So the Army then went through this process and they trained me up, and when I say I didn't join the Army because I wanted to go to war, the truth is, I joined in 1996. There really wasn't a whole lot going on. I didn't ever feel like I was in danger. When I went to my mom, I first joined the Army when I was 17 years old, so I literally needed parental permission to join the Army, so I kind of gave the paperwork to my mom, and she just assumed it was kind of like military school. She was like, "Well, it was good for him before, so I guess I'll just let him keep doing it," having no idea that the paperwork that she was signing was actually signing her son up to become an Army officer. And I went through the process, and again the whole time still just thinking, this is great, maybe I'll serve on a weekend, or two weeks during the year, do drill, and then a couple years after I signed up, a couple years after my mother signed those papers, the whole world changed. And after 9/11, there was an entirely new context about the occupation that I chose. When I first joined, I never joined to fight, but now that I was in, this is exactly what was now going to happen.
Stoga je vojska prošla kroz ovaj proces i istrenirali su me, a kad kažem da se nisam priključio vojsci jer sam želeo da idem u rat, istina je da sam se priključio vojsci 1996. Ništa veliko se tada nije dešavalo. Nikad nisam osećao da sam u opasnosti. Kad sam otišao kod majke, prvi put sam se priključio vojsci sa 17, tako da mi je trebalo odobrenje da se priključim vojsci, te sam dao papirologiju majci i pretpostavila je da je to poput vojne škole. Rekla je: "Bilo je dobro po njega i pre i pretpostavljam da će nastaviti tako." nemajući ideju da je zapravo potpisivala saglasnost da njen sin postane vojni oficir. Prošao sam kroz proces i ponovo sve vreme sam mislio: to je sjajno, možda ću služiti za vikend, ili dve nedelje tokom godine, odraditi vežbu, a onda par godina nakon što sam se prijavio, nakon što je moja majka potpisala te papire, čitav svet se promenio. Nakon 11. septembra, izgradio se čitav novi kontekst oko zanimanja koje sam izabrao. Kada sam se prvi put priključio, nisam to učinio zbog borbe, ali tad kada sam bio tu, to je upravo ono što će se dogoditi.
And I thought about so much about the soldiers who I eventually had to end up leading. I remember when we first, right after 9/11, three weeks after 9/11, I was on a plane heading overseas, but I wasn't heading overseas with the military, I was heading overseas because I got a scholarship to go overseas. I received the scholarship to go overseas and to go study and live overseas, and I was living in England and that was interesting, but at the same time, the same people who I was training with, the same soldiers that I went through all my training with, and we prepared for war, they were now actually heading over to it. They were now about to find themselves in the middle of places the fact is the vast majority of people, the vast majority of us as we were training, couldn't even point out on a map. I spent a couple years finishing graduate school, and the whole entire time while I'm sitting there in buildings at Oxford that were literally built hundreds of years before the United States was even founded, and I'm sitting there talking to dons about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and how that influenced the start of World War I, where the entire time my heart and my head were on my soldiers who were now throwing on Kevlars and grabbing their flak vests and figuring out how exactly do I change around or how exactly do I clean a machine gun in the darkness. That was the new reality.
Puno sam razmišljao o vojnicima koje sam na kraju morao da vodim. Setio sam se kada smo prvi put nakon 11. septembra 3 nedelje nakon 11. septembra, išao sam preko okeana, ali nisam išao sa vojskom, već zato što sam dobio školarinu da idem u inostranstvo. Dobio sam školarinu da idem u insotranstvo i da idem da studiram preko okeana, a živeo sam u Engleskoj i bilo je interesantno, ali u isto vreme, ti isti ljudi sa kojima sam vežbao, isti vojnici sa kojima sam prošao čitav trening, i spremali smo se za rat, i oni su sada leteli ka tome. Sada će se naći u sred mesta, koje većina ljudi, većina nas koji smo trenirali, ne bi mogla da pokaže na mapi. Proveo sam nekoliko godina završavajući školu i sve vreme dok sam sedeo tamo u zgradama Oksforda koje su izgrađene stotine godina pre nego što su SAD uopšte osnovane, i sedeo sam razgovarajući sa profesorima o atentatu na prestolonaslednika Franca Ferdinanda, i kako je to uticalo na početak Prvog svetskog rata, gde su sve vreme moje srce i um bili uz moje vojnike koji su sada oblačili kevlar i uzimali svoje vojničke prsluke pokušavajući da shvate kako tačno repetirati ili kako tačno očistiti pušku u mraku. To je bila nova stvarnost.
By the time I finished that up and I rejoined my military unit and we were getting ready to deploy to Afghanistan, there were soldiers in my unit who were now on their second and third deployments before I even had my first. I remember walking out with my unit for the first time, and when you join the Army and you go through a combat tour, everyone looks at your shoulder, because on your shoulder is your combat patch. And so immediately as you meet people, you shake their hand, and then your eyes go to their shoulder, because you want to see where did they serve, or what unit did they serve with? And I was the only person walking around with a bare shoulder, and it burned every time someone stared at it.
Dok sam završio školu i priključio se vojnoj jedinici, bili smo spremni da krenemo ka Avganistanu, a bilo je vojnika u mojoj jedinici koji su tu bili drugi i treći put pre nego što sam ja bio prvi. Sećam se prvog hodanja sa svojom jedinicom, a kada se priključite vojsci i kada prođete kroz borbenu turu, svako vas gleda u rame, jer vam je na ramenu vaše borbeno obeležje. Čim upoznate ljude, rukujete se sa njima i oči vam krenu ka njihovom ramenu, jer želite da vidite gde služe ili sa kojom jedinicom su služili. Ja sam bio jedina osoba koja šeta sa golim ramenima, i peklo je svaki put kada je neko buljio u mene.
But you get a chance to talk to your soldiers, and you ask them why did they sign up. I signed up because college was expensive. A lot of my soldiers signed up for completely different reasons. They signed up because of a sense of obligation. They signed up because they were angry and they wanted to do something about it. They signed up because their family said this was important. They signed up because they wanted some form of revenge. They signed for a whole collection of different reasons. And now we all found ourselves overseas fighting in these conflicts.
Ali dobijete priliku da pričate sa vašim vojnicima i pitate ih zašto su se prijavili. Prijavio sam se jer je koledž bio skup. Dosta mojih vojnika se prijavilo iz totalno drugačijih razloga. Prijavili su iz osećaja obaveznosti. Prijavili su jer su bili besni i želeli su da urade nešto povodom toga. Prijavili su se jer im je porodica rekla da je to važno. Prijavili su se jer su želeli neki oblik osvete. Prijavili su se iz čitave grupe razloga. A onda smo se svi našli preko okeana boreći se u tim konfliktima.
And what was amazing to me was that I very naively started hearing this statement that I never fully understood, because right after 9/11, you start hearing this idea where people come up to you and they say, "Well, thank you for your service." And I just kind of followed in and started saying the same things to all my soldiers. This is even before I deployed. But I really had no idea what that even meant. I just said it because it sounded right. I said it because it sounded like the right thing to say to people who had served overseas. "Thank you for your service." But I had no idea what the context was or what that even, what it even meant to the people who heard it.
Ono što je mi je bilo fantastično je da sam veoma naivno počeo da slušam ovu izjavu koju nisam baš shvatio, jer odmah nakon 11. septembra počnete da sluštate tu ideju gde vam ljudi prilaze i kažu: "Hvala ti na službi." Ja sam samo pratio sve i počeo da govorim iste stvari mojim vojnicima. To je bilo pre nego što sam svrstan. Ali nisam imao ideju šta je to značilo. Samo sam to rekao jer je zvučalo tačno. Zvučalo je kao prava stvar za reći ljudima koji su služili preko okeana. "Hvala ti na službi." Nisam imao pojma kakav je bio kontekst ili šta je to uopšte, šta je to uopšte značilo ljudima koji su to čuli.
When I first came back from Afghanistan, I thought that if you make it back from conflict, then the dangers were all over. I thought that if you made it back from a conflict zone that somehow you could kind of wipe the sweat off your brow and say, "Whew, I'm glad I dodged that one," without understanding that for so many people, as they come back home, the war keeps going. It keeps playing out in all of our minds. It plays out in all of our memories. It plays out in all of our emotions. Please forgive us if we don't like being in big crowds. Please forgive us when we spend one week in a place that has 100 percent light discipline, because you're not allowed to walk around with white lights, because if anything has a white light, it can be seen from miles away, versus if you use little green or little blue lights, they cannot be seen from far away. So please forgive us if out of nowhere, we go from having 100 percent light discipline to then a week later being back in the middle of Times Square, and we have a difficult time adjusting to that. Please forgive us when you transition back to a family who has completely been maneuvering without you, and now when you come back, it's not that easy to fall back into a sense of normality, because the whole normal has changed.
Kada sam se prvi put vratio iz Avganistana, mislo sam da ako se vratite iz konflikta, da će se opastnosti završiti. Mislio sam da ako se vratite iz zone sukoba da bi nekako mogli da obrišete znoj sa čela i kažete: "Uh, drago mi je da sam to izbegao." bez shvatanja da za većinu ljudi, kada se vrate kući rat se nastavlja. Nastavlja da se odigrava i našim umovima. Odigrava se u svim našim sećanjima. Odigrava se u svim našim osećanjima. Molim vas oprostite nam ako ne volimo da budemo u velikim društvima. Molimo vas opostite nam kada provodimo jednu nedelju na mestu koje ima 100% svetlosnu disciplinu, jer vam nije dozvoljeno da idete okolo sa belim svetlima, jer ako nešto ima belu svetlost, može se videti kilometrima daleko u odnosu na mala zelena ili mala plava svetla, ne mogu se videti iz daljine. Molimo vas oprostite nam ako niotkuda idemo od 100% svetlosne discipline, a onda se nedelju dana kasnije vraćamo u sred Tajms Skvera, i imamo poteškoća da se prilagodimo tome. Molimo vas oprostite nam kada se vratimo porodici koja je totalno vođena bez nas, i sada kada se vratite nije tako lako upasti nazad u osećaj normalnosti, jer se čitava normalnost promenila.
I remember when I came back, I wanted to talk to people. I wanted people to ask me about my experiences. I wanted people to come up to me and tell me, "What did you do?" I wanted people to come up to me and tell me, "What was it like? What was the food like? What was the experience like? How are you doing?" And the only questions I got from people was, "Did you shoot anybody?" And those were the ones who were even curious enough to say anything. Because sometimes there's this fear and there's this apprehension that if I say anything, I'm afraid I'll offend, or I'm afraid I'll trigger something, so the common default is just saying nothing. The problem with that is then it feels like your service was not even acknowledged, like no one even cared. "Thank you for your service," and we move on. What I wanted to better understand was what's behind that, and why "thank you for your service" isn't enough. The fact is, we have literally 2.6 million men and women who are veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan who are all amongst us. Sometimes we know who they are, sometimes we don't, but there is that feeling, the shared experience, the shared bond where we know that that experience and that chapter of our life, while it might be closed, it's still not over.
Sećam se kada sam se vratio da sam želeo da pričam sa ljudima. Želeo sam da me ljudi pitaju o mojim iskustvima. Želeo sam da mi ljudi priđu i pitaju: "Šta si radio?" Da mi ljudi priđu i pitaju: "Kako je bilo? Kakva je bila hrana? Kakvo je bilo iskustvo? Kako si?" Jedino što su me pitali bilo je: "Da li si ubio nekoga?" To su bili oni koji su bili čak dovoljno radoznali da nešto kažu. Jer ponekad tu je strah i slutnja da ako kažem nešto, uplašen sam da ću uvrediti, ili se bojim da ću pokrenuti nešto, tako da je najbolji oblik ponašanja ne reći ništa. Problem sa time je da to izgleda kao da vaša služba uopšte nije prepoznata kao da nikoga nije bilo briga. "Hvala ti na službi.", i nastavimo dalje. Ono što sam hteo bolje da razumem je šta je iza toga, i zašto "hvala ti na službi" nije dovoljno. Činjenica je da imamo bukvalno 2,6 miliona muškaraca i žena koji su veterani iz Iraka i Avganistana koji su svi među nama. Ponekad znamo ko su oni, ponekad ne znamo, ali je tu taj osećaj, deljeno iskustvo, deljena povezanost gde znamo da to iskustvo i to poglavlje našeg života, iako je možda zatvoreno, i dalje nije gotovo.
We think about "thank you for your service," and people say, "So what does 'thank you for your service' mean to you?" Well, "Thank you for your service" means to me, it means acknowledging our stories, asking us who we are, understanding the strength that so many people, so many people who we serve with, have, and why that service means so much. "Thank you for your service" means acknowledging the fact that just because we've now come home and we've taken off the uniform does not mean our larger service to this country is somehow over. The fact is, there's still a tremendous amount that can be offered and can be given. When I look at people like our friend Taylor Urruela, who in Iraq loses his leg, had two big dreams in his life. One was to be a soldier. The other was to be a baseball player. He loses his leg in Iraq. He comes back and instead of deciding that, well, now since I've lost my leg, that second dream is over, he decides that he still has that dream of playing baseball, and he starts this group called VETSports, which now works with veterans all over the country and uses sports as a way of healing. People like Tammy Duckworth, who was a helicopter pilot and with the helicopter that she was flying, you need to use both your hands and also your legs to steer, and her helicopter gets hit, and she's trying to steer the chopper, but the chopper's not reacting to her instructions and to her commands. She's trying to land the chopper safely, but the chopper doesn't land safely, and the reason it's not landing safely is because it's not responding to the commands that her legs are giving because her legs were blown off. She barely survives. Medics come and they save her life, but then as she's doing her recuperation back at home, she realizes that, "My job's still not done." And now she uses her voice as a Congresswoman from Illinois to fight and advocate for a collection of issues to include veterans issues.
Mislimo o "hvala ti na službi" i ljudi kažu: "Šta to tebi znači?" "Hvala ti na službi" mi znači, to znači prepoznavanje naših priča, pitanje nas ko smo, razumevanje snage, koju ima toliko ljudi sa kojima služimo, i zašto ta služba toliko puno znači. "Hvala ti na službi" znači prepoznavanje činjenice da samo zašto što smo se sad vratili kući i skinuli uniforme ne znači da je naša veća služba državi nekako završena. Činjenica je da postoji ogromna količina koja se može ponuditi i može dati. Gledamo u ljude poput našeg prijatelja Tejlora Urele, koji je u Iraku izgubio nogu, imao je dva sna u svom životu. Jedan je bio da bude vojnik. Drugi da bude bejzbol igrač. Izgubio je nogu u Iraku. Vratio se kući i uprkos odučivanju da, nakon što je izgubio nogu, da je i drugi san gotov, odlučio je da i dalje ima taj san da igra bejzbol, i započeo je svoju grupu, VETSports, koja danas radi sa veteranima širom države i koristi sport kao način ozdravljenja. Ljudi poput Tami Dakvort koja je bila pilot helikoptera i helikopterom kojim je letela treba da se koriste obe ruke i noge za upravljanje, i njen helikopter je udaren, i pokušavala je da upravlja ali helikopter nije reagovao na njene instrukcije i komande. Pokušavala je da sigurno sleti helikopter, ali nije sleteo sigurno, a to se nije desilo zato što nije odgovarao na komande koje su njene noge davale jer su joj noge bile raznete. Jedva je preživela. Doktori su došli i spasli su joj život, ali dok se oporavljala kod kuće shvatila je: "Moj posao i dalje nije završen." Sad ona koristi svoj glas kao žena u kongresu iz Ilinoisa kako bi se borila i iznosila brojne probleme koji uključuju probleme veterana.
We signed up because we love this country we represent. We signed up because we believe in the idea and we believe in the people to our left and to our right. And the only thing we then ask is that "thank you for your service" needs to be more than just a quote break, that "thank you for your service" means honestly digging in to the people who have stepped up simply because they were asked to, and what that means for us not just now, not just during combat operations, but long after the last vehicle has left and after the last shot has been taken.
Prijavili smo se jer volimo ovu zemlju koju predstavljamo. Prijavili smo se jer verujemo u ideju i verujemo u ljude sa naše leve i desne strane. Jedina stvar koju pitamo je da "hvala ti za službi" treba da bude više nego samo fraza, da "hvala ti za službu" znači iskreno poštovanje ljudi koji su stupili jer su bili pitani i šta to žnači za nas trenutno ne samo tokom borbenih operacija već dugo nakon što je poslednje vozilo napustilo i nakon poslednjeg pucnja koji je ispaljen.
These are the people who I served with, and these are the people who I honor. So thank you for your service.
To su ljudi sa kojima sam služio i to su ljudi kojima odajem počast. Stoga hvala vam na službi.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)