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.
能在这里谈论老兵,我很激动, 因为我没参军 因为我曾想上战场。 我之所以参军,不是因为我崇拜军人 也不是我喜欢去国外打仗。 老实说,我之所以参军是因为 大学费用高的离谱, 而军队在这方面有所帮助, 我参军 因为我知道 我能干好。
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.
我并非来自军人家庭。 我并非军中之人。 我家人也从未有人参军, 我第一次接触军队 是在我13岁的时候, 我被送去军事学校, 因为从我8岁起, 我母亲就威胁要把我送去军校。
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.
我小时候调皮捣蛋, 母亲总是对我说, “你知道的,如果你好好听话, 我就送你去军校。” 我看看她,说: “妈妈,我会更努力学习的。” 9岁时,母亲开始给我一些小册子, 说明她不是在开玩笑, 看了小册子后,我说, “妈妈,我知道你是认真的,我会更努力学习的。” 后来到了10岁、11岁 我的表现越来越差。 在分数能达到两位数之前, 我被学校留校察看。 我11岁那年, 第一次感到手腕上戴上了手铐。 13岁时, 我母亲对我说, “我不会再继续纵容你了, 我要把你送去军校。” 我看看她,说: “妈妈,我知道你生气了,我会更努力学习的。” 但她说,“不行,你下周就去。” 我就是以这种方式 开始对军队有所了解, 因为母亲认为军校不错。
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.
我刚到军校时, 完全不同意她的观点, 因为刚到军校四天, 我就从学校逃跑了5次。 学校四围都是那种黑色大门, 每次门卫转过身去时, 我就从黑色大门溜出去。 事后,学校会提出: 如果我不想继续留下来,可随时辍学。 因此我说:“如果真是这样, 那我倒想辍学了。”(笑声) 但是事与愿违。 我只能继续旷课。
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.
但最终, 在军校呆了一段时间后, 在军校 第一学年结束后, 我意识到自己的确成长了。 我意识到我已经喜欢上这个学校, 我喜欢军校这个体系, 以前从未体验过: 自己是大集体的成员, 团队一员,这种感觉确实对人意义深远。 而我置身其中, 事实上,在军校,领导能力并非一句空话, 而确实是 整个学习经历的核心所在。 在我高中毕业时, 我开始思考 我想做什么, 和大多数学生一样, 不知道这意味着什么,或者我究竟想做什么。 我开始想起 我所尊敬和崇拜的那些人。 我想起许多人, 尤其是我这一生中 所崇拜的众多偶像。 他们恰巧 都身着美国军装, 所以对我而言, 答案显而易见。 “我想做什么?” 这个问题很快有了答案: 我想我将成为一名军官。
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.
就这样踏上了军营之旅, 开始接受军事训练。 当我说我参军, 不是因为我想上战场。 事实上,我在1996年就参军了。 这在当时不是什么惊人之举。 我并未感到身处险境。 在我17岁时, 第一次参军, 需要征得父母同意时, 我求助于我母亲, 我把一些申请表格交给我母亲, 她只是认为这次也和军校差不多, 她说:“之前军校使儿子受益匪浅, 我想我会让他继续他的追求,” 却全然不知,她签署的这些申请表格 是为儿子报名参军, 成为一名军官。 就这样,我进入了报名参军审核程序, 一直还只在想, 这真太好了,或许我只需要在周末服兵役, 或许一年之中有两周时间进行军事训练, 但就在我报名参军后几年, 在我母亲签署申请表格后几年, 世界发生了变化。 “9.11”之后,我所选职业 发生了翻天覆地的变化。 我第一次参军时,从未参加过战斗, 但如今却身在其中, 这正是如今将发生之事。
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.
我想过很多关于 我最终必须所带领的士兵。 记得“9.11”事件3周后, 我第一次乘飞机前往海外, 但我并非同军队一起前往海外, 我前往海外是因为我获得了奖学金, 可以前往海外。 我接受了奖学金前往海外, 在海外学习和生活, 我居住在英格兰,生活很开心, 但与此同时,同我一起训练的士兵, 这些士兵 正是同我一起训练的士兵, 我们准备好上战场, 他们现在确实正在奔赴前线。 他们现在会发现 在他们身处之地 大多数人, 我们大多数人,在我们训练时 甚至看不懂地图。 我花了几年时间完成了本科学历, 这几年来,我坐在 牛津大学校舍内, 确切地说,这座大学 早在美国成立前几百年就已修建, 我坐在这里对导师讲述 萨拉热窝事件, 及其如何影响第一次世界大战, 而我一直都在 牵挂我的士兵, 他们正穿上凯芙拉(一种刀枪不入的纤维) 和防弹衣行军, 在黑暗中探路: 我究竟如何换步, 如何擦枪。 这就是如今的现实。
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.
完成学业后,我重返我所在部队, 当时我们正整军待发,进入阿富汗, 我所在部队,有些士兵 是第二次和第三次奔赴前线, 而我是第一次。 我还记得第一次随部队出发的情景, 当你加入军队, 经历战役时, 所有人都会看向你的肩, 因为肩上贴有你的肩章。 因此当你碰到某人时, 你会立即同他握手, 之后你就会看向他的肩, 因为你想知道他们在哪里服役, 在哪个部队服役? 而我是唯一一个 没有肩章的人, 每次有人盯着我肩看时,都感觉肩在燃烧。
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.
但你也可乘此机会和士兵们聊聊, 问问他们为什么要参军。 我参军因为大学费用太高。 其他士兵参军的原因则大相径庭。 有的因为使命感而参军。 有的因为不满而参军, 他们想为此做点什么。 有的因为 他们家人说参军很重要。 有的因为他们想要某种形式的报复。 而有的则因为多种原因而参军。 如今我们都身处国外, 在这些武装冲突中作战。
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.
令我吃惊的是, 我天真地开始听到 我从未完全理解的一句话, “9.11”事件之后, 你开始听到有人会这样对你说: “感谢您服役。” 我也按照这种说法, 开始对我所有的士兵说同样一句话。 甚至在出发前我也这样说。 但我真不知道这句话究竟是何含义。 我说这句话,因为听起来不错。 我说这句话,因为这句话对服役海外的人说, 听起来似乎是正确之选。 “感谢您服役。” 但我却不知道其语境是什么, 又或是 听到这句话时,对人意味着什么。
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.
我初次从阿富汗回国时, 曾想如果你已从战争中归来, 所有危险就已经结束了。 如果你已从战事区归来, 你就可以 抹去额头上的汗,说: “唷,很高兴能躲过这场战争,” 并未意识到, 当很多人返回家园时, 战争还在继续。 战争不断浮现在我们所有人的脑海里。 战争浮现在我们所有人的记忆里。 战争浮现在我们所有人的情感中。 请原谅我们, 如果我们不喜欢置身人群中。 请原谅我们, 当我们在一个100%灯光管制的地方 度过一周时, 因为在战事区不允许在白灯下行进, 如果配备白灯, 几英里外就能看见, 相反,如果使用微光绿灯 或微光蓝灯, 从远处就不会被发现。 所以请原谅我们,如果我们突然冒出来, 一周前我们还在一个100%灯光管制的地方, 如今却回到时代广场中心, 我们需要一段痛苦的适应期。 请原谅我们 在你回到家人身边时, 他不需要你帮助,能完全处理所有事情, 而如今你回来了, 并不容易回归常态, 因为所有常态已发生变化。
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.
我记得我回来时,我想和人们谈论。 我希望他们问我的经历。 我希望他们问我: “你都干些什么?” 我希望他们问我: “战事区情况如何?那里的食物怎样? 经历如何?你怎么样?” 但所有人都问我: “你向人开过枪吗?” 这些人因为很好奇 而说点什么。 因为有时如果我说点什么, 会有这个害怕、那个担心,比如: 恐怕我会触犯军规, 或恐怕我会挑起事端, 所以通常保持沉默,什么也不说。 问题是, 总感觉你的服役 从未被承认, 正如从未有人关心一样。 “感谢您服役,” 而我们则继续。 我想更好地了解 这句话蕴含的意义, 以及为什么仅仅是“感谢您服役”还不够。 事实上,确切地说, 我们当中 从伊拉克或阿富汗回来的男女老兵, 共有260万人。 有时我们知道他们是谁, 而有时却不知道, 但都有这样一种感觉:同甘共苦, 患难与共。 我们知道这种经历, 我们生命中的篇章, 可以翻过去, 但远未结束。
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.
当我们思考“感谢您服役”这句话时, 人们会问:“‘感谢您服役’对你意味着什么?” “感谢您服役”对我来说意味着: 承认我们的故事, 问问我们是谁, 理解 我们共同服役的士兵们的力量源泉, 以及为什么服役对他们如此重要。 “感谢您服役”意味着承认 我们如今已经回家, 我们已经脱下军装这一事实, 并不意味着我们对国家更多的服务 以某种方式已经结束。 事实上,我们仍然能继续 提供更多的服务。 看看这些士兵, 比如我们的朋友Taylor Urruela, 他在伊拉克失去一条腿, 在他生命中曾有两个梦想。 一个是成为士兵。另一个是成为棒球球员。 在伊拉克他失去一条腿, 如今他回来了, 他决定, 现在既然我只有一条腿,第二个梦想破灭了, 但打棒球这一梦想依然存在, 于是他加入了一个名为“老兵运动”的团体, 如今这一团体联合全国上下的老兵, 把运动作为疗伤的方法。 又比如Tammy Duckworth, 她是一名直升机飞行员, 她所驾驶的直升机, 需要双手 和双脚共同操控, 直升机被击中时, 她试图操控直升机 但直升机 对她的指令没有反应。 她试图安全降落直升机, 但直升机不能安全降落, 不能安全降落的原因 是因为直升机对她双腿发出的指令没有反应, 因为她的双腿已经被炸飞。 她也险于丧生。 医护人员赶到,救了她的命, 但当她回家疗伤时, 她意识到:“我的事业仍未结束。” 如今她用她的声音 成为伊利诺斯州的国会女议员, 倡导国会议题搜集 应包括老兵问题。
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.
我们报名参军因为 我们热爱我们所代表的国家。 我们报名参军因为 我们相信信念,我们相信 与我们并肩作战的战友。 我们唯一要求的是: “感谢您服役” 需要远不止是一句引用噱头而已, “感谢您服役”意味着: 确实理解 他们仅仅是因为需要参军, 便踏上征程, 这句话对我们的意义不只是现在, 不只是在战役中, 而是在最后一辆车离开很久以后, 最后一次射击以后。
These are the people who I served with, and these are the people who I honor. So thank you for your service.
他们是曾和我一起服役的士兵, 他们是我尊敬的人。 因此感谢您服役。
(Applause)
(掌声)