Earlier this week Senator John Kerry gave an important speech outlining steps that we need to take to better support our military personnel. While much of Kerry's speech (
Kerry Speech) dealt with necessary steps to improve our defense capability, it also contained a heartfelt and moving tribute to the men and women who serve our country. This is that tribute.
It takes a special individual to see your buddy get hit, and put yourself between him and incoming fire so that medics can tend to him. It takes a special person to work day by day in an environment where it is impossible to distinguish friend from foe.
But they do it. And they do it well.
They are sustained by the bonds they share within their unit, and by the love and strength they draw from home-from their families, their spouses, their children, their parents. Military families are unsung heroes who receive neither medals nor parades-giving everything they can to the men and women they love, men and women who have been called to war. They answered the call. And so must we. . . .
Our obligation is to keep faith with the men and women of the American military and their families-whether they are on active duty, in the National Guard or Reserves, or veterans.
Those who have stood for us should know that we stand with them, today and always. Each of us here today can do something to ease their burden -- but truly supporting our troops requires that we act not just as individuals, but as a nation. We owe our troops the opportunity to serve in the best-planned, best-equipped, and best-led military force in the world, and we owe them the peace of mind that comes from knowing that they and their families will be taken care of if they sacrifice life, limb or the ability to sleep without war's nightmares. We owe them not just thanks and best wishes, but action, and action in our nation's capital. In today's ever-changing and perilous world, there is not a moment to lose.