Veterans

Brianna Obermiller English 1000 “A Vietnam Veteran Opposes the War, 1971” In 1971, veteran John Kerry stands for himself and many other veterans in a speech opposing the Vietnam War. Relaying how the veterans feel after coming back from such a horrific war, the audience is sympathetic with those who return with such terrible memories that they must bare for the rest of their lives.

For John Kerry, it may be hard for him to describe such atrocities to his audience, and it may be even harder for the audience to believe that what he is saying is truthful, because what was going on in Vietnam at the time was much different than what the citizens of the USA believed it to be. For them, knowing the truths of the Vietnam War may simply put them in denial, however I believe Kerry’s descriptions were effective in convincing the audience of the truths of the war, because he conveys his truths by appealing to the audience’s pathos.

The speech begins with John Kerry speaking on behalf of a large group of veterans. Describing the “war crimes” that they committed in Southeast Asia, a disgusting picture is painted of “cut off limbs, blown up bodies, [and] randomly shot at civilians” (23). To the American Citizen, it would be hard to imagine that this was what the young soldiers were doing in Southeast Asia at the time; Even harder to believe.

However, when he speaks of how the young men feel upon their return, the truth of what he is saying becomes apparent. “The country doesn’t know it yet but it has created a monster, a monster in the form of millions of men who have been taught to deal and to trade in violence and who are given the chance to die for the biggest nothing in history; men who have returned with a sense of anger and a sense of betrayal which no one has yet grasped” (24).

For the mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers whom have sent one of their own to live in such conditions, this would be such a shock that denial may be imminent. And for the listeners of this speech who have little or no personal connection, the sympathy as well as the horror would be overwhelming. How then does Kerry convince his audience that what he is saying is indeed the truth? First he chooses to speak for himself and the other men in Asia.

In response to West Point Vice President Agnew’s statement that “Some glamorize the criminal misfits of society while our best men die in Asian rice paddies to preserve the freedom which most of those misfits abuse,” (24). Kerry states that “for us, as boys in Asia whom the country was supposed to support, his statement is a terrible distortion from which we can only draw a very deep sense of revulsion” (24). Why is it a terrible distortion? This would be a very common view for most Americans at the time.

Kerry states that it is a distortion “because we in no way consider ourselves the best men of this country; because those he calls misfits were standing up for us in a way that nobody else in this country dared to… because so many of those best men have returned as quadriplegics and amputees- and they lie forgotten in… Hospitals… We cannot consider ourselves America’s best men when we are ashamed of and hated for what we were called on to do in Southeast Asia” (24). The graphic descriptions that Kerry provides may convince the audience that what he is saying is indeed truthful, because it appeals to their pathos, as well as shocks them.

His descriptions alone are, what I believe, his main advantage in convincing the readers of his point. In conclusion, the speech that John Kerry gave in 1971 would have been such a shock to his audience, that the truthfulness of his words may have been questioned. However, I believe that through appealing to the audience’s pathos, Kerry was very effective in swaying the audience to believe that what he was saying was indeed the truth, as well as effective in getting his point and his hope for the outcome of the war across to Wartime America. We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as the administration has wiped away their memories of us… [in] 30 years from now our brothers [will] go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys [will] ask why, and we will be able to say “Vietnam” and not mean a… filthy obscene memory, but mean instead a place where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning” (26). Citations: Kerry, John F. A Vietnam Veteran Opposes the War, 1971. Apr. 1971. U. S Government

Did you watch any of the Paralympics in Rio? The Paralympians are awesome athletes, but I don’t believe they should be in a separate category. They are high achievers by any standard. They make no excuses for themselves, have a warrior mindset, and get the job done — just like my guest . I interviewed him right after a 70+ mile, 60-hour Spartan Agoge on a mountainside in Vermont. I was wobbly as hell as we talked, but Earl looked spring fresh and relaxed. And he had dominated the Agoge on a prosthetic leg, with a painful biological leg.

Talk about badass. And that’s not even the biggest challenge Earl has had to overcome. He has put adversity in a chokehold and used it transform himself into a better person. He said he conquered this challenge and pushes through for the people who aren’t here anymore. And he does it by taking it one step at a time — and being thankful that he’s still here.

Earl’s transformation began when he was a staff sergeant serving in the Army. His military vehicle was blown apart by a roadside bomb. He was the sole survivor. This is how awesome Earl is — his main concern when he woke up was being unable to grab his weapon to protect those around him.

He was medevaced out to Germany, where they took his leg, and then transported to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., where he fought to save the remaining leg. He required many surgeries. But the morale of his fellow soldiers and finally seeing his family lifted his spirits. You might be surprised to hear this, but Earl thinks of it as a pretty good time in his life. However, this might be why he missed something terribly important.

Earl’s twin brother, Joe, had enlisted with him, and until Afghanistan, they had served together. They even bunked together in basic training. But Earl went off to Afghanistan on his own because Joe was expecting his second child. At the time, Earl didn’t realize the guilt his brother felt, but there were clues. For one thing, Joe was afraid to enter his brother’s hospital room. Earl realizes now that the first signs of problems were there, but he missed them. Two years later, Joe took his own life.

“That’s when my lowest point actually hit,” Earl said.

He plunged into depression, bitterly wallowing in his loss and angry at the world. Then, one night at a bar when Earl was drowning his sorrows in booze, a man came up to him. “Are you Earl Granville?” he asked. Earl made a sarcastic remark about the prosthesis giving it away, but then the stranger said something that changed Earl’s life. “You know, your brother talked all the time about how much he admired you,” he said.

And Earl got to thinking. “If he was so proud of me then, what would he think of me now?”

It was his wake up call. He started drinking less and exercising more. He took up adaptive sports like snowboarding and sled hockey. He embraced and started to build himself back up to the shape he was in when he was in the military. And he started competing in the Spartan Race. He realized something we believe in at Spartan. It’s a privilege to be alive, so get motivated, give back, get in shape and get out there and help other people.

“You have to inspire people so they can go on to inspire others.” It’s the Multiplier Effect. If you can inspire 10 people, and they can inspire 10 and so on, pretty soon you’re moving the world.

More importantly, Earl realized he could use this experience to realize his full potential in all aspects of his life. Today he counsels military and veterans on how to get help and find their purpose and passion after the life-altering experiences of war. And he blazes a path filled with potential. Trust me when I say this — we’d all be doing great if we could just keep up with him.

Air Force major Angela Cody-Rouget was once responsible for America’s nuclear arsenal. She was a missile launch officer, stationed inside an underground control center. The job required a of endless systems and protocols, and she felt she’d gotten a lesson in “organized chaos.” So when it was time for her to transition into civilian life about a decade ago, she decided to play to her : She’d build a business around being organized.

“When I got out of the military,” she says, “I just walked away.” She had her eye on private industry and figured the government would be of no help. In 2006, she launched a company called . It began as a fleet of professional organizers across Colorado and Arizona, who go into homes and “liberate” them from their mess. As her company grew, she wanted on how to expand it into a national franchise — and that’s when she discovered that her initial assumption was wrong. The government, in fact, was trying to help its veterans set up businesses. And so were many other organizations.

In the past decade, a wide-ranging network of services has developed to assist people exactly like Cody-Rouget — educating, funding and mentoring vets turned entrepreneurs to help them succeed in businesses, and franchising in particular. The federal Small Business Administration (SBA) has a robust program; its two-day Boots to Business basics course is offered on military bases and has been attended by 20,000 troops transitioning out since 2013. Overall, there are now more than 14,000 organizations, universities, private philanthropies and nonprofits helping veteran entrepreneurs in the United States.

The momentum can be felt even in typically slow-moving corners of government: In 1999, Congress passed the Veterans Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development Act and rolled out 13 regional Veterans Business Outreach Centers (VBOC) across the U.S. These spaces offer training as well as connections to mentors and financing. In the coming year, six more centers are expected to open — a 46 percent increase.

“I didn’t know the SBA and other groups had veterans programs,” says Cody-Rouget. But once she discovered them, she quickly enrolled in multiple classes and began growing Major Mom into something even bigger.

As a group, veterans have long been known for their entrepreneurialism. There’s good reason: Vets are disciplined and have learned to thrive within rigid systems. According to one study, 49.7 percent of World War II veterans started their own small businesses, 40 percent of Korean War veterans became entrepreneurs and 33 percent of Vietnam vets have owned or operated a business. But until recently, veterans had to use civilian business resources.

Today’s generation of vets is entering a different world. Misty Stutsman, director of the Center of Excellence for Veteran Entrepreneurship at Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families, says the current abundance of vet-specific resources has created a golden age for what the industry calls “vetrepreneurs.” (Yes, for real.) There was no one trigger for this but, rather, a confluence of cultural events: We’re living in a startup-friendly culture and seeing a surge in outreach programs focused on post-9/11 veterans. “These two worlds have collided, and you see more and more support structures popping up,” says Stutsman.

Approximately 200,000 people now rotate out of the U.S. military every year — which translates to a lot of qualified job seekers. Many decide to create their own jobs. The SBA says about one in 10 small businesses today in the U.S. is launched by a veteran.

A lot of vets enter . The franchise world has embraced vets’ “intangible attributes that help in business,” says Mike Francomb, a West Point graduate who served as a field artillery officer in Operation Desert Shield/Storm. He’s now senior VP of development for , a company that connects vets with franchise brands and job opportunities. Another helpful organization is , an initiative of the International Franchising Association, which offers reductions in fees and discounts on equipment, and even helps secure financing at more than 650 franchises. (Opportunities vary by individual franchise but can be valuable. Among them: Little Caesars pizza waives its $20,000 franchise fee for disabled vets and offers a $10,000 equipment credit, and JDog Junk Removal hires only veteran franchisees.)

Many programs also focus on education, providing the necessary to run a business while helping vets navigate the gray areas of the business world after living in a black-and-white military system.

“We work with them on pivoting. We teach them to know when they are failing, to fail fast and then to make a pivot,” says Alexces Bartley, outreach program manager for the Riata Center for Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State. Its 12-month boot camp, which includes an online component and weeklong residency, helps vets in matters big and small — from developing business concepts to feeling at ease with civilian chitchat. “They need to be self-aware enough to know what isn’t working and what the next option is.”

Often, vets in these programs discover lessons they didn’t even realize they had to learn. “I thought I’d just jump into business,” says Jeff Gural, a former Marine, longtime member of the National Guard and police officer. He finally left the military this year, three years after he’d started his path to entrepreneurship. He began by enrolling in a three-month Veterans Launching Ventures course at Fairleigh Dickinson University, in Teaneck, N.J. “It taught me that a business plan is the crux of an entire business. It helped decide what kind of company I wanted to start and exactly what I needed to do.” With that information in hand, he bought a franchise in Camden, N.J., which provides security personnel for events, private companies and facilities. It’s a business that suits his blend of his military and police experience and newly acquired business skills.

With so many resources available, veterans are faced with a new dilemma: Which program to choose?

“There are so many high-quality, free small-business training resources available to service members, veterans and their families,” says Meghan Conroy Florkowski, a former Army engineer and director of entrepreneurship programs at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families program at Syracuse. The key is finding them, which is why her colleague Stutsman is currently compiling every program into one resource, so veterans can find the ones that are right for them.

Cody-Rouget, of Major Mom, enrolled in several programs — all of them free. She won a business-plan competition sponsored by the Women Veteran Entrepreneur Corps, an initiative started by Nell Merlino, the founder of Take Your Daughter to Work Day. She took Vet to CEO’s online course, which helps design or refine business plans, and SBA’s eight-month classroom-based leadership course.

“All the programs I’ve done offer these nuggets of wisdom that I didn’t know before going through them,” Cody-Rouget says. But she credits V-Wise (Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship, at Syracuse) with being the most influential of them all. It offered an online course on the basics of entrepreneurship, along with a conference full of training modules and presentations by female CEOs. The experience stuck with her; she and her fellow participants stay in touch, giving each other advice as they build their businesses. “I didn’t know I needed it till I had it,” she says. “V-Wise was the first place someone told me I had a billion-dollar idea. No one had ever said anything like that to me.”

As a result of all this assistance, Cody-Rouget began franchising last year, and this year she gave Major Mom a major rebrand, becoming . Her first franchise owner is (of course) a fellow veteran in Ohio. Now she hopes to expand across the country. “I think I’ve gotten my payback,” she says. “I’m glad I served my country.”

Resources for veteran entrepreneurs

To find free resources and educational programs, loans, grants, business plan competitions and mentors, vets can begin by calling their regional VBOC.

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