The tomb guard badge, which is depicted on our logo and in this case here, this is the second least awarded badge in the United States military with the exception of the astronaut a astronaut badge. Today, we are giving badge number 634 to a young man and now in the brotherhood of fellowship of tomb guards. We have a society, we are 501c3 organization and part of the bylaws is is we do Community Outreach to educate the public about the tomb. I find that your generation, this, sort of a sweeping generation here, that your generation knows about the tomb. I talk to School Groups, and its appalling to me how little they know. Its not their fault. We have allowed all this teaching and teaching to the test and we have not put history on the test. And i will get off my soap box. Just think of that. I do speak to a lot of School Groups probono, this is my 81st speech this year. In 2015. I will have well over 100 by the time veterans day is over. Im speaking pretty much nonstop from the first
Test. Test. It was sitting there so long, they played out of that quarry but close but no cigar in terms of the color of the stone. So he was one of the engineers on the Washington Monument. Another little circular thing here, the guest of honor at the laying of the cornerstone of the Washington Monument in 1848 was George Washington and custis, this guy who helped complete it is on his lawn. That looks like the Washington Monument. This is the grave of the first person of european descent to be buried on the property and her name is mary randolph. Randolphs were very prominent in virginia. Her father was thomas mann ran go dolph and a direct descendent of pocahontas, and she wrote a book called the virginia housewife that was the most popular cookbook and housekeeping book of the early the first half of the 19th century. Her cuss cousin was the wife of George Washington custis and she was buried there. Born april 30, 1781, and died in 1857. From his death until the union troops came a
Our logo and in this case here, this is the second least awarded badge with the exception of the astronauts badge. The astronaut badge is in the low 200. Today, we are giving badge number 634 to a young man who has completed his training and is ready to be considered a badge holder and of the fraternity and sorority, brotherhood or fellowship of tomb guard. We are a 501 c 3 organization and part of our bylaws is that we do Community Outreach to educate the public about the tomb. I find that your generation, sort of a sweeping generalization, that your generation knows about the tomb. I talked to School Groups and it is appalling how little they know of our history. It is not their fault. We have failed them because we have allowed all of this testing and teaching to the test and not put history on the test. I will get off my soapbox. Just think of that. I do speak to a lot of School Groups pro bono. This is my 81st speech this year. I will have well over 100 by the time veterans day is
Solidly middleclass folks and more than 90 in bankruptcy because of a medical problem, a job loss, or a family breakup. The squeeze on the middle class was getting tighter, and more and more families were deep in debt. Bankruptcy was their last option to scratch their way back to dead flat broke and tried to build some kind of future. Credit Card Companies saw this and they figured out that they could boost the profits if the squeeze these people a little harder. So they wanted to change the bankruptcy laws so that hundreds of thousands more people every year would be locked out of bankruptcy and left mired in debt. Their profits by squeezing people, drowning in medical debt and deal with job losses. I was truly appalled. Now, understand how this fight shape the. Credit Card Companies were smart. They had already led to a lot of powerful folks to support them, both democrats and republicans. They had money to lower. They had lobbyists galore. And the families going bankrupt, they had n
Gathered in this little room off the Senate Chamber, and he came bustling in and sat down with us. For the next 30 to 40 minutes, we all talked with him about health care while literally a dozen members of the u. S. Senate at one point or another poked their head in. And in those kinds of conversations you have with people that you really know, abbreviated little, did you look after yeah, i am on that and did you take, yeah, i got that. Back and forth, back and forth between him and his colleagues in the u. S. Senate. And when we left that day, i thought to myself, in a business where it is so much easier to stop something from happening than it is to actually find your way to get something done, this is how this guy succeeds. Relationships, trust followthrough. It was all on display that day as a sidebar to the meeting that we were having about health care. In short, senator kennedy absolutely was the bigfoot from massachusetts in so many ways if you needed somebody to help you get so