The worst day theyve had in a while, whether or not its your day or not. And theres something to be said for that. So the story of the van people. First of all, i have to get a little bit of politics here. Its a heavily kurdish region. This is eastern turkey. Van is the largest settlement in eastern turkey. At that time its peak it had about 700,000 people in it during the summer. Beautiful like, absolutely gorgeous place to be. After the earthquake everybody who could leave, did. So what you have left are those that are either diehards, the people that are the leaders of the community that want to rebuild, or people that couldnt leave. And thats really telling because when you look at these pictures youre going to see abdomen abject poverty. Thats not really what it was before the earthquake so it went from bad to worse for these people. But what you saw time and time again is they were out and rebuilding and carrying on and i think that says a lot about people in general and thats th
Politics. Being a heavily kurdish region, they dont have the greatest relationship with istanbul, they dont have the greatest relationship with the turkish government. Its a completely different world. Its completely opposite. When their Armed Forces Show up, its not really lacked upon as a good thin. This is why i want to say thank you to our military thats here today, to the army, the navy, the military in general, the marines, the coast guard, even i saw a couple air force running around here yesterday. The fact that you are here and you are in San Francisco and you do this every year, it says a lot. Because we lack at look at this as a good week. We have a great working relationship and after being there and seeing that its not a Good Relationship and people get really, really tense when the guys in green show up, it makes me appreciate what we have all the more. Theres one other thing i really appreciate, by the way, and ill direct this to general speese being the trainer that he
At that time its peak it had about 700,000 people in it during the summer. Beautiful like, absolutely gorgeous place to be. After the earthquake everybody who could leave, did. So what you have left are those that are either diehards, the people that are the leaders of the community that want to rebuild, or people that couldnt leave. And thats really telling because when you look at these pictures youre going to see abdomen abject poverty. Thats not really what it was before the earthquake so it went from bad to worse for these people. But what you saw time and time again is they were out and rebuilding and carrying on and i think that says a lot about people in general and thats the next take away, is that no matter if you look at van turkey, you go to china, you go to india or you go to the United States, go up to the dakotas, you go to missouri, you go to joplin, what you find is that people are more resilient than we give them credit for being. People will will come out in their co
America they would close down the block. This where my family has always had its stall. We got to make a living. What else can we do . We dont have any medical training which kind of okay, you are fire fighters, i figured you had some. That was my naivete at the moment, i think i was a little overwhelmed myself. Thats still my ongoing project as far as that goes, how can we raise some funds and i actually have a bunch of paramedics that would go over there in a heartbeat on their time if we could find a way to fund it to teach them the medicine. The reality is they dont have a Health Care System now. Its slowly coming back but it was wiped out. They had the tertiary care facility in the region. They were the closest thing to a trauma center. They were the closest thing to intensive care. When we were there, the nearest surgery was 400 kilometers away and they dont have helicopters, not so much. Theres a few owned by the military. So it was a long ride. As a matter of fact, we thought a
I saw a couple air force running around here yesterday. The fact that you are here and you are in San Francisco and you do this every year, it says a lot. Because we lack at look at this as a good week. We have a great working relationship and after being there and seeing that its not a Good Relationship and people get really, really tense when the guys in green show up, it makes me appreciate what we have all the more. Theres one other thing i really appreciate, by the way, and ill direct this to general speese being the trainer that he is, i got a whole new appreciation for muzzle discipline back there. I appreciate the fact that we drill that into our personnel that dont point anything you dont want to shoot at. Because theres one point i was actually in our little van behind a truckload of soldiers and there were a lot of automatic weapons, everybody with fingers on the triggers and muzzles going everywhere and im, look, can we just back off a little bit . Lets not tailgate quite s