November 11, 2024 • 15 mins
For Veterans Day, our guest is journalist and activist Bob Woodruff. Since founding the Bob Woodruff Foundation in 2006 after he was injured by a roadside bomb while covering the war in Iraq, the foundation that bears his name raised over $160 million to support veterans and their families. The 18th Annual Stand Up for Heroes is Veterans’ Day evening at Lincoln Center. For more, visit BobWoodruffFoundation.org.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to get connected with Nina Del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one OHO six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome and thanks for listening to get connected ahead of
this Veterans Day. Our guest is journalist and activist Bob Woodroff.
Since founding the Bob Woodroff Foundation in two thousand and
six after he was injured by a roadside bomb while
covering the war in Iraq, the foundation that bears his
name has focused on supporting veterans and their families, and
their next big event is tomorrow night, the eighteenth annual
(00:33):
Stand Up for Heroes event at Lincoln Center. Bob Woodroff
is an honor to speak with you and thank you
for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You can find out more about the work and ways
to support veterans at Bob Woodriff Foundation dot org. I
think so many people are familiar with your story, but
if you don't mind, could you talk a bit about
the circumstances in two thousand and six when you were
the co anchor for ABC World News Tonight that led
you from there to here.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
You know, that was the state of the Union President
Bush was going to deliver that week back in in
d C. But I wanted to see really the details
of what the topic was going to be, which is
trying to pass the power over from the US to
the Iraqis eventually, so I wanted to be there in
the country and with one of the US military units.
(01:21):
It was actually a mid operation. It's one of where
the where the US and the Iraqi teams were working
together to a village by village to try to convince
the people that this is going to be peaceful and
everything's going to be going to turn out fairly well.
So we were going down a road in a tank
I was actually an Iraqi driven tank, with my cameraman
popping out at the top of the tank when suddenly
(01:44):
the driver told us, the Iraqi driver said, listen, you
get to get You should get down because the there's
probably going to be an IED danger area up here.
So but it was three seconds later when that that
ied exploded and completely knocked me out ammerman out for
a couple of seconds, fell down into the tank. I
woke up about two minutes but asking my producer inside
(02:08):
who was safe there? And I said, are We're still alive,
and and and he said, you're still alive. And that's
the That's the last thing I remember until I woke
up thirty six days later. Is after a coma. From
an induced coma, though I was put in, the assumption
was I was not going to survive.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Your recovery was long, as it would be for anyone
with a traumatic brain injury. As I recall, as you
returned to work, some of the first reporting you did
was on the difficulty for American soldiers receiving treatment for
injuries that were similar to yours. Can you talk about
sort of discovering that story that imbalance as it were,
(02:45):
given your own experience.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, you know, I was at Bethesden Abel That was
the military hospital down there in DC area, and we
were on the I was on the third floor. I
was I was asleep, but I was there surrounded by
my family and my friends, and ABC was treated me
extremely well. There in the military especially, they were the
kind of care that you were getting while you're in
(03:08):
the hospital. When you're a hit, your life is saved.
I was rushed out. I got, you know, my brain
was expanding. I got my skull removal from because of
the pressure while I was while I was asleep, So
that kind of care was remarkable. But when my family
observed out there on the third floor of the with
(03:29):
as a Nabels, there's other young marines that were also
really badly wounded by aprovised explosive devices like I did,
and they realized the carec they're getting now, But they thought,
you know, when they go home, it's going to be
perhaps not always, but sometimes a case where they don't
get the same kind of treatment. Even then I would
because I had such an amazing team. Plus I was
(03:51):
forty four at the time. I accomplished a lot in life,
have experienced a lot, and they were young, they haven't
done anything before. We just they thought, God, there's some
little thing that we can do when when or if
Bob wakes up and and survives and goes back to
a really nice home, maybe we should. So literally they there,
(04:11):
they thought maybe we could start some kind of foundation,
like a lot of people were doing back there in
two thousand and six. But they realized, not only is
that this situation of youth and these villages or towns,
these cities, they're going to go back to very different
kind of care that they would in this amazing advanced hospital.
They also realized that you know, the VA, the d D,
(04:33):
they underestimated the kinds of wounds, you know, serious wounds
that was going to happen in this war because you know,
previous wars people were you know, shot or blown up
and killed instantly or very quickly because they didn't have
the kind of medical advancements they did in this war.
So they underestimated it. They were overwhelmed by it. And
(04:55):
so another reason why so many people wanted to start
any kind of fillingthrop pick you know five one, see
three kind of organizations to try to help these these veterans.
So we became one of them, but we never knew
it would it would you know, remain to this day.
We've thought us a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I think so many people, especially around nine to eleven
two people started foundations. As you mentioned, there's a few
of them that's still, especially in New York Tunnel to Towers,
a few of them that have survived and really grown. Yours,
the Bob Woodraff Foundation has raised a staggering one hundred
and fifty nine million dollars at this point to help
veterans and military families how is the organization evolved over time,
(05:34):
and what are the areas of focus today.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, we've actually raised about one hundred and sixty five
millions as of today, and that number is going to
keep going up. What we want to do is we
want to address what the issues are of the moment.
You know, early on eighteen years ago, when we started this,
this was you know, immediate care for the families have
to deal with severe injuries. These were ones that were
(05:58):
very visible, you know, amputation, you know burns, traumatic brain injury, blindness,
these are the ones that everyone could see. Those are
the ones that needed to kind of care. And then
as time advanced, we could see a lot more complicated
ones like traumatic brain injury and depression and you know,
mental issues that came out of the impact of the war,
(06:19):
the multiple deployments where people had mental issues that were
not noticeable easily, and so they got more complicated. So
then you get into the pandemic time, you've got more homelessness,
you've got people that there's a huge raise in suicide.
And I think right now we're concentrating a lot on
mental issues also that not just the ones that were
(06:42):
in the war zone, but all the family members that
have lived through the same So that's the bulk of
the concentration now and just we have relationship with organizations
and every of the fifty states in this country with
more than two twenty million American veterans are being care
(07:03):
through the connections that we've got so extremely it was
horrible to get blown up. You know, there's so many
negative things that impacts our lives when this happens. But
for me, this is the only good thing that many
I guess there are others, but this is one of
the good things I guess that came out of this
(07:24):
horrific situation for me and my family was to be
able to have a chance to have some kind of
impact on somebody.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Tomorrow night will actually be a celebration at the eighteenth
annual Stand Up for Heroes at Lincoln Center. You can
find out more at the Bob Woodriffoundation dot Org. I
am speaking with Bob Woodruff and this is Get Connected
on one six point seven light FM. I'm Na del Rio.
Let's talk about the event that was founded just a
year after BWF began. It is a huge event. Bruce Springsteen,
(07:51):
Jerry Seinfeld, Norah Jones, DJ Questlove our Own. Christine Naggy
is the voice of God for the event. I just
spoke with her this morning. She's nervous but really excited.
How did this event come to exist in the first place.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Oh, that's that's an interesting story, and that that's good
to get credit, you know, to people. I think that
those who were running the New York Comedy Festival, they
saw this hour that I did about what happened, you know,
not just to me, but the bulk of the story,
what was happened to the other you know, those who
were wounded in the war that were not getting the
(08:25):
kind of care of the topic that we talked about.
And they said, listen, we have this huge, this comedy
week where all of the top comedians in the world
come here and they would love to since you started
a foundation, they would really perform for free as a
fundraiser for you guys. We said, wow, that would be fantastic,
and and so we did. We thought that was kind
(08:47):
of maybe we'll raise a couple couple of hundred thousand
dollars or something. Then I also knew someone at Sony
Music and they had just signed up with was Bruce Springsteen,
and he said, listen, I heard you do this thing.
Because he's an old friend of mine. He said, well,
maybe Bruce would be one it would be involved in
that too, and so so Bruce wants to do it too.
(09:08):
So now he combines, you know, comedy with music, and
the had this great fundraise that we didn't just raise
a couple hundred thousand. We raised almost two million dollars
that night for that first one, which we never could
have imagined. And it's and it's really grown ever since.
So that this is how that event started, and it's
been eighteen years.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It's kind of it's really amazing. You're sold out, congratulations
for tomorrow night. What is then? You think, what have
you sort of taken away about the power of music
and comedy and people like even Bruce Springsteen just to
bring in this attention and all this generosity.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
You know, that's that's that's so interesting, you know. And
now we in our world of so multiple reasons for
pressure and sadness that people go through, and politics is politics, right,
that's always got multiple sides to things, which always divide people,
even within families. But if you go to music and comedy,
(10:04):
I mean, everybody just retracts away from the kind of
issues that they're going through and say, wow, this is
a nice time and it's not one that really splits anybody.
It's kind of like sports. Sports is sort of the same,
although that was classic politics in the sense there's always
one side against the other, your famous team and you're
up against their famous team. But during that we know
(10:25):
that this is going to be not going to change
our lives. So I've always said that about sports too,
But absolutely comedy and comedy and music is just ones
that I think change people's lives at least for those
three hours or so when they go to the show.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
You did mention sports. The NFL, by the way, I see,
gave Bob Wooder Foundation a five point seven million dollar
grand You.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Know, that's that's interesting too, because essentially what our foundation
really was created as like a pass through. We really
raise the money and set up the relationship between the
organizations that are that do things. You know, I think
that something like the NFL, they have people that want
to do something and they've raised money and they have
(11:08):
money out of their profit or let they want to
do something for the veterans. They really want to do
something for the best. They always have really in the
instertory of the NFL. But it's complicated what to do
with that money that people want to transfer into organizations
that do something because they don't really know any of them.
But we do. So we've been doing this for eighteen
years now. We have these experts on the team that
(11:30):
know to find the most efficient, the best organizations and
projects out there and get that money onto them. So
we don't really run our own projects. We just find
the ones that's already established or being developed and have
the biggest impact, and have the experts, you know, medically
or mentally, whatever may be, to really give us a
(11:50):
guidance of what's the best place to put it. So
a lot of groups have now given the money that
they want to give to all the veterans. They give
it on to our foundations so that we can figure
out where the path is, how they can split it up.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
That's a great way to work. So I'd like to
go back to your story for just a moment. You know,
I was I was actually recently in a in a
play about the Iraq War, and I heard someone say,
which kind of shocked me. Why are we still talking
about that? How is that relevant? And I have my particular.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Answer about the war in area.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Why yeah, Oh, he's so funny, and I's not funny.
I guess that's just that, you know, this was the
you know, when I was born in nineteen sixty one,
you know, Vietnam War was the topic all the time.
And that was well after you know, nineteen seventy four,
nineteen seventy five, where we finally you know, you know,
(12:45):
pulled out. I mean, it became a big part of
the life. In fact, remember Mash, I tell people this too,
that was it was such a politically loaded issue of
the Vietnam War back then then, Mash. You know, it's
with the Korean War. But apparently it wasn't that they
used it as the Korean War and put it in
Korea in the in the show, because Vietnam would have
been too politically loaded to do it. But I think
(13:07):
in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the first time, we had
more attention about the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in
terms of journalism. We had so much more respect for
the veterans, the veterans, for those soldiers when they come back,
to give them some respect for serving uh and but
the difference for that partly is compared to Vietnam. We
(13:30):
were attacked on nine to eleven, so the wars of
Iraq and Afghanistan essentially started there. Secondly, we don't have
a draft. It's a voluntary military, so people have huge
respect for those not just because they serve the country
and the fact that they actually did this because were
our country was attacked, but also they're the ones that
serve and if they didn't do that, then our own,
(13:53):
our own kids will be drafted in to fight the war.
So Iraq and Afghanistan is a little bit different in
that sense that it's important because it reminds people that
this will not be, sadly, the last war that will
be fought by the voluntary military. You know, we have
to make sure that we support the veterans after they've
(14:16):
gone through because you will not have anybody that want
to be that they want to serve. It'd be really
hard to recruit to keep this voluntary military in force.
So I think that's a topic that we have to
remember people about because these are long term wounds that
they have, you know, mentally and otherwise, if we don't
(14:38):
do anything and make sure that they get what they
want get what they need. Then I think we will
really retract from our advancements in our country in terms
of giving credit and how much to remind each other
that we that we need the military for our future.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You can find out more about the work the Bob
Woodriff Foundation is doing on that account at Bob Woodruff
Foundation dot org. The annual Stand Up for Heroes at
Lincoln Center is tomorrow night. Thank you for listening to
Get Connected and Bob, thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Thank you so much. It's good. I hope a lot
of people are gonna come.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light FM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you've missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to get connected with Nina Del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one OHO six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome and thanks for listening to get connected ahead of
this Veterans Day. Our guest is journalist and activist Bob Woodroff.
Since founding the Bob Woodroff Foundation in two thousand and
six after he was injured by a roadside bomb while
covering the war in Iraq, the foundation that bears his
name has focused on supporting veterans and their families, and
their next big event is tomorrow night, the eighteenth annual
(00:33):
Stand Up for Heroes event at Lincoln Center. Bob Woodroff
is an honor to speak with you and thank you
for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
You can find out more about the work and ways
to support veterans at Bob Woodriff Foundation dot org. I
think so many people are familiar with your story, but
if you don't mind, could you talk a bit about
the circumstances in two thousand and six when you were
the co anchor for ABC World News Tonight that led
you from there to here.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
You know, that was the state of the Union President
Bush was going to deliver that week back in in
d C. But I wanted to see really the details
of what the topic was going to be, which is
trying to pass the power over from the US to
the Iraqis eventually, so I wanted to be there in
the country and with one of the US military units.
(01:21):
It was actually a mid operation. It's one of where
the where the US and the Iraqi teams were working
together to a village by village to try to convince
the people that this is going to be peaceful and
everything's going to be going to turn out fairly well.
So we were going down a road in a tank
I was actually an Iraqi driven tank, with my cameraman
popping out at the top of the tank when suddenly
(01:44):
the driver told us, the Iraqi driver said, listen, you
get to get You should get down because the there's
probably going to be an IED danger area up here.
So but it was three seconds later when that that
ied exploded and completely knocked me out ammerman out for
a couple of seconds, fell down into the tank. I
woke up about two minutes but asking my producer inside
(02:08):
who was safe there? And I said, are We're still alive,
and and and he said, you're still alive. And that's
the That's the last thing I remember until I woke
up thirty six days later. Is after a coma. From
an induced coma, though I was put in, the assumption
was I was not going to survive.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Your recovery was long, as it would be for anyone
with a traumatic brain injury. As I recall, as you
returned to work, some of the first reporting you did
was on the difficulty for American soldiers receiving treatment for
injuries that were similar to yours. Can you talk about
sort of discovering that story that imbalance as it were,
(02:45):
given your own experience.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, you know, I was at Bethesden Abel That was
the military hospital down there in DC area, and we
were on the I was on the third floor. I
was I was asleep, but I was there surrounded by
my family and my friends, and ABC was treated me
extremely well. There in the military especially, they were the
kind of care that you were getting while you're in
(03:08):
the hospital. When you're a hit, your life is saved.
I was rushed out. I got, you know, my brain
was expanding. I got my skull removal from because of
the pressure while I was while I was asleep, So
that kind of care was remarkable. But when my family
observed out there on the third floor of the with
(03:29):
as a Nabels, there's other young marines that were also
really badly wounded by aprovised explosive devices like I did,
and they realized the carec they're getting now, But they thought,
you know, when they go home, it's going to be
perhaps not always, but sometimes a case where they don't
get the same kind of treatment. Even then I would
because I had such an amazing team. Plus I was
(03:51):
forty four at the time. I accomplished a lot in life,
have experienced a lot, and they were young, they haven't
done anything before. We just they thought, God, there's some
little thing that we can do when when or if
Bob wakes up and and survives and goes back to
a really nice home, maybe we should. So literally they there,
(04:11):
they thought maybe we could start some kind of foundation,
like a lot of people were doing back there in
two thousand and six. But they realized, not only is
that this situation of youth and these villages or towns,
these cities, they're going to go back to very different
kind of care that they would in this amazing advanced hospital.
They also realized that you know, the VA, the d D,
(04:33):
they underestimated the kinds of wounds, you know, serious wounds
that was going to happen in this war because you know,
previous wars people were you know, shot or blown up
and killed instantly or very quickly because they didn't have
the kind of medical advancements they did in this war.
So they underestimated it. They were overwhelmed by it. And
(04:55):
so another reason why so many people wanted to start
any kind of fillingthrop pick you know five one, see
three kind of organizations to try to help these these veterans.
So we became one of them, but we never knew
it would it would you know, remain to this day.
We've thought us a couple of years.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I think so many people, especially around nine to eleven
two people started foundations. As you mentioned, there's a few
of them that's still, especially in New York Tunnel to Towers,
a few of them that have survived and really grown. Yours,
the Bob Woodraff Foundation has raised a staggering one hundred
and fifty nine million dollars at this point to help
veterans and military families how is the organization evolved over time,
(05:34):
and what are the areas of focus today.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, we've actually raised about one hundred and sixty five
millions as of today, and that number is going to
keep going up. What we want to do is we
want to address what the issues are of the moment.
You know, early on eighteen years ago, when we started this,
this was you know, immediate care for the families have
to deal with severe injuries. These were ones that were
(05:58):
very visible, you know, amputation, you know burns, traumatic brain injury, blindness,
these are the ones that everyone could see. Those are
the ones that needed to kind of care. And then
as time advanced, we could see a lot more complicated
ones like traumatic brain injury and depression and you know,
mental issues that came out of the impact of the war,
(06:19):
the multiple deployments where people had mental issues that were
not noticeable easily, and so they got more complicated. So
then you get into the pandemic time, you've got more homelessness,
you've got people that there's a huge raise in suicide.
And I think right now we're concentrating a lot on
mental issues also that not just the ones that were
(06:42):
in the war zone, but all the family members that
have lived through the same So that's the bulk of
the concentration now and just we have relationship with organizations
and every of the fifty states in this country with
more than two twenty million American veterans are being care
(07:03):
through the connections that we've got so extremely it was
horrible to get blown up. You know, there's so many
negative things that impacts our lives when this happens. But
for me, this is the only good thing that many
I guess there are others, but this is one of
the good things I guess that came out of this
(07:24):
horrific situation for me and my family was to be
able to have a chance to have some kind of
impact on somebody.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Tomorrow night will actually be a celebration at the eighteenth
annual Stand Up for Heroes at Lincoln Center. You can
find out more at the Bob Woodriffoundation dot Org. I
am speaking with Bob Woodruff and this is Get Connected
on one six point seven light FM. I'm Na del Rio.
Let's talk about the event that was founded just a
year after BWF began. It is a huge event. Bruce Springsteen,
(07:51):
Jerry Seinfeld, Norah Jones, DJ Questlove our Own. Christine Naggy
is the voice of God for the event. I just
spoke with her this morning. She's nervous but really excited.
How did this event come to exist in the first place.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Oh, that's that's an interesting story, and that that's good
to get credit, you know, to people. I think that
those who were running the New York Comedy Festival, they
saw this hour that I did about what happened, you know,
not just to me, but the bulk of the story,
what was happened to the other you know, those who
were wounded in the war that were not getting the
(08:25):
kind of care of the topic that we talked about.
And they said, listen, we have this huge, this comedy
week where all of the top comedians in the world
come here and they would love to since you started
a foundation, they would really perform for free as a
fundraiser for you guys. We said, wow, that would be fantastic,
and and so we did. We thought that was kind
(08:47):
of maybe we'll raise a couple couple of hundred thousand
dollars or something. Then I also knew someone at Sony
Music and they had just signed up with was Bruce Springsteen,
and he said, listen, I heard you do this thing.
Because he's an old friend of mine. He said, well,
maybe Bruce would be one it would be involved in
that too, and so so Bruce wants to do it too.
(09:08):
So now he combines, you know, comedy with music, and
the had this great fundraise that we didn't just raise
a couple hundred thousand. We raised almost two million dollars
that night for that first one, which we never could
have imagined. And it's and it's really grown ever since.
So that this is how that event started, and it's
been eighteen years.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It's kind of it's really amazing. You're sold out, congratulations
for tomorrow night. What is then? You think, what have
you sort of taken away about the power of music
and comedy and people like even Bruce Springsteen just to
bring in this attention and all this generosity.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
You know, that's that's that's so interesting, you know. And
now we in our world of so multiple reasons for
pressure and sadness that people go through, and politics is politics, right,
that's always got multiple sides to things, which always divide people,
even within families. But if you go to music and comedy,
(10:04):
I mean, everybody just retracts away from the kind of
issues that they're going through and say, wow, this is
a nice time and it's not one that really splits anybody.
It's kind of like sports. Sports is sort of the same,
although that was classic politics in the sense there's always
one side against the other, your famous team and you're
up against their famous team. But during that we know
(10:25):
that this is going to be not going to change
our lives. So I've always said that about sports too,
But absolutely comedy and comedy and music is just ones
that I think change people's lives at least for those
three hours or so when they go to the show.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
You did mention sports. The NFL, by the way, I see,
gave Bob Wooder Foundation a five point seven million dollar
grand You.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Know, that's that's interesting too, because essentially what our foundation
really was created as like a pass through. We really
raise the money and set up the relationship between the
organizations that are that do things. You know, I think
that something like the NFL, they have people that want
to do something and they've raised money and they have
(11:08):
money out of their profit or let they want to
do something for the veterans. They really want to do
something for the best. They always have really in the
instertory of the NFL. But it's complicated what to do
with that money that people want to transfer into organizations
that do something because they don't really know any of them.
But we do. So we've been doing this for eighteen
years now. We have these experts on the team that
(11:30):
know to find the most efficient, the best organizations and
projects out there and get that money onto them. So
we don't really run our own projects. We just find
the ones that's already established or being developed and have
the biggest impact, and have the experts, you know, medically
or mentally, whatever may be, to really give us a
(11:50):
guidance of what's the best place to put it. So
a lot of groups have now given the money that
they want to give to all the veterans. They give
it on to our foundations so that we can figure
out where the path is, how they can split it up.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
That's a great way to work. So I'd like to
go back to your story for just a moment. You know,
I was I was actually recently in a in a
play about the Iraq War, and I heard someone say,
which kind of shocked me. Why are we still talking
about that? How is that relevant? And I have my particular.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Answer about the war in area.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
Why yeah, Oh, he's so funny, and I's not funny.
I guess that's just that, you know, this was the
you know, when I was born in nineteen sixty one,
you know, Vietnam War was the topic all the time.
And that was well after you know, nineteen seventy four,
nineteen seventy five, where we finally you know, you know,
(12:45):
pulled out. I mean, it became a big part of
the life. In fact, remember Mash, I tell people this too,
that was it was such a politically loaded issue of
the Vietnam War back then then, Mash. You know, it's
with the Korean War. But apparently it wasn't that they
used it as the Korean War and put it in
Korea in the in the show, because Vietnam would have
been too politically loaded to do it. But I think
(13:07):
in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the first time, we had
more attention about the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in
terms of journalism. We had so much more respect for
the veterans, the veterans, for those soldiers when they come back,
to give them some respect for serving uh and but
the difference for that partly is compared to Vietnam. We
(13:30):
were attacked on nine to eleven, so the wars of
Iraq and Afghanistan essentially started there. Secondly, we don't have
a draft. It's a voluntary military, so people have huge
respect for those not just because they serve the country
and the fact that they actually did this because were
our country was attacked, but also they're the ones that
serve and if they didn't do that, then our own,
(13:53):
our own kids will be drafted in to fight the war.
So Iraq and Afghanistan is a little bit different in
that sense that it's important because it reminds people that
this will not be, sadly, the last war that will
be fought by the voluntary military. You know, we have
to make sure that we support the veterans after they've
(14:16):
gone through because you will not have anybody that want
to be that they want to serve. It'd be really
hard to recruit to keep this voluntary military in force.
So I think that's a topic that we have to
remember people about because these are long term wounds that
they have, you know, mentally and otherwise, if we don't
(14:38):
do anything and make sure that they get what they
want get what they need. Then I think we will
really retract from our advancements in our country in terms
of giving credit and how much to remind each other
that we that we need the military for our future.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
You can find out more about the work the Bob
Woodriff Foundation is doing on that account at Bob Woodruff
Foundation dot org. The annual Stand Up for Heroes at
Lincoln Center is tomorrow night. Thank you for listening to
Get Connected and Bob, thank you for being on the show.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Thank you so much. It's good. I hope a lot
of people are gonna come.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light FM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you've missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
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