Political Quotes

“as the ranking member of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I rise today to pay tribute to Jerry L. Hedrick, a lifelong North Carolinian, distinguished public servant, a United States Army veteran, and a leader of distinction at many levels in the American Legion, who died on August 25, 2014, concluding a life of superb and selfless service to the veterans of North Carolina and America. Jerry passed away on the eve of the American Legion's National Convention in Charlotte, NC, an event he had been actively planning for almost until the moment his life ended. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that Jerry put his heart and soul into the Legion's mission throughout his life. Jerry was born in Lexington, NC a year after the end of World War II and spent his younger, formative years in Davidson County, where he was graduated from Lexington Senior High in 1965, just as the war in Vietnam was escalating. Jerry joined the United States Army in 1966 and was trained as an armor crewman. He was subsequently assigned to Alpha Troop, First Squadron, of the Fourteenth Armored Cavalry Regiment, based in Fulda, Germany. This was in the early years of the Cold War that pitted North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces, commanded by the United States, at outposts and in forward bases along the border that divided a free and democratic West Germany from a repressive communist regime in Soviet supported East Germany.…”