On the recordMarch 8, 2011
I served in World War II a long time ago, but I have been around a long time. When I went into the Army--I enlisted when I was 18--my father was deathly ill with cancer. My mother was 37 years old. The prospects for life for our family were grim. I went to the Army. My father, with a condition, arranged with the recruiters that I would be allowed to stay home till my father passed away. He was 43 years old. My mother became a 37-year-old widow, and things were tough. Money was owed to doctors and pharmacists and hospitals. Why do I talk about this now? It is because I was given the benefit, as were 8 million others who were in uniform, to get my college education. I went to Columbia University. It was so far distant from my vision when I graduated from high school and enlisted in the Army. It turned out to be the greatest generation America has ever seen. It was because the government intervened at the right time and made sure that education was abundantly available for those who could learn. That is what we ought to recall about America, and not this kind of a gloomy picture that says, OK, we are growing, but so are the threats to health and well-being.
