0:00:00.545,0:00:02.970
Two years ago, after having served four years

0:00:02.970,0:00:04.630
in the United States Marine Corps

0:00:04.630,0:00:06.990
and deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan,

0:00:06.990,0:00:09.939
I found myself in Port-au-Prince, leading a team

0:00:09.939,0:00:12.176
of veterans and medical professionals

0:00:12.176,0:00:14.609
in some of the hardest-hit areas of that city,

0:00:14.609,0:00:16.135
three days after the earthquake.

0:00:16.135,0:00:18.298
We were going to the places that nobody else wanted to go,

0:00:18.298,0:00:21.829
the places nobody else could go, and after three weeks,

0:00:21.829,0:00:24.835
we realized something. Military veterans

0:00:24.835,0:00:27.848
are very, very good at disaster response.

0:00:27.848,0:00:30.323
And coming home, my cofounder and I,

0:00:30.323,0:00:33.586
we looked at it, and we said, there are two problems.

0:00:33.586,0:00:36.592
The first problem is there's inadequate disaster response.

0:00:36.592,0:00:39.906
It's slow. It's antiquated. It's not using the best technology,

0:00:39.906,0:00:42.287
and it's not using the best people.

0:00:42.287,0:00:44.492
The second problem that we became aware of

0:00:44.492,0:00:46.970
was a very inadequate veteran reintegration,

0:00:46.970,0:00:49.115
and this is a topic that is front page news right now

0:00:49.115,0:00:51.276
as veterans are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan,

0:00:51.276,0:00:54.426
and they're struggling to reintegrate into civilian life.

0:00:54.426,0:00:56.306
And we sat here and we looked at these two problems,

0:00:56.306,0:00:59.040
and finally we came to a realization. These aren't problems.

0:00:59.040,0:01:02.502
These are actually solutions. And what do I mean by that?

0:01:02.502,0:01:05.572
Well, we can use disaster response as an opportunity

0:01:05.572,0:01:07.973
for service for the veterans coming home.

0:01:07.973,0:01:10.473
Recent surveys show that 92 percent of veterans want

0:01:10.473,0:01:12.713
to continue their service when they take off their uniform.

0:01:12.713,0:01:16.383
And we can use veterans to improve disaster response.

0:01:16.383,0:01:19.446
Now on the surface, this makes a lot of sense, and in 2010,

0:01:19.446,0:01:22.455
we responded to the tsunami in Chile,

0:01:22.455,0:01:26.349
the floods in Pakistan, we sent training teams to the Thai-Burma border.

0:01:26.349,0:01:28.981
But it was earlier this year, when one of our

0:01:28.981,0:01:33.086
original members caused us to shift focus in the organization.

0:01:33.086,0:01:35.831
This is Clay Hunt. Clay was a Marine with me.

0:01:35.831,0:01:38.157
We served together in Iraq and Afghanistan.

0:01:38.157,0:01:42.091
Clay was with us in Port-au-Prince. He was also with us in Chile.

0:01:42.091,0:01:45.977
Earlier this year, in March, Clay took his own life.

0:01:45.977,0:01:48.707
This was a tragedy, but it really forced us

0:01:48.707,0:01:51.985
to refocus what it is that we were doing.

0:01:51.985,0:01:55.449
You know, Clay didn't kill himself because of what happened

0:01:55.449,0:01:58.057
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clay killed himself

0:01:58.057,0:02:01.206
because of what he lost when he came home.

0:02:01.206,0:02:04.671
He lost purpose. He lost his community.

0:02:04.671,0:02:09.106
And perhaps most tragically, he lost his self-worth.

0:02:09.106,0:02:12.280
And so, as we evaluated, and as the dust settled

0:02:12.280,0:02:16.594
from this tragedy, we realized that, of those two problems --

0:02:16.594,0:02:19.834
in the initial iteration of our organization,

0:02:19.834,0:02:22.707
we were a disaster response organization that was using

0:02:22.707,0:02:24.946
veteran service. We had a lot of success,

0:02:24.946,0:02:29.159
and we really felt like we were changing the disaster response paradigm.

0:02:29.159,0:02:32.568
But after Clay, we shifted that focus, and suddenly,

0:02:32.568,0:02:35.044
now moving forward, we see ourselves

0:02:35.044,0:02:39.937
as a veteran service organization that's using disaster response.

0:02:39.937,0:02:42.547
Because we think that we can give that purpose

0:02:42.547,0:02:45.728
and that community and that self-worth back to the veteran.

0:02:45.728,0:02:47.959
And tornadoes in Tuscaloosa and Joplin, and then later

0:02:47.959,0:02:51.660
Hurricane Irene, gave us an opportunity to look at that.

0:02:51.660,0:02:55.069
Now I want you to imagine for a second an 18-year-old boy

0:02:55.069,0:02:57.545
who graduates from high school in Kansas City, Missouri.

0:02:57.545,0:03:00.109
He joins the Army. The Army gives him a rifle.

0:03:00.109,0:03:01.781
They send him to Iraq.

0:03:01.781,0:03:04.508
Every day he leaves the wire with a mission.

0:03:04.508,0:03:08.112
That mission is to defend the freedom of the family that he left at home.

0:03:08.112,0:03:10.201
It's to keep the men around him alive.

0:03:10.201,0:03:12.387
It's to pacify the village that he works in.

0:03:12.387,0:03:16.051
He's got a purpose. But he comes home [to] Kansas City, Missouri,

0:03:16.051,0:03:18.649
maybe he goes to college, maybe he's got a job,

0:03:18.649,0:03:21.013
but he doesn't have that same sense of purpose.

0:03:21.013,0:03:23.153
You give him a chainsaw. You send him to Joplin, Missouri

0:03:23.153,0:03:25.513
after a tornado, he regains that.

0:03:25.513,0:03:28.562
Going back, that same 18-year-old boy graduates from high school

0:03:28.562,0:03:30.507
in Kansas City, Missouri, joins the Army,

0:03:30.507,0:03:33.215
the Army gives him a rifle, they send him to Iraq.

0:03:33.215,0:03:36.122
Every day he looks into the same sets of eyes around him.

0:03:36.122,0:03:39.283
He leaves the wire. He knows that those people have his back.

0:03:39.283,0:03:41.466
He's slept in the same sand. They've lived together.

0:03:41.466,0:03:44.165
They've eaten together. They've bled together.

0:03:44.165,0:03:46.563
He goes home to Kansas City, Missouri.

0:03:46.563,0:03:49.623
He gets out of the military. He takes his uniform off.

0:03:49.623,0:03:50.962
He doesn't have that community anymore.

0:03:50.962,0:03:54.196
But you drop 25 of those veterans in Joplin, Missouri,

0:03:54.196,0:03:56.687
they get that sense of community back.

0:03:56.687,0:03:59.126
Again, you have an 18-year-old boy who graduates

0:03:59.126,0:04:00.782
high school in Kansas City.

0:04:00.782,0:04:02.498
He joins the Army. The Army gives him a rifle.

0:04:02.498,0:04:04.037
They send him to Iraq.

0:04:04.037,0:04:08.392
They pin a medal on his chest. He goes home to a ticker tape parade.

0:04:08.392,0:04:10.810
He takes the uniform off. He's no longer Sergeant Jones

0:04:10.810,0:04:13.423
in his community. He's now Dave from Kansas City.

0:04:13.423,0:04:15.696
He doesn't have that same self-worth.

0:04:15.696,0:04:18.308
But you send him to Joplin after a tornado,

0:04:18.308,0:04:20.128
and somebody once again is walking up to him

0:04:20.128,0:04:22.502
and shaking their hand and thanking them for their service,

0:04:22.502,0:04:24.819
now they have self-worth again.

0:04:24.819,0:04:27.140
I think it's very important, because right now

0:04:27.140,0:04:28.903
somebody needs to step up,

0:04:28.903,0:04:30.854
and this generation of veterans has the opportunity

0:04:30.854,0:04:33.139
to do that if they are given the chance.

0:04:33.139,0:04:37.663
Thank you very much. (Applause)