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Two years ago,
after having served four years

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in the United States Marine Corps

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and deployed both to Irak and Afghanistan,

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I found myself in Port-au-Prince

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leading a team of veterans
and medical professionals

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in some of the hardest hit areas
of that city,

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three days after the earthquake.

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We were going to the places
nobody else would go.

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The places nobody else could go

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and after three weeks,
we realized something -

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military veterans are very, very good
at disaster response.

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And coming home, my co-founder and I,

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we looked at it, we said,

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"There are two problems.

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The first problem is
an inadequate disaster response.

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It's slow, it's antiquated.
It's not using the best technology.

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It's not using the best people."

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The second problem
that we became aware of

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was a very inadequate
veteran reintegration.

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And this is the topic,
that is a front page news right now.

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As veterans are coming home right now,
from Iraq and Afghanistan,

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and they are struggling
to reintegrate into civilian life.

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We sat here and we looked
into these two problems

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and finally we came to a realization.

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These aren't problems,
these are actually solutions.

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And what do I mean by that?

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We can use disater response
as an opportunity

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for service for the veterans coming home.

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Recent surveys show
that 92 percent of veterans

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want to continue the service
when they take off the uniform.

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And we can use veterans
to improve disaster response.

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Now, on the surface
this makes a lot of sense,

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our organization Team Rubicon
was born in 2010,

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we responded to the tsunami in Chile,

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the floods in Pakistan,

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we sent training teams
to the Thai - Burma border.

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And we went to South Sudan,

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shortly after the independence,

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to train doctors
in simple surgical techniques.

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But it was earlier this year,
when one of our original members,

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caused us to shift focus
in the organization.

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This is Clay Hunt.

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Clay was a Marine with me, we served
together in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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We served in the same sniper team
in the Helmand Valley in 2008.

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Clay was with us in Port-au-Prince,

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he was also with us in Chile.

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Earlier this year, in March,
Clay took his own life.

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This was a tragedy.

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It rocked our organization,
but it really forced us

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to refocus what it is that we were doing.

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You know, Clay didn't kill himself

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[because of] what happened
in Iraq or Afghanistan.

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Clay killed himself because
of what he lost when he came home.

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He lost purpose.
He lost his community.

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And perhaps, most tragically,
he lost his self-worth.

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So, as we evaluated
and as the dust settled from this tragedy,

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we realized that, of those two problems,

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and the initial iteration
of our organization,

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we were a disater response organization
that was using veteran's service.

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We had a lot of success

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and we really felt like we were changing

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the disaster response paradigm.

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But after Clay we shifted that focus

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and suddenly, now moving forward,
we see ourselves

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as a veteran service organisation

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that's using disaster response.

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That might not seem
like a major shift in focus

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for many people out here in this audience,

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but I'll tell you why it is.

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Because we think
that we can give that purpose,

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that community and that self-worth
back to the veteran.

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And tornados in Tuscaloosa and Joplin
and then later hurricane Irene,

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gave us an opportunity to look at that.

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Now, I want you to imagine
for a second an 18-year-old boy

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who graduates from high school
in Kansas City, Missouri.

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He joins the army,
the army gives him a rifle,

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they send him to Iraq.

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Every day he leaves the wire
with a mission.

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That mission is to defend the freedom
of the family that he left at home,

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it's to keep the man around him alive,

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it's to pacify the village
that he works in.

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And he's got a purpose.

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But he comes home
to Kansas City, Missouri,

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maybe he goes to college,
maybe he's got a job,

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but he doesn't have
that same sense of purpose.

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You give him a chainsaw and you send him
to Joplin, Missouri, after a tornado,

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he regains that.

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Going back, that same 18 year old boy
graduates from highschool

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in Kansas City, Missouri.

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He joins the army,
the army gives him a rifle,

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they send him to Iraq.

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Every day he looks into
the same sets of eyes around him,

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he leaves the wire, he knows
that those people have his back.

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They've slept on the same sand,
they've lived together,

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they've eaten together,
they've bled together.

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He goes home to Kansas City, Missouri.

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He gets out of the military,
takes his uniform off.

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He doesn't have that community anymore.

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But you drop 25 of those veterans
in Joplin, Missouri,

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they get that sense of community back.

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Again, you have an 18 year old boy
who graduates high school

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in Kansas City.

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He joins the army,
the army gives him a rifle,

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they send him to Iraq.

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They pin a medal on his chest,

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he goes home to a ticker tape parade.

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He takes the uniform off,

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he is no longer sergeant Jones
in his community,

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he's now Dave from Kansas City.

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He doesn't have that same self-worth.

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But you send him to Joplin after a tornado

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and somebody once again
is walking up to him

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and shaking his hand and thanking him
for his service.

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Now, they have self-worth again.

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So what? What's it mean?

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I think it's very important.

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Becasue right now, there's a void
in leadership in this country.

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And somebody needs to step up
as we have corruption,

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and scams on tops of industry and politics

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and institutions of higher learning.

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Somebody needs to step up

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and take that role
of leadeship in this country,

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and move this country forward,

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in the direction that it's meant to move.

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And this generation of veterans
has the opportunity

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to do that, if they are given the chance.

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Thank you very much.

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(Applause)