I Have Had A Job

As Memoria Day approaches, I thought I would share a few stories with you. Here is the first one:

The following speech is reported to have been made during a senate campaign debate in 1974 when Howard Metzenbaum was running for reelection and John Glenn was challenging him. Glenn and Metzenbaum had also run against each other for the same seat four years earlier, a race that Metzenbaum had won.

A few days prior to the debate, Metzenbaum made a widely publicized statement that said that Glenn had never met a payroll (he didn't actually say that he'd never held a real job). In other words, Glenn had been a military man not a businessman, like Metzenbaum, who had created a major newspaper and a nation-wide parking company. Metzenbaum did not repeat that charge during the debate, but Glenn came prepared to respond to it and did it so powerfully that he also went on to win the election.

John Glenn:

"I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps.

I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space program.

It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line. It was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank. I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day... to a veteran's hospital and look those men - with their mangled bodies - in the eye, and tell them they didn't hold a job! You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee... and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their DADS didn't hold a job.

You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch those waving flags.

You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell me that those people didn't have a job? I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men - some men - who held real jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose - and a love of country and a dedication to duty - that was more important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this country possible.

I have held a job, Howard! What about you?