oh s can you see by the Light what sooud we at the Twilight last stripes and bright stars through for the we watch were so G streaming and The [Applause] Rock [Applause] in Pro the night that our flag was still there that starled the land of the free [Music] home [Music] of Welcome everybody thank you for being here and uh this is uh my 24th year as your county executive to do this ceremony and the first year my predecessor my mentor my dick Squires is not with us and uh that's the bad part the good part is you are now at the Richard Esquires Veteran Cemetery in Atlanta County um I going to give you an quick anecdote the last commissioner meeting someone came specifically to ask why we named renamed the cemetery after theck Squires before she got it out of her mouth one of the Commissioners said there wouldn't be a cemetery without The Esquires so in the category if you can't please everybody he going to have to get over it we couldn't have made a better decision naming this Cemetery who was really his baby he was out here all the time and uh you know he sadly missed but he will be fondly remembered be before I introduce the uh keynote speaker just a few words Danny and I frog we all graduated around the same time Danny was at Holy Spirit we were at Atlantic City High School and I can't help to think about the inequities of life and how unfair they went in the service I went to college they were the rules and uh you wonder how we could stand for something like that how unfair oh and by the way after I got out of college I was teaching school still exam how others fought and died for their country went to college and by the way not that I did because I didn't but it gave you the opportunity to protest to scream yell against this country which unfortunately is happening again now did you ever think you'd live long enough to see signs on college campuses death to America it's almost uh unfathomable that something like that could occur and it is and we are what we are and uh I guess tolerance is the word I got another word but you know this is a solemn ceremony so we're not going to go into this Danny and I last time I saw him we were going to a football game in Atlantic City it was at the boardwalk bowl back in the day when they had football indoors which by the way was the first indoor football game in America and we were standing there looking for tickets and Mickey McCulla Sunny mulla's father came over and said here take these so we went up and there were press tickets for those of you old enough I'm going to mention two names I turned to Danny and I said Dan I think I'm sitting next to Pete RL and he said I'm sitting next to Sam Huff so that was quite a time that we had and uh this is just an extraordinary guy extremely successful and uh uh you wouldn't know it but he was a better athlete than I was he was a standout performer at Holy Spirit and then went on to uh to Great Heights and uh for those of you that know SD Lauder he was in charge he was the CEO so without further Ado my old pal Dan bristl how does he look so mucher it uh it didn't h didn't be hard to be better athlete than dentist it wasn't that hard um uh thank you D it's an honor and a pleasure to be here why I am I don't know uh but when people ask me to describe and and maybe relate some of the things that happened in my seven years in the Air Force how it affected my civilian life the obvious answers are leadership responsibility maturity uh but for those with all I see all the hats in the audience for those who served you know it's much more complicated than that it's not always good times it's not always bad times see I look at life like a mosaic and like a mosaic when every tile goes into that Mosaic soow the certain moments experiences and decisions in your life sort of paint your own Mosaic paint your life and that's the life you become so today I'm going to share some of my experiences you can decide whether they're good bad or in different uh but I ask you to realize that I joined the military 57 years ago most days I don't remember what I had for breakfast so if my memor is a little fuzzy please bear with me my military career started after Villanova I went to Villanova University graduated the BS in economics and decided I wanted to be a lawyer I applied accepted to Villanova Law School and unfortunately couldn't come up with $1,500 for tuition so I asked the law school if they would defer me to January which they did came home to work at my dad's gas station Atlantic City three works three 3 weeks later I was on a bus to New Yark for my induction physical and probably made the most important decision of my life do I go in the military as a enlisted man in the Army for two years or follow my brother's footstep and join the Air Force and serve for four I obviously chose the lad and after working on the beach as a lifeguard that whole summer went to officer training school and in uh Oakland Oakland or excuse me sanon Florida sanone Texas and was commissioned a second lieutenant in December of December 20th of 1967 and I was married 8 days later uh my first assignment was the largest field Air Force Base in the azors and really a nice tour I mean it was an the company tour my wife joined me and if you guys knew the rotation the Air Force rotation at the time was 2 or three years in Europe then 2 or 3 years in the US and then over to Southeast Asia so thinking we before you know weren't going to get assigned in Southeast Asia we decided to start a family we did that and in 1968 I now you might call this unfortunately or fortunately I won an award that was the outstanding Transportation officer in the Air Force nice award got a little plaque got a handshake from the base commander and got offered my master's degree from the University of Tennessee which at that time sounded good the problem was in the military back then for every year you went to school you owed him three years of active duty so that means with a 2-year program I had six more years on top of my four years man if I want to leave the service I'd be 33 before I left the service I just wasn't ready to make that commitment the year goes by my daughter's born and I win the award again probably the only guy ever went two years in a row unfortunately this year the same plaque the same handshake and this year this time it was the University of Illinois for a master's degree and I thought I humbly turned them down explaining why I didn't want to accept it do you guys remember Twix used to be before emails in the service you get a Twix well two weeks later I got a Twix from the chief of staff of the Air Force saying I have what a great job I'm doing how life was how how I excelled in my bit job etc etc but I had an attitude adjustment in the year in Vietnam which serve my attitude I said what so maybe the moral of that story is to do a good job and you get sent to Vietnam that's maybe good deposited my wife and daughter in summers point and was assigned to benois Airbase in charge of all airlift aircraft coming into country so all the freedom flights all the in country aircraft um I watched every day hundreds of frightened young kids coming into in country and I also watched jubilant ecstatic young men leave country and that's the way life was every day thousands we we we probably handled 165,000 people in two months that's the number of people coming through uh it was a relatively safe compared to some of you guys and what you live through in Vietnam with the exception of the occasional mortar attacks and the SAT sappers it was pretty easy Duty it um if you were in Vietnam you realize that regular ations and rules were sort of just suggestions and that's what happened while you work in the air base um the normal rotation you come in from country after spending the year in a country and you go to the Air Force b or the army base and it takes about 3 days to process you out of the country your orders are cut uh they clean you up they shave they shower and 3 days later we put you on a flight and send you home I'm sitting at my desk and one I guess it was about 11:00 one Monday afternoon this Air Force C or Marine Captain walks into my office and said Lieutenant I've been in country 14 months and I want to go home today I said that's impossible I said look we'll get you a Jeep over the army base we'll process you maybe Wednesday night Thursday morning we'll get you out he said no Lieutenant you don't understand I want to go today I said well I can't break all the rules he said wait a minute so he walks out to his Jeep comes back and puts a case of stakes on my desk he said what about this Lieutenant can I get out today as a captain you're driving me crazy it's C you can't do this it's he said now take one second he walked back out came back in and put a case of frozen lobster tailes on my desk I said can you make the 3:00 flight he showered in my barracks and my buddies and I had surf and turf for a week it was great half my halfway through my tour I was uh asked to come down to Saigon and I was going to be the aid to a two-star general named John Herring great guy he ran all airlift aircraft throughout all southeast Asia and at that point the duty was easy but the subject matter wasn't every morning we went to the seventh Air Force briefing and I remember like yesterday the briefing starts with kills how many confirmed kills on both sides both ours and our enemy and the first week it just struck me I couldn't sleep I kept talking that we're talking about killing people and sadly by the second week third week it became like I was watching sports sports center the numbers didn't mean anything you were talking 200 for them 18 for us five for them 20 for us and the numbers became irrelevant you lost all sight and all Humanity this people you're talking about and this is death and Hill there was a personal experience I had which was really troubling we had the duty to go to uh talk to go to this French farm and talk to this farmer so we choppered into his house and they call it a farm but if you can picture going with the wind the plantation the the the huge Colonial House the decks gorgeous and our job was to talk to him and his wife and his kids to leave because we can no longer secure that part of the country so he sat on his beautiful deck thank God his two kids were in in France um studying so it's just say wife and when we explained the situation that you know we couldn't protect him he turned to us and said you don't understand my father's father started this Farm I was born here I was raised here other than my time going back to France for schooling I'm as much Vietnamese as anyone you'll ever meet this is my home I also employ over 100 people and they broke from my Farms so I'm a native and nothing's going to happen to me fortunately we we were able to get his wife to go with us so we took her back to Saigon and most unfortunately he was beheaded 3 days later on the same porch where we had our our lunch General Herring was in country for two years he traveled he was responsible all throughout southeast Asia so we would occasionally jump in his jet and we' fly we to Hong Kong and Bangkok and bagia but there was one trip we took to that had and I remembered I will remember the rest of my life the we went into Taiwan simply to go buy some stereo equipment just the two of us and we landed and I got a call from the Ambassador and he said the chief of staff of the Taiwanese armed forces would like to have dinner with you and and the general I said we're here just survive some remember the big wolfers and the wheel to wheel the real to Reels that's we're there by it's all we wanted I said that's fine but had no clothes we're in fatigues so the Ambassador said no problem 8:00 that morning Taylor shows up by 6:00 that night suit tie shirt socks shoes were off to a dinner but the chief of staff and His Four generals Army Navy Marines and Air Force we walk in and there the general I saw and someone from the embassy who I later Learned was the head of the CIA in the embassy but that was a whole another story uh we walked in and there are these five generals Chinese generals Taiwanese generals none are taller than 5 fo8 and none are lighter than 260 lbs all with Fu Manchu mustaches we go to sit down and be behind us are these four guys which I thought were at least water pictures this clear liquid in these pictures it turned out that that was the Chinese version of Saki so as soon as you took a SI your glass was full we sat down and the general said could you make a presentation before we start the dinners I'm J's fine at that point a curtain went back and there was a map of China with 50 dots on the map of China and a young captain my age came out and presented a battle plan with the invasion of mainland China I'm telling you I'm 25 years old we're having our butts maybe kicked in Vietnam and these guys want to invade mainland China but and here's the concept the concept was all of these dots were major communication hubs they were radio they were television they were they were a telegraph they were telephone and their premise is at that time 1971 no inter no email no cell phone 1971 China was a a country of peasants and farmers and if they controlled communication they could control the country and what they were asking General Herring was to provide the C130 aircraft to furry all their paratroopers into the assault I can tell you that uh my friends and family are hobby home watching the First episodes of All in the Family and I'm listening to four very intent generals describe their plan and what their piece of the plan was to invade M and China it was uh obviously something you don't forget and little today's world with the controversy between China and Taiwan you have to realize how close those ties are are uh but back to saon obviously we went back to the Pentagon and didn't General suggested we don't W do that we don't want to start World War II so I went a muster out I had 10 months left in my assignment and they told me that I would not I'd be separated to the port when I landed I had a wife a child $100 hours in my pocket and I'd be separated in San Francisco and be on my way after two weeks they called me back in and said listen we'd like you to be a regular officer what's a regular officer a regular officer is one who has the same commission as an Air Force Academy Grant and if you do that and guarantee us two more years we'll give you a tour in Homestead Air Force Base and I was bribed I guess but I accepted readily what I didn't realize until I got a letter during Desert Storm when I was the president of Clinique is the day I left the service I had a 25-year obligation so you imagine sitting at your desk in a Cosmetic Company saying we don't need you anymore Captain you can be dismissing your duties um the Air Force did a lot for me there was a Growing Experience uh obviously someone in the Air Force wanted me to stay in that award I told you I won in ' 67 and ' 68 I wanted again in 72 unfortunately this time they offered me my law degree at the University in Miami which by that time I was over the air force I was done with it all I was 28 years old and I started my civilian life I started with Johnson and Johnson and Manufacturing operation and 1978 joined this little cosmetic company called Estee Lauder we had three brands we had Lauder Clinique and arms uh and I end up saying 31 years there and when I left was a 16$ 6 billion company with 17 Brands including Bobby Brown and mac and all you guys looking at me like I'm talking just think of Old Spice on steroids it's it's women's Cosmetics ladies here all know these names so that's sort of it's a cap of my Mosaic I was very fortunate I think it was an experience in hindsight that I never regretted but when you live through it and the sacrifices you make I think it's pretty significant and I admire everyone here who did did serve and I wish them the B the best some of the people in tuned here weren't as lucky you know if you talk about a mosaic their Mosaic was shattered and may much too early so what I'd ask everyone here is to join me and millions of other Americans on a national moment of remembrance that's every Memorial Day at 3:00 no matter what you're doing barbecue Beach whatever you're doing just take one minute of silence and remember everybody who gave so much for this country thank you now I'd like to acknowledge the Squire's family please come up and we have uh a simple award for you all remembrance behalf of Denny uh her Davis is behind me who is our current chairman of The Advisory Board it was it for dick Squires we would have no Advisory Board and we have 15 proud veterans that serve now and they're doing one hell of a job and wasn't for Denny dick Squire we wouldn't be here thank you very much God bless thank [Applause] you my pleasure didn't leave much for me to do by the way when I became [Applause] quick on behalf of Richard Squire's family here both in body or in spirit wish to thank Atlanta County Executive Dennis levenson and his administration for bestowing the greatest sacred honor of renaming Atlantic County Veteran Cemetery in his name he envisioned this reverent beautiful location and final resting place for all all veterans and their families as a tribute and acknowledgement to all whom served our country although his administration spearheaded this endeavor he would be the first to acknowledge appreciate respect all the many people involved both past and present have taken part in creating and maintaining this beautiful Cemetery of which can make all of Atlanta County proud thank you yeah and now we're going to have the presentation the memorial wreath [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I [Music] [Applause]