*Originally published by DEFENSE NEWSLINE, I am reposting this Opinion piece by my dear friend, CAPTAIN JAMES MCCORMICK. This story renews my faith in the younger generations.
Opinion: The young faces that restored my soul and my hope in America
By: James L. McCormick II, Executive Director, Government Affairs, Vietnam Veterans of America
Nov. 11, 2026
I fought back tears at the podium on Veterans Day. I wanted to get the next words out without my voice giving me away. I looked around at those young faces at Buckeye Career Center in Ohio and thought, I’m surrounded by the future of America. And for the first time in a while, I felt at peace with what that future might hold.
I’d come from Washington, D.C., where I’d spent a full day and most of the evening working with veterans organizations and elected officials. I drove nearly eight hours, slept about four and a half, and got up to speak to a group of teenagers I figured would rather be looking at their phones. I was tired, grouchy, and sure I knew what I was walking into. Boy, was I wrong.
One young man was having a hard time sitting still. When I reached the podium, he straightened up and looked right at me. I’d done my homework, but I rarely write out a speech. I try to read the room and speak to the people who are actually there. So I said a quiet prayer and asked God to give me the words.
What came to mind first was my father’s rough voice saying, “I love you,” before he died. Dad served two combat tours in Vietnam. Cancer took him at 52. Then I remembered the laughter of friends I lost in battle. I served 22 years in the Army and was shot three times in Iraq. Some of my friends came home with terrible wounds. Others never got to grow old. Looking out at those students, I could see traces of my friends at that age, with so much of their lives still ahead of them.
Students listen during a Veterans Day presentation at Buckeye Career Center in Ohio
Students listen during a Veterans Day presentation at Buckeye Career Center in Ohio. (Provided Photo)
Across two presentations, more than 1,100 students, ages 16 to 18, came to listen. I didn’t see a single student looking at a phone. Afterward, young people came up to shake my hand and say thank you. One of them was 17, the same age as my youngest son. “Where did that come from?” he asked. He told me he’d watched speeches by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan and that hearing me had reminded him of those speeches.
I told him it came from my heart. I could look out into that room and see the boy I’d been, growing up poor in the coalfields of West Virginia and refusing to quit. I wanted those students to hear that where you start leaves plenty of room for what you can become. The next president of the United States could have been sitting in one of those chairs. So could the person a town will count on someday to teach its children, keep its lights on, or show up for a neighbor in trouble. Their dreams belong to them. What we owe them is a fair chance and an example worth following.
A friend I served with and have known for more than 30 years was elected to Congress this year. We both grew up in the foothills of Appalachia. We both served in the military, and now he’s headed to Congress while my work takes me into congressional offices to advocate for veterans. His election gave me another reason to hope. I know where we came from. I know what it means for a young person from a coal town to see someone from a place like theirs earn a seat at that table.
That friend often says that when you walk past something you know is wrong and fail to correct it, you’ve accepted a lower standard for yourself. I thought about that on Veterans Day, because part of what had worn me down in Washington was how easily people who know better can get used to treating one another poorly. I’ve seen political leaders spend more time tearing people down than solving the problems they were elected to address. I’ve seen bitterness and spite do real harm in many veterans organizations. Groups built to bring veterans together can pull them apart when personal standing or old grievances take precedence over the people who need us.
Jesus spoke of straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel. I think of that when we pick apart every little thing someone we dislike does, then find an excuse for something serious because a friend did it. The test of our integrity comes when it costs us something to apply the same standard to our own side. If that makes any of us uncomfortable, it ought to. I’m talking to myself as much as I’m talking to anyone else.
The Army taught me seven values: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage. We can live them at a board meeting, at the kitchen table, or in a conversation with someone who’s made us angry. Personal courage might mean speaking up when the people in the room would rather you stayed quiet. It might mean going back to someone you’ve wronged and admitting it. And even when we can no longer stand physically, every one of us can take a moral stand for what is decent and right.
I’m grateful for the businesses that offer veterans a cup of coffee or a meal. I hope we receive that kindness in the spirit it’s given and carry it into the rest of the year. Veterans Day honors service, and our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren learn what service looks like by watching what we do on an ordinary day. They notice how we speak about people who aren’t there. They notice whose side we take when doing the right thing might cost us a title or a friendship. They’ll learn from what we let slide, too.
Love and hate are both powerful. I know how tempting it is to give the ugliest thing that happened all the attention I have left. I’d done some of that myself by the time I got to Ohio. Those students reminded me how much good I could miss if I kept looking only for what was wrong. They also reminded me what we can lose if we make bitterness the example we leave them. Our young people deserve to see adults work through a hard disagreement with enough respect left to work together the next day.
I keep coming back to that 17-year-old who shook my hand. He’s the same age as my son. I thought about how much I want my own boy to believe there’s a place for him in this country, that his word will matter, and that he can do something good with the life God gave him. I wanted the same thing for every young person in that room. I came close to crying at the podium because I could see how much they had ahead of them, and how much it still mattered what we did with the years we have left.
Let us pray for America, and then let’s give those young people something worth following. Proverbs tells us to train up a child in the way he should go. At Buckeye Career Center, more than 1,100 young Americans gave me their attention. I went there hoping to give them a reason to believe in their country. They gave me back a reason to believe in its future. I want to live in a way that earns the faith they put in me when they sat up, looked me in the eye, and listened.
James L. McCormick II served 22 years in the U.S. Army and Army National Guard, retiring as a captain. He is a recipient of the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts and a past national commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart.
Contact: wvpurpleheart@gmail.com