The Alimond Show
Welcome to The Alimond Show --join us as we share our entrepreneurial guests' stories, uncover their secrets to success, and explore the unique paths they've taken to build thriving businesses in our community.
In each episode, our host, Aliyah Dastour, sits down with a diverse group of local business owners, from the corner cafe to the boutique shop, from tech startups to family-run enterprises. We peel back the curtain to reveal the trials, triumphs, and transformational moments that have shaped their entrepreneurial journey.
Discover the passion, perseverance, and innovative thinking that fuels these businesses, as well as the challenges they've overcome along the way. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur seeking inspiration or simply a curious listener interested in the stories behind your favorite local spots, The Alimond Show has something for everyone.
Our guests share their experiences, insights, and valuable advice that can empower you to turn your own dreams into reality. We discuss topics like marketing strategies, customer relationships, community engagement, and much more, offering practical takeaways you can apply to your own business or career.
Join us every week as we celebrate the unsung heroes of our local business community and explore the vibrant tapestry of entrepreneurship in our area. Tune in to The Alimond Show and get ready to be inspired, informed, and motivated to support and nurture the businesses that make our community thrive.
Subscribe now and become a part of our growing community of business enthusiasts and entrepreneurs. Stay connected with us on social media, and don't forget to leave a review if you enjoy our show. Let's celebrate the spirit of local business together on The Alimond Show.
The Alimond Show
Herbert Valle - From Birthday Processions to National Movement: Honoring Veterans with Chariots of Honor
Join us for an uplifting and moving conversation with Herbert Valle, the president of Chariots of Honor, as he recounts the heartwarming origins and mission of this unique nonprofit. Herbert shares the touching story of a birthday procession for Colonel Johnson, a Tuskegee Airman, which became the foundation for Chariots of Honor. Listen to how this initial event blossomed into a community-driven movement that honors military veterans, including remarkable female veterans like Claire, a World War II nurse.
Discover the intricate planning and dedication behind marketing these powerful events. We discuss how leveraging social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Nextdoor alongside traditional methods such as flyers and email distributions maximizes reach and engagement. Hear the heartwarming tale of World War II veteran Eli Linden's 99th and 100th birthday processions, and learn how these celebrations strengthen community bonds and honor our veterans' sacrifices.
Finally, explore the ambitious plans for Chariots of Honor's expansion as Herbert shares the organization's five-year goal to reach veterans across all states, including Hawaii. Uncover the founders' military backgrounds, their strategies to overcome fundraising and marketing challenges, and the significance of their partnerships with local businesses. This episode concludes with an emotional tribute to veterans, reflecting on the profound impact of their service and the importance of honoring their stories. Tune in for an episode filled with gratitude, respect, and the heartfelt mission of celebrating our nation's heroes.
My name is Herbert Valley and I'm originally from Maryland and I now live in Loudoun County. For the probably the past 20 years, I am the president of Chariots of Honor, which is a nonprofit organization based out of Loudoun County, and what our nonprofit does is we honor our living veterans, military veterans birthdays, and we honor their military service, and that's pretty much the crux of our mission.
Speaker 2:I love that. Now, going into what you provide for your clients, I know you have events that kind of highlight their stories because, as you have said, they like to lay low. Tell me a little bit about how you help them get their stories and their names out there.
Speaker 1:So, interestingly the way, let me kind of tell you how we started and then how that evolved to where we are right now. The way we started was my co, one of my co-founders, eric, who's ironically 40 years later he is. He's my high school classmate. Here we are in Loudoun County doing stuff together. He reached out to me and he asked me hey, you know, we got Colonel Johnson, who was a Tuskegee airman that lived out in Ashburn, virginia. And Eric asked me hey, you know, it's Colonel Johnson's birthday coming up. What do you think we should do? I said wow, I didn't know it was his birthday. I said maybe a birthday party of some type.
Speaker 1:So we kind of brainstormed a little bit here and there for about five, 10 minutes and we both came up with an idea of let's do a procession. I go wow, yeah, I love the idea, eric, I don't know how we would go about doing it. I've seen videos of veterans' processions, you know. I've seen videos, you know, of veterans' processions, but most of them have been those veterans that have passed away Very few I've seen where we actually celebrated the veteran's birthday very few of them. So I said I love the idea. Let's get back to our way of how we did business in the military. We'll create an operational order. That's what we know that best. That's creating the event. It's setting what we need to do logistics and admin.
Speaker 1:So we created an op ward and all we did was reached out to the entire community, we started socializing it and we hosted our very first procession. We call it the honorary procession for Colonel Johnson and it was amazing. During that time, as we were prepping, we added another co-founder His name is Thomas Centenor, down in Southern Virginia, and also all three of us hosted this, organized this procession in 2021, procession in 2021, april Hosted it and once we finished it, we looked at each other and we said I think we should do this some more. This was amazing. I mean, look at the amount of people that came out in the community. Even Colonel Johnson's neighbor came out to us and said I had no idea. Colonel Johnson was a Tuskegee Airman and served in World War II, korea and Vietnam. His own neighbor didn't even know. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:So we finished this procession and now almost the entire community well, the local community knew who Colonel Johnson was. So his name got marketed in a good way, in a positive way, because we wanted to share his story. Marketed in a good way, in a positive way, because we wanted to share his story. So from that point in time, our very first procession it led on to another procession a week later. We were not prepared for this, it was all by word of mouth, and so we hosted another procession down in Manassas. We organized it very quickly and we celebrated this Air Force veteran's 100th birthday also. And then a week later, in May 2021, we celebrated another veteran. The US Army turned 101 in Fairfax, and so we quickly rounded up the troops, hosted a procession, and then it was Memorial Day and then we kind of like settled in, kind of rested a little bit.
Speaker 1:But from that point in time we decided we need to create this as a nonprofit. We want to tell the story one veteran at a time, and so that's what we've been doing through honorary processions. And, mind you, you, not all the veterans want a procession. You know. I kind of mentioned that some of them kind of want to lay low. They don't want a lot of publicity and stuff like that. So we honor that. And what we also do are birthdays and we'll partner up with, say, like mission barbecue, and we'll tell folks hey, come on by, the mission barbecue we're celebrating, celebrating the birthday of a military veteran, come on out and let's have some food and drink and just celebrate his birthday or her birthday. Yeah, that same year, 2021, december, we honored our very first military female okay she's um my gosh, claire out in sterling virginia.
Speaker 1:She turned 100 years old, wow, and we honored her. She was a nurse in World War II, right after Normandy's Operation Overlord, so she served in France fixing up our soldiers during that operation. So we honored her with a military procession and that was very interesting because it was our very first female.
Speaker 2:How exciting.
Speaker 1:It was very exciting and it was kind of cool too, because we all kind of like staged our vehicles right there at Greensville Road, right at the shopping center, and we had a lot of folks, we had so many military, we had Loudoun County Sheriff's Office Several of them came out and we all lined up in the parking lot and it was kind of funny because people were driving by asking questions what are you guys doing here? Why do we have so many military and police? So we shared with them hey, we're doing a procession. Would you like to join? You can join in too. I think a couple folks joined in.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:I like that. I like how you're getting the community involved as well and like highlighting them. I think that is amazing. That's the key. It is all about telling the story about the veteran and, by doing that, engaging the community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, getting to know the people who are around you living in the same town as you right.
Speaker 1:Right, it's all about the community and, yeah, it's all that, and so we always involve the community. We always involve a lot of different organizations because we want to be able to share that with them, everybody. Really, it's not Territory of Honor is just the facilitator, right, but it's really the community that makes the big difference, that makes the events more meaningful. It makes the events more meaningful. In addition to our honorary procession, we do some additional things to make it more not more interesting, but more memorable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And the key thing is memorable, because when these veterans do pass away, the key thing is to ensure that their story is continued to be shared. Yes, right, so that they're known what they've done, what they've done for their country and what current and future generations can learn from that. Yes, so, in addition to that, we fly a flag, a USA flag, at the Pentagon on the river entrance and we create and red draft a certificate, which all three co-founders signed, stating that we have flown this flag at the Pentagon and we're giving it to you for your service. We also give them a challenge coin which is like a little coin, metal coin printed on both sides that honors the military service, and we give them to commemorate them and thank them for their service. In addition to that, we partner with Mission Barbecue. We do some things with them, so they gave us a gift basket.
Speaker 1:We've also engaged the Senior Center of Cascades, loudoun County. There's a group called the and I know I'm going to get this wrong, so please forgive me because I always get this name it's the Crochet the club. I know I'm missing another word, but it's the crochet club of the Loudoun County Senior Center. There are several of them in Loudoun County, but we deal with the one in Cascades. Okay, and these ladies and I think they're mostly ladies they quilt and they create these wonderful things. So we also donate. They donate to us which we give to the veteran a quilt, yeah, typically it's four by four. It's very beautiful.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:Additionally, we also work with the local government and state government. We have established relationships with Lowney County Board of Supervisors and Delegate David Reed and we'll write draft the commending resolution yeah, we'll write draft the commanding resolution through the Plano County Board of Supervisors and the proclamation with the Virginia House of Delegates. They'll present that to their board or the House of Delegates, get it approved and then they sign this huge document, both of them, and we'll schedule a date to present that to the veteran both of them, and we'll schedule a date to present that to the veteran. There's only been one time where the veteran was able to attend the event, the presentation that was out on a Lama County Board of Supervisors building one time but most of the time it's always been presented at the veterans home yeah we'll go there.
Speaker 1:You don't have to come to us, we'll bring it to you. So that's one additional thing that we do. Outside of Chariots of Honor, we still reach out to the community, looking, seeking these veterans who want to honor, who want to celebrate their birthday. But honor and most of the veterans are not the ones that initiate it, it's their families. The families contact us and they initiate it, and so that's that's what we've been doing since 2021.
Speaker 2:We've been quite busy.
Speaker 1:That's huge that is amazing. Yeah, you know, and we're just a three man team, we're slowly growing. We did our very first um out of-state procession where we honored three World War II veterans, and we coordinated this over approximately five months and we traveled out to Mascoutah, illinois, which is about 15 miles east of St Louis. So we traveled.
Speaker 1:Now, when you look at the map, to me that didn't seem like a long distance. That was a long drive, but we've seen some beautiful towns along the way and so once we got to Mascoutah the next day we celebrated those three award board two vendors. So we did the same thing, we did a procession, we did the honorary presentation of proclamations from the mayor I forget the mayor of Mascota and several other delegates. There was also a representative from the National VFW, which is the Veterans of Foreign Wars. They came out and gave a coin to each of the veterans and it was just that whole event just culminated to all they've done for this country and to celebrate their birthday and to just remember them yeah, you know, for what they've done for this country and to celebrate their birthday and to just remember them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know for what they've done for this country.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:To serve and protect.
Speaker 2:I love that you've given that platform for them to get highlighted in their service, that they've given to us right.
Speaker 1:It is a platform.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And it's always one veteran at a time. Yes, you know we would love to honor all our veterans at one big event, but you know it's practically impossible and there are other venues for that, such as the Honor Flight that come through the airports or the Top of Virginia, which they bus veterans from different places in Virginia so they can honor those veterans as a whole. Yeah, but our mission is one veteran at a time. One veteran at a time.
Speaker 2:One veteran at a time. I love that. And now tell me a little bit about marketing. How are you getting these stories out on social media? Maybe people didn't attend and they missed that, but you still want to highlight it online. Are you doing anything like that?
Speaker 1:Heavy social media.
Speaker 2:Perfect. Talk to me about that Heavy, heavy, heavy social media.
Speaker 1:So we are on every platform that is known to everybody. Yeah, so we'll say Facebook, that's our primary. Youtube. We've got our YouTube channel, perfect. Our Instagram, our LinkedIn, our Twitter I think I named them all. But when we advertise, we advertise through all. So we'll start off with Facebook. We'll create a flyer, we'll outline all the logistics and we just start pushing out. We push out on Facebook oh, next door is another one. And so we'll just push out the flyer, we'll push out the logistics and we'll post it out on all the different pages and groups Facebook groups and then with Instagram, we'll do the same thing. But that's pretty much our marketing scheme and it's been a challenge sometimes, because some folks may have not seen it until like maybe the day off or the day after. So we also boost Facebook postings as well too. We're beginning to look at other boostings, like through Instagram or even LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:We've been boosting our postings and that's helped a lot. I think if we're not boosting, it's primarily sending out recurring postings.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Not every day, but at least weekly. Yes, I think probably one month prior to the event. It's an every week thing Reminder. Hey, hey, hey, hey, this is coming up, come on out, come on out. We also do our email distribution list. So the folks that have actually attended our events in the past past, we have a distribution list where we mass send them out send the invitation out to all of them and that's helped a lot too.
Speaker 1:Okay, but it's just continual communications. Everybody that we meet on out there in the community it's a matter of taking that opportunity to share about who we are, and it's quite amazing. You know people come up to me in sterling or different places in loudon yeah I think I know you. I'm like oh okay, where do you know me? Where do you think you know?
Speaker 1:me yeah, you're that guy on facebook. I go yeah, that's, that's me. I said I hope I'm posting positive stuff. You know, I'm all about showing the positive. I'm not all into that negative stuff. We're all about our veterans and the community. He goes no, no, no, the stuff that you're posting is great, I'm like. So then we do an exchange. Yeah, yeah, my card. We talk a little bit and you know, those little moments are the touch points where we tell one person and then they tell others. Which leads me to another story. You'll love this one. Yes, so Eli Linden, who lived, he passed away last year.
Speaker 1:His daughter reached out to Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, the public information officer, the PIO, and the request was to the PIO and the request was to the PIO I'm looking for a bagpipe player for my dad's birthday. He's a World War II veteran. So the PIO, who knows me, says you know, I wish I really could help you. I don't know anybody, but I want to put you in contact with a colleague that I know who maybe will help you. So the connection came right back to us. So I reached out to the daughter, janice. I said hey, you know I was referred to you by the PIO, how can we help you? I understand your father is a World War II veteran. Our nonprofit honors World War II veterans. How can we help you? I'm father's a World War two veteran. Our nonprofit honors World War two veteran. How can we help you? I'm looking for a bagpipe. I'm looking for a bagpipe player to honor my, you know, to help celebrate my dad's birthday. We're preparing a birthday party for him. He's gonna turn 99, 99.
Speaker 1:Wow so I said, oh well, let me tell you about Parage of Honor, and, by the way, we do know a few folks that play bagpipes. We can reach out to them, wow. And so we started talking. One thing led to another and we decided or they decided, or we collaboratively decided we're going to do a procession, because we told them what the procession was all about. They saw the video and they loved it. Yes, out, they saw the video and they, they loved it. Yes. So so that that year, I think for about four months, yeah, we met weekly and it takes at least a good solid three months to prepare for an event. We learned our lesson you can't do, you could, you could do it within a week, but you may not get the response. So it takes a lot of preparation. And so we took about three and a half months to prepare. We met with his, her other siblings, daughter, I mean a sister and brother and we organized the procession.
Speaker 1:So we hosted that right here in ash and ashby ponds. But, um, right here in ashburn, right across from the, we hosted this 99th birthday procession and it was amazing. It was probably one of the bigger ones that we hosted. So as soon as we finished that, a few months later, the daughter contacted us again.
Speaker 1:Said hey, herb, you know what are you guys up to? What do you think about hosting another procession for my dad for his 100th birthday? I love the idea, let's do it. And their justification was he's turning 100. Not 99, 100.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we thought I think we could probably bring more folks in from the community to recognize your dad's birthday and his service. But they get to know him and what he has done. Now let me tell you about a little bit of him. The father, Eli Eli Linden, was a World War II vet, served in Normandy, Operation Overlord D-Day-Day, June 6. He was part of that operation and survived it and ended up serving a few years. Once he finished serving in Normandy he was about to be transferred over to the Pacific, but but I by that time the war was over with Japan in the following August, so he ended up getting out of the military and lived a very fruitful life A hundred years.
Speaker 1:Three kids. I know a hundred years. That's amazing. And so we learned so much from him and we shared with him. We shared with the community about his story so much that we ended up getting a lot of correspondence through our reach out to all the way from the president of the United States, the vice president, the governor of Virginia, all the way down to all our delegates and a lot of county supervisors.
Speaker 2:Congratulations to that.
Speaker 1:It's about telling the story, and so we told the story, and his 100th birthday was a very collaborative effort between Chariots of Honor and the family. The family was just so involved, and also our partnerships with our different groups and organizations that came and attended and supported.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What was very interesting about that procession as we were staging it in Ashburn, and a lot of folks know this, but I must tell you because it is an interesting story. As we were staging, we typically start with my friend's Toyota pickup which is decorated with a lot of red, white and blue. Then I have my Humvee, we have the Mission Barbecue Deuce and a Half right at the front, and then we have motorcycles, the Loudoun County Jeeps, jeeps of Loudoun County and a lot of people just falling right behind. Well, there was a person that called a Loudoun County citizen, from one of the retirement homes across the street, made a call to the Lowney County Sheriff's Office and reported I think you need to come to this location on this road because I think there's a protest that's about to be started. In her mind and we believe she said that because in our procession there were a lot of veterans, motorcycles, clubs with their vests, a lot of American flags, a lot of patriotism shown on that road. So I think she got the wrong idea about this.
Speaker 1:It wasn't a protest, it was actually a procession that we're preparing to host for this World War II veteran that we're going to honor his service and celebrate his 100th birthday. Well, we got a kick out of that because we found out through the Lama County Sheriff's deputies that were there in our procession, staged out onto the side. They told us hey, thomas, hurry, you're going to get a good laugh out of this one. We just had somebody call in and say that you guys are about to protest. It's a procession, we're not going to protest. Oh my God, that was so funny. I love that story yeah.
Speaker 2:And now I know you said that you are hoping to expand. Talk to me about where you see yourself in the next five years with Chariots of Hope.
Speaker 1:Chariots of Honor.
Speaker 2:Chariots of Honor. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know.
Speaker 1:People get, they'll say, sometimes Chariots of Fire.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:It's okay. Right now, we are concentrating just in the Washington DC metropolitan area. We're a small group, but we're dedicated to this local area Within five years. We've talked about expanding to each state, but we are in the planning stages of trying to make that happen. How do we make that happen? You know, we are very new to the nonprofit game and we're learning a lot every day, but we would love to expand. I mean, we were even trying to expand out to Hawaii as well too.
Speaker 1:We have some points of contacts there and we know we have a lot of World War II veterans there, but a lot of veterans in general. You know our concentration is World War II right now because they're the older generation, but we also honor Korean and Vietnam and all our other veterans more recently, but within five years, hopefully we can be maybe within the region expanded. But it takes a lot of dedication, it takes a lot of time. So we're slowly getting there.
Speaker 2:Good, good, I love that. I'm hoping that you guys are able to expand.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:For our listeners. Can you talk to us a little bit about those challenges that you have maybe overcome or still trying to overcome? We would love to hear about how you're getting through it and how you just keep going and just not letting it hold you back.
Speaker 1:You know our challenges. Okay, let me just say this I'm a prior Navy guy and my two co-founders are prior Marine Corps.
Speaker 2:What are their names?
Speaker 1:Eric and Thomas. Okay, now the Marine Corps. Ethos, in a nutshell, I would say for all the military, but I would definitely say for the Marine Corps, nothing stops them. If they see a challenge, they're going to figure something out, and so that's kind of our ethos as well, too, in Charities of Honor, is that there's no challenge that we cannot achieve, and so we keep that. I love that. It's funny in a way, but it is so true. You ask any Marine Corps out there.
Speaker 2:You live by that.
Speaker 1:You live by that. You cannot. The challenge is up and we will achieve that challenge. So I think one of the challenges that we're having is one of the expansion. How do we approach that and how do we expand? I think the second is how do we market, Market and raise funds as a nonprofit? That's a challenge for all of them raising funds. We've been slowly taking on that challenge by trying different things, and the best that we can do is learn from others who have done it already and try it out, and so we've been doing that. We've been reaching out. We've already established a couple of partnerships. I call it partnerships. It seems to be like a partnership, although not officially, with a couple of vendors. People love food.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, so we partnered up with two restaurants here and they helped us raise funds, and we've been doing that since last fall. We just started doing that. Another challenge is probably trying to get sponsorships. We're slowly learning and thinking about that as well, too. It's achievable, we just need to figure out our game plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Always a game plan.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:We always bring it right back to. What I mentioned earlier in our conversation is the operational order. How are we going to achieve that? What are the logistics, the things that are going to entail this effort, so we can get to achieving the objective, the goal? Yeah, so we're having fun as you do it. Yeah, these three you know we wouldn't have it any other way Us three Eric Thomas and I are just yeah, we're just the true partners. Even though we're spread out, we are still doing stuff together. We're sharing ideas. Oh, and soon to be, oh, we will have our challenge coin. Now, the challenge coin that we have, we're already pre-fabricated so that we had something to give to the, to the veteran yeah but we are in the process of officially uh producing our own chariots of Honor challenge coin.
Speaker 2:That is awesome.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you, and it's not your typical poker-sized chip coin. Challenge coin, metal coin.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:This thing is huge, huge. It's two and a half inch. Nice, it's huge, and it speaks who we are and what we do for veterans, and I hope the veteran that we do give it to next will honor that. Aw, what's up? That's why I need the tissue.
Speaker 2:I know I was like the tissue's down there. No, I love that and thank you so much for you guys doing this and helping people get their stories out there and not be forgotten. And I know they like to lay low, but I'm glad that their families have the courage to reach out to you guys and be like no we're going to celebrate you they do.
Speaker 1:They reach out slowly, but we also reach out to them because we've established relationships with um. We'll say in loud and counted with all the um, retirement homes and assisted living. We have points of contacts there so we'll send out occasional reminders hey, if you have a veteran that wants to celebrate their birthday, if it's that time and they're ready and the family's ready, let's talk and let's do something. Get a tissue.
Speaker 2:You're going to make me cry. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I'll share one story. We did a procession in. Leesburg and what? Was interesting about the one in Leesburg. And what was interesting about one in Leesburg was the veteran turned a hundred years old yeah and we were all preparing for his event, which was September, I think November, and nobody really knew, because I never. They never knew what a procession was, even though they could watch our videos. And when we tell people, when you watch our videos, break out the tissue because it doesn't get quite emotional yeah and so we started doing the procession.
Speaker 1:I remember driving up to the front of the assisted living with the veteran is seated and we're saluting him, waving hi, and I remember seeing the director of the assisted living to the side. She's got her camera, iphone and she's got tissues. She's like this is what happens, you know, because all this stuff culminates after all these years and decades to honor these veterans, and that's what happens. It just naturally happens.
Speaker 2:Man. So we tell that story and clearly you have a passion for it and it really shows through.
Speaker 1:That is it, it's incredible.
Speaker 1:That is what drives Thomas and Eric and I is the passion for doing this. What drives Thomas and Eric and I is the passion for doing this, and we will continue to do this until, I guess, the day we die, or even when our kids may want to inherit the non-profit. Yeah, but we will always have veterans. We will always have veterans to celebrate their birthday and honor their service. It'll be on and on. So our primary, primary concentration are the World War II veterans, but we celebrated Korean and we actually celebrated Vietnam War veterans as well too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if we have any listeners there who've got family members, you know who to call Chariots of Honor, that's right. So yeah, and now for my final question. Oh my God, your tears as they roll down your cheek. Please grab a tissue. I feel so emotional, oh man, okay, and now for my final question. If you could leave our listeners with any piece of advice or anything that's in your heart or that's been on your mind, could be in relation to the veterans, or anything at all, what would that be?
Speaker 1:oh, that's a good question. Really never thought of that until you asked me today take your time time.
Speaker 1:The question, what I could leave for the listeners is respect the veterans, respect the military. When we look at our history from the beginning of our wonderful United States, our country, we've gone through a lot of challenges. And if we were to just kind of take a look at what has happened and where we are right now, if we didn't have our military to support and defend the country, where would we be now? And so I challenge you to just kind of review that and honor the veterans. They have all gone through a lot and some were drafted, some volunteered, out of whatever they wanted to do, out of their heart or whatever they want, whatever their purpose was, but to honor our veterans always.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. I'm really like emotional now. Oh my god, um me trying to like talk and my throat like swells up and closes up. Okay, um, that was beautiful. Thank you so much. I think this is the first time I've cried on all the like. I don't think I've ever cried before. So I can really just feel your passion and your like love for these veterans and getting their stories out so selfless and pure, and I can definitely see that. So I just want to say thank you so much for coming on here and sharing their stories along with yours, and it was a pleasure to have you on the Alamon Show.
Speaker 1:It was my honor and our honor to be here. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.