NEWS

The statue at the forefront is of Master Sergeant Jerry K. Crump, U.S. Army - a local Medal of Honor recipient. (photo by Jane Campbell)

The following are the remarks as prepared by Jane Campbell, Captain, U.S. Navy (Retired).

Thank you for being here this morning. Thank you for taking a stand to say that things are not okay.

Also, thank you to the organizers of this event for inviting me to be here.

For those of you who have heard me speak, you likely know that I prefer telling stories – rather than giving speeches.

So, before going too deep into my remarks – let me tell you about Jerry K. Crump. That’s him depicted on the statue over my shoulder.

Then Corporal Jerry K. Crump earned the Medal of Honor, our Nation’s highest military award for his selfless service in Korea in 1951. In the midst of a firefight on Hill 284, he jumped on top of an enemy grenade to protect 4 of his fellow Soldiers. The grenade exploded, and Crump’s body absorbed the blast and the shrapnel. And most importantly, he lived. President Harry S. Truman presented the medal to Crump in a Rose Garden Ceremony in 1952.

He continued to serve in the U.S. Army until retiring as a Master Sergeant in 1976.

Sadly, Crump passed away less than a year later, in 1977, in a car accident. However, his death was actually attributed to the fact that a piece of shrapnel that had been in his body since his injury in 1951 somehow become dislodged, severed an artery, and caused him to loose consciousness while driving.

Let me also take the time to connect the dots of MSG Crump’s service with the 3^rd Infantry Division in Korea with the four soldiers who tragically lost their lives in Lithuania this past week – they too served in the 3ID. As you may know, those soldiers died a training accident with our NATO allies.

The selfless service of these soldiers more than 60 years apart has something in common. I have NO idea whether MSG Crump, SSG Duenez Jr, SSG Franco, SSG Knutson-Collins, or PFC Taitano were Republicans or a Democrats. It doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter. What does matter is that NONE of them were Suckers or Losers.

Now I was originally given the topic of VA employment and benefits, but I’m going to expand things a bit to also include current military and our national security. Because without today’s military, you don’t have tomorrow’s veterans.

My guess is that most of us are here because we care about and love our nation. I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution, not an oath to an individual President. My oath is still important to me – even 10 years into my retirement.

I have watched the actions of this administration since inauguration day from what I think is a unique vantage point.  Not only did I spend 26 years in uniform, retiring as a Navy Captain, but I also had a pretty unconventional career.

In addition to service at sea on three different ships, I had 2 tours at the Pentagon on the Secretary of Defense’s staff, a tour on the National Security Council staff at the White House, I volunteered for a tour in Afghanistan, earned my Masters in National Security Strategy at the National War College in 2011, and one of my latter tours on active duty was as the Director of Press Operations for the Defense Department.

• I had the distinct honor of briefing the President in the Oval Office, sitting in on meetings with the Secretary of Defense and senior military leadership, and leading an international team of NATO public affairs professionals in Kabul, Afghanistan.

And so when something happens, I tend to try compare it with what I have known to be “normal” practice in the administrations of republican and democratic presidents.

In early 2017, I learned that my faith in the institutions of our government would be quickly tested. I would learn that there would be an all-out assault on the guardrails that our founding fathers and subsequent elected leaders put into place to protect our Democracy.

And while those institutions took hits during his first administration, it all seems to pale in comparison to what has gone on in the past few weeks and months

• Trump Tariff Taxes
• ICE Raids deporting people, including legal residents, to foreign prisons without due process
• DOGE attacks on virtually every element of our government
• Abandoning Ukraine and alienating our allies, notably including NATO.

ALL of these actions impact our National Security.

There are SO, SO many stories I could tell, but none of you came here to see me try to match Senator Booker’s recent amazing 25-hour marathon on the Senate floor, so let me narrow the focus of a few stories.

My experience as a student at the National War College was pretty amazing. If you consider that at any given time over the past few decades, there are roughly 35,000 officers at the rank of O-5/O-6 – those who have served for roughly 20 years. Of those 35,000, approximately 160 are selected for each class at the National War College – representing all the branches of service.

The average NWC class is composed of those 160 U.S. military officers, roughly 40 U.S. Government career civilians – from across virtually every agency, and nearly two dozen international military officers.

It is that diversity of students that allows you to quickly understand that the spectrum of diplomacy extends from a variety of “soft power” elements to “hard power.”

Translated, that traditionally that the U.S. could leverage efforts by USAID and their work with NonGovernmental organizations around the globe all the way up to lethal U.S. military power. Most often the comparison was made of this spectrum of diplomacy as a “tool kit.” Sometimes you need the most delicate wrench or screwdriver, and sometimes you need a hammer. But, as we should all realize – the hammer does NOT work for every chore.

And the added benefit of our international military officers often let us better understand how our diplomacy of all types was received around the globe. Without exception, there was universal agreement that nations can and must be able to respond different tools in different situations.

Now, as much as I cringe about so many aspects of Meta, maintaining the connections with my National War College classmates has been invaluable over these past few months. It has also been heartbreaking. I have several classmates who worked for USAID. For one, it was her entire adult life. For another, it was his second career – after retiring from the U.S. Air Force.

And that is an important note: more than 30 percent of federal government employees are Veterans. Some of those Veterans several a couple of years, and other spent decades in uniform and joined the federal civilian workforce in retirement.

Many of my former colleagues posted when they got their emails to submit their 5 accomplishments. Still others, shared the devasting news of being told they had been fired or RIFed – a Reduction in Force which is just another way of saying “fired.”

And let me make this point – there has been a lot said about “probationary federal employees” – like it is a negative thing. Probationary is not a label for people who are not performing their required job. The term probationary can be for newly hired civilians, it can be for recently promoted (long-serving) employees, it can be for civil servants moving from one agency to another.

The impacts of the DOGE team and the haphazard cuts to the civilian workforce will likely impact all of us for decades. Senior civilians with enough time to retire are doing just that, and it will be a brain drain. The civilians who work in the Department of Defense are often the continuity that hold things together in the midst of uniformed military personnel only staying in most assignments for 1-3 years.

Tell your federal elected officials – HANDS OFF the U.S. Government civil servant work force. HANDS OFF -

Now let’s look at the VA.

When I retired, I had the option to use military “TriCare” system to access local civilian medical care OR to use the VA. I chose the VA. And while, on occasion, I am referred to a civilian provider for a specific reason, the vast majority of my healthcare comes from the VA – either at the South Charlotte VA clinic or at the VA Hospital in Salisbury. The system isn’t perfect, but the VA staffers are so dedicated to Veterans. And in case you were wondering, Veterans are Veterans – there is NO rank or years of service associated with VA care.

I have made it a habit to try to ask my doctors, nurses, and techs why they are working at the VA. So many of them say that they came to the VA or some sort of a training rotation, and never left. They got “hooked on” serving Veterans.

More recently, I have tried to more proactively thank those care providers for my care, and the care of my fellow veterans. The VA employees are still trying to remain positive. They are still providing good care to our Veterans, but they are worried.

So, please make sure you are calling and emailing our federal elected officials to tell them to provide more than lip-service to support for our Veterans. HANDS OFF – the VA staff. HANDS OFF –the bipartisan PACT Act.

Let me provide a quick plug for what the State of North Carolina does for our Veterans. There are several primary Veterans programs supported under the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.

1. State and county Veterans Service Offices that help Veterans navigate myriad issues.
2. A scholarship program for the family members of wartime veterans. The most significant of the scholarships offer FULL tuition, room, and board to state schools.
3. Our state Veterans Homes – 5 located across the state – provide nursing home care to any honorably discharged Veteran who has lived in the state of North Carolina for at least 2 years.
4. And finally, our State Veterans Cemeteries. The National VA isn’t building new National Cemeteries around the U.S. Instead, they help fund state cemeteries. North Carolina currently has 4 state Veterans Cemeteries.

Please make sure you tell state officials to appropriately support and fund these important programs for our Veterans. Those programs will only be MORE IMPORTANT in the midst of the national chaos.

Let me close with the idea of flipping our HANDS OFF theme on its head: HANDS ON! I can do this because I know so many of you want to be HANDS ON, HANDS ON - doing something.

You might not feel that you can be HANDS ON at the state and federal level, BUT there is something else. PLEASE – please, do not overlook local government – and the role that you can and should play.

I ask each of you to look at how you can get involved in your local government. Run for elected office. Volunteer to serve on one of the myriad community boards in our local communities.

I would also suggest that you take the time to thank those who do. Sign up at a public comment session at a town board meeting, and just say thank you.

Alright – do all of you have your “marching shoes?” Are you ready to let your voices be heard? Are you ready to let those amazing signs be seen?

Let’s go!

But first, let’s hear from Jo – who is literally going to give us our Marching Orders. Jo -

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