America 1982-Chapter 472 - 87: Jeff’s Speech_2

He did not look favorably upon politicians coming here to fundraise, as previous visits had yielded poor results. This time, the arrival of Jeff Raven seemed even less promising to him. The man even needed to read from prepared speeches, which was essentially waiting to stand on stage, utterly bewildered, to be mocked and humiliated by the old veterans who had no idea what courtesy was.

Tommy leaned against the door frame, watching Jeff stabilize himself on the podium, and said with a smile, "Of course the old soldiers don’t understand politics. Otherwise, they would have rebelled and taken over the White House by now, not waiting for Jeff to show up today."

The activity hall of the veterans’ home was usually a free space for the old soldiers to chat, do some simple exercises, watch television, and listen to the radio among other things. But now, seats filled the space under the podium, with perhaps forty or fifty World War II veterans sitting in front of it, most of them white-haired and feeble, nearly half of them disabled and needing wheelchairs or other assistive devices. A few attendants stood by the wall, monitoring the veterans’ health and gesturing for them to remain quiet.

But the old soldiers clearly had no intention of giving the attendants face, not to mention respecting Jeff who stood on the podium, and they shouted insults from below:

"Hey! Took our money and now making us waste an hour or two sitting here to listen to some politician’s bullshit? Expecting us to vote for him or donate money for him to spend on hookers?"

"Ha, go to hell! I’d rather donate my money to Germany to help resurrect Hitler than give it to these damn politicians!"

"If Hitler were still alive, he’d at least let Americans know what we did for this world! Now everyone treats us like trash!"

"Go home, kid! Don’t expect us to listen to your crap!"

Jeff stood on the stage, observing these angry old soldiers who were forced to give up their usual free time to listen to him fundraise with his speech.

Frankly, he felt nervous. Although Martin had rehearsed with him several times, when it actually came time to start, facing those distrustful, mocking, and dismissive eyes, Jeff still felt uneasy. Fortunately, Martin had told him that if he felt nervous, to just breathe deeply. Jeff tried to recall Stallone’s fearless demeanor in the movies and took deep breaths to gradually ease his own tension. Finally, amid the laughter and ridicule, he spread out the speech he had read many times before and read the first sentence into the microphone:

"United States Army Florida National Guard Specialist Jeff Raven, at your service."

As soon as he said this, the old soldiers below actually began to quiet down their insults. Their expressions were still unfriendly, but at least the hall became quieter.

During every election, many politicians would come seeking the support of this group of old soldiers. These vote-seeking politicians often had military experience as well, but every time they introduced themselves with various officer positions, the veterans knew these men had never seen combat and were just gilding their careers in the rear echelons of the army.

Have you ever seen an officer who had to live in such a lousy veterans’ home waiting for death after retirement? Everyone here was an ordinary soldier who has aged.

Coming here to show off ranks and positions, did they think that these old soldiers who lost their legs for the country would stand up to salute and greet them as "sir"?

So those politicians often achieved the opposite of what they intended.

But now, this young, tall white man in front of them simply introduced himself as a specialist in the United States Army, the same as most of the veterans here when they served. This one sentence signaled that this guy named Jeff Raven wasn’t one of those high-ranking officials born of military academies, just a regular person.

This made the old soldiers want to hear what this specialist had to say. They had mocked politicians with ranks like captain and colonel, but they had never met a retired specialist who came here to speak and fundraise.

"The army didn’t teach me how to make speeches, so my campaign manager brought me a lot of speeches used by politicians during fundraising for me to plagiarize. Seeing that thick stack, it was eye-opening. Those pansies who’ve never seen combat really have some fucking slick tongues. Now I understand why my old man was upside down in Vietnam, joining Operation Big Snake—it must’ve been because he got ’serviced’ by one of those politicians once. Fuck those politicians who only know how to hide in the rear and are too chicken to step forth on a battlefield."

These crude remarks made many of the old soldiers below burst into laughter. It was normal for soldiers to curse politicians—who among the military hadn’t cursed those greedy, cowardly, incessantly babbling politicians reluctant to advance a step on the battlefield?

Jeff, eyes glued to his speech, continued, "After reading those speeches, I didn’t plagiarize them. Not because I think I’m more talented, but because I’m a fucking high school graduate and a specialist who can’t understand that bullshit. ’Social stratification,’ ’open diplomacy’—my understanding of open diplomacy is like my three dogs screwing around on the streets in broad daylight and then finishing outside! Turning an outdoor romp into philosophy, fuck those politicians."

The veterans once more indulgently burst into various vulgar laughs. With just a few sentences, the old soldiers believed this specialist was not a fake. Ever since leaving the military, aside from veterans of the same status, few others would share such vulgar yet genuine jokes with them.