ADVERTISEMENT

Jill Biden visits the nervous families of U.S. soldiers shipped out to help in Ukraine crisis

cigaretteman

HR King
May 29, 2001
77,133
58,314
113
Jill Biden looked upon a room full of the families of soldiers deployed to Eastern Europe amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine and told them she understood how scared and alone they must feel.
“I am a military mom. My son was in the National Guard,” the first lady said, referring to Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
“And I see a lot of you moms here with kids. As an Army mom myself, I know that you and the families — we serve alongside our loved ones,” she said. Biden was speaking in a recreation room Wednesday where a crowd of more than 100, mostly women and children, were chowing down on pulled pork and mac and cheese at Fort Campbell.
Members of the storied 101st Airborne Division (a.k.a. the “Screaming Eagles”) the Army’s only air assault unit, began deploying, in mid-February, to NATO allies bordering Ukraine, including Poland, to help fortify their defenses and welcome Ukrainian refugees.

Biden described the struggle of spouses and parents trying to be loving and encouraging, while also praying for their family member’s safety and taking on a larger share of child care and home responsibilities. “And you’re losing sleep while pride and fear and frustration wrestle in your mind,” she went on.
“I happen to know that because my son was deployed to Iraq. So I know how that feels.”
Beau’s unit was activated in 2008 and he spent a year in Iraq, seven months in a combat zone. Jill Biden wrote her 2012 children’s book, “Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops,” from the perspective of her granddaughter, Natalie, learning to cope with her father’s absence at Thanksgiving, or as she makes a snowman.
Biden has made supporting military families one of her highest priorities. Even before President Biden’s inauguration, she announced she was relaunching the Joining Forces initiative she’d started with Michelle Obama — which had lain dormant during the Trump years, and which provides assistance, from mental health resources to changing the abysmal rates of military spouse unemployment, to families of service members. She frequently goes to bases to talk to families about their issues, and in November declared the high rate unemployment among military spouses “a matter of national security” and vowed to alleviate it.
She was in San Francisco last weekend to attend a memorial service as well as speak at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, Biden said, when she began thinking about the troops headed overseas. “I thought, ‘Gosh, how are their families doing?’” she said. “I said, “Where are the families? Because as I come back from the West Coast, I want to hear how they’re doing and, you know, what’s on their minds.'”
Jill Biden is helping military spouses get jobs. It’s personal.
So she decided to add a stopover in Kentucky to an already-planned three-day swing to two cities in Arizona and Reno, Nev., that launched her campaign efforts for the midterm elections this year.
During that trip Biden started most of her speeches with a moment of silence for Ukraine, and mentioned being “heartbroken” by images of Ukrainian women fleeing to safety with their children in their arms. At a DNC fundraiser at the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix, she called out Putin, saying the United States needs to “hold him accountable for this horrible, horrible war that he’s really trying to drag the rest of the world into.” At an event for International Women’s Day in Tucson on Tuesday, she gave praise to “our sisters from Ukraine who are fighting to keep their country free and their families alive,” and “our sisters in Russia who are protesting and speaking out against the invasion at great personal risk.”
On Tuesday, both she and President Biden spoke about Beau’s brain cancer at different events. Although no link has been proved, President Biden has raised the question many times of whether Beau’s cancer was caused by his exposure to toxic burn pits in Iraq. “We don’t know for sure if a burn pit was the cause of his brain cancer, or the diseases of so many of our troops,” Biden said in a speech at a Veterans Affairs clinic in Fort Worth, on Tuesday. “But I’m committed to finding out everything we can.”
Jill Biden, meanwhile on Tuesday, told members of the Tohono O’odham Nation in Tucson that President Biden had relaunched the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, aimed at reducing the death rate from the disease, because “it’s really personal for me and Joe,” she said. “As you know, we lost our son to cancer. And so one of the things Joe and I decided to do was find purpose in that loss. And it’s something that I think our son would want us to do.”

At Fort Campbell, she empathized with how quickly the deployments had come for the families. “You didn’t get months to prepare. It’s kind of unexpected for all of us,” she said. “You didn’t have time to say that lengthy goodbye. And in a moment, the plans that you had may have probably changed.”
Instead, she said, she imagined that they now have to get up every morning and say a prayer for their loved ones deployed far away in an increasingly dangerous situation. “Because that’s the first thought in your mind, because you’re doing the hard stuff,” she said. “I mean, sure, they’re doing the hard stuff, too, but you’re doing the really hard stuff. You’re keeping it all together for your loved ones.”
It was good to feel noticed by someone in a high position, said Alexandra Swanson, 21, who’s been raising her 17-month-old daughter, Levana, alone since her husband, Spec. Brenden Licon, was deployed three weeks ago.
“At first it was scary, just we didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Swanson. “But to see someone like Jill Biden make time to come here makes us feel so much better,” she said. “There’s a real connection, so I feel like they care more about the situation. And she called my daughter cute, which is a major plus.”
Samantha Ramadani, whose husband, A.J., a staff sergeant, is awaiting news of when he may be deployed, said she can’t feel nervous because she knows what they all signed up for. “You join the Army to make a difference. You don’t join it to be on this duty at home, right?” she said.
Jill Biden paid a surprise visit to the woman who helped her regain faith in God
She hadn’t known about Biden’s visit until A.J. told her the night before that they were going to meet the first lady. Her presence, Ramadani said, was “awesome.” Her 8-year-old daughter, Anna, had gotten to tell Biden all about being a Girl Scout (Biden was one, too), which “made her day.”
Ramadani, 35, said she is focusing her energy on being a leader in the Soldier Family Readiness Group. “Within Fort Campbell, there’s a lot of children that are now, you know, without one parent at home. That was sudden,” she said. Their neighbor has been told he will have 96 hours’ notice to leave his family, possibly for months on end, if deployed.
“It’s just, ‘I’m really sad. My spouse left on no notice,’” said Ramadani of the conversations she’s been having with other families around the base. “But we’re trying to make sure we have enough in place that if there are problems or any other issues, we could get them taken care of before it becomes a major issue.”
After her remarks, Biden gave out hugs and accepted crayon- and marker-colored thank-you cards from children with drawings of toucans and rainbows that said things like, “Joy is in me” and “Not All Heroes Wear Capes.” She told them, “I’ll come around and you can yell at me or you can say kind words, it’s up to you,” and then spent an hour trying to talk to everyone there.
“There are moments when we suddenly realize that history is being written right in front of us, where we can almost feel ourselves cross the line that will divide our world into the before and after,” she said. “And this is one of those moments.”

 
  • Like
Reactions: lucas80
Jill Biden looked upon a room full of the families of soldiers deployed to Eastern Europe amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine and told them she understood how scared and alone they must feel.
“I am a military mom. My son was in the National Guard,” the first lady said, referring to Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
“And I see a lot of you moms here with kids. As an Army mom myself, I know that you and the families — we serve alongside our loved ones,” she said. Biden was speaking in a recreation room Wednesday where a crowd of more than 100, mostly women and children, were chowing down on pulled pork and mac and cheese at Fort Campbell.
Members of the storied 101st Airborne Division (a.k.a. the “Screaming Eagles”) the Army’s only air assault unit, began deploying, in mid-February, to NATO allies bordering Ukraine, including Poland, to help fortify their defenses and welcome Ukrainian refugees.

Biden described the struggle of spouses and parents trying to be loving and encouraging, while also praying for their family member’s safety and taking on a larger share of child care and home responsibilities. “And you’re losing sleep while pride and fear and frustration wrestle in your mind,” she went on.
“I happen to know that because my son was deployed to Iraq. So I know how that feels.”
Beau’s unit was activated in 2008 and he spent a year in Iraq, seven months in a combat zone. Jill Biden wrote her 2012 children’s book, “Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops,” from the perspective of her granddaughter, Natalie, learning to cope with her father’s absence at Thanksgiving, or as she makes a snowman.
Biden has made supporting military families one of her highest priorities. Even before President Biden’s inauguration, she announced she was relaunching the Joining Forces initiative she’d started with Michelle Obama — which had lain dormant during the Trump years, and which provides assistance, from mental health resources to changing the abysmal rates of military spouse unemployment, to families of service members. She frequently goes to bases to talk to families about their issues, and in November declared the high rate unemployment among military spouses “a matter of national security” and vowed to alleviate it.
She was in San Francisco last weekend to attend a memorial service as well as speak at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, Biden said, when she began thinking about the troops headed overseas. “I thought, ‘Gosh, how are their families doing?’” she said. “I said, “Where are the families? Because as I come back from the West Coast, I want to hear how they’re doing and, you know, what’s on their minds.'”
Jill Biden is helping military spouses get jobs. It’s personal.
So she decided to add a stopover in Kentucky to an already-planned three-day swing to two cities in Arizona and Reno, Nev., that launched her campaign efforts for the midterm elections this year.
During that trip Biden started most of her speeches with a moment of silence for Ukraine, and mentioned being “heartbroken” by images of Ukrainian women fleeing to safety with their children in their arms. At a DNC fundraiser at the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix, she called out Putin, saying the United States needs to “hold him accountable for this horrible, horrible war that he’s really trying to drag the rest of the world into.” At an event for International Women’s Day in Tucson on Tuesday, she gave praise to “our sisters from Ukraine who are fighting to keep their country free and their families alive,” and “our sisters in Russia who are protesting and speaking out against the invasion at great personal risk.”
On Tuesday, both she and President Biden spoke about Beau’s brain cancer at different events. Although no link has been proved, President Biden has raised the question many times of whether Beau’s cancer was caused by his exposure to toxic burn pits in Iraq. “We don’t know for sure if a burn pit was the cause of his brain cancer, or the diseases of so many of our troops,” Biden said in a speech at a Veterans Affairs clinic in Fort Worth, on Tuesday. “But I’m committed to finding out everything we can.”
Jill Biden, meanwhile on Tuesday, told members of the Tohono O’odham Nation in Tucson that President Biden had relaunched the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, aimed at reducing the death rate from the disease, because “it’s really personal for me and Joe,” she said. “As you know, we lost our son to cancer. And so one of the things Joe and I decided to do was find purpose in that loss. And it’s something that I think our son would want us to do.”

At Fort Campbell, she empathized with how quickly the deployments had come for the families. “You didn’t get months to prepare. It’s kind of unexpected for all of us,” she said. “You didn’t have time to say that lengthy goodbye. And in a moment, the plans that you had may have probably changed.”
Instead, she said, she imagined that they now have to get up every morning and say a prayer for their loved ones deployed far away in an increasingly dangerous situation. “Because that’s the first thought in your mind, because you’re doing the hard stuff,” she said. “I mean, sure, they’re doing the hard stuff, too, but you’re doing the really hard stuff. You’re keeping it all together for your loved ones.”
It was good to feel noticed by someone in a high position, said Alexandra Swanson, 21, who’s been raising her 17-month-old daughter, Levana, alone since her husband, Spec. Brenden Licon, was deployed three weeks ago.
“At first it was scary, just we didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Swanson. “But to see someone like Jill Biden make time to come here makes us feel so much better,” she said. “There’s a real connection, so I feel like they care more about the situation. And she called my daughter cute, which is a major plus.”
Samantha Ramadani, whose husband, A.J., a staff sergeant, is awaiting news of when he may be deployed, said she can’t feel nervous because she knows what they all signed up for. “You join the Army to make a difference. You don’t join it to be on this duty at home, right?” she said.
Jill Biden paid a surprise visit to the woman who helped her regain faith in God
She hadn’t known about Biden’s visit until A.J. told her the night before that they were going to meet the first lady. Her presence, Ramadani said, was “awesome.” Her 8-year-old daughter, Anna, had gotten to tell Biden all about being a Girl Scout (Biden was one, too), which “made her day.”
Ramadani, 35, said she is focusing her energy on being a leader in the Soldier Family Readiness Group. “Within Fort Campbell, there’s a lot of children that are now, you know, without one parent at home. That was sudden,” she said. Their neighbor has been told he will have 96 hours’ notice to leave his family, possibly for months on end, if deployed.
“It’s just, ‘I’m really sad. My spouse left on no notice,’” said Ramadani of the conversations she’s been having with other families around the base. “But we’re trying to make sure we have enough in place that if there are problems or any other issues, we could get them taken care of before it becomes a major issue.”
After her remarks, Biden gave out hugs and accepted crayon- and marker-colored thank-you cards from children with drawings of toucans and rainbows that said things like, “Joy is in me” and “Not All Heroes Wear Capes.” She told them, “I’ll come around and you can yell at me or you can say kind words, it’s up to you,” and then spent an hour trying to talk to everyone there.
“There are moments when we suddenly realize that history is being written right in front of us, where we can almost feel ourselves cross the line that will divide our world into the before and after,” she said. “And this is one of those moments.”

Great job jill.Better than joe checking his watch with the dead soldiers.
 
It is so nice to have a FLOTUS that you can respect. Melania would probably parrot out some GSB/Tucker talking points and then NFT the hat she wore to the event.
 
Jill Biden looked upon a room full of the families of soldiers deployed to Eastern Europe amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine and told them she understood how scared and alone they must feel.
“I am a military mom. My son was in the National Guard,” the first lady said, referring to Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
“And I see a lot of you moms here with kids. As an Army mom myself, I know that you and the families — we serve alongside our loved ones,” she said. Biden was speaking in a recreation room Wednesday where a crowd of more than 100, mostly women and children, were chowing down on pulled pork and mac and cheese at Fort Campbell.
Members of the storied 101st Airborne Division (a.k.a. the “Screaming Eagles”) the Army’s only air assault unit, began deploying, in mid-February, to NATO allies bordering Ukraine, including Poland, to help fortify their defenses and welcome Ukrainian refugees.

Biden described the struggle of spouses and parents trying to be loving and encouraging, while also praying for their family member’s safety and taking on a larger share of child care and home responsibilities. “And you’re losing sleep while pride and fear and frustration wrestle in your mind,” she went on.
“I happen to know that because my son was deployed to Iraq. So I know how that feels.”
Beau’s unit was activated in 2008 and he spent a year in Iraq, seven months in a combat zone. Jill Biden wrote her 2012 children’s book, “Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops,” from the perspective of her granddaughter, Natalie, learning to cope with her father’s absence at Thanksgiving, or as she makes a snowman.
Biden has made supporting military families one of her highest priorities. Even before President Biden’s inauguration, she announced she was relaunching the Joining Forces initiative she’d started with Michelle Obama — which had lain dormant during the Trump years, and which provides assistance, from mental health resources to changing the abysmal rates of military spouse unemployment, to families of service members. She frequently goes to bases to talk to families about their issues, and in November declared the high rate unemployment among military spouses “a matter of national security” and vowed to alleviate it.
She was in San Francisco last weekend to attend a memorial service as well as speak at a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee, Biden said, when she began thinking about the troops headed overseas. “I thought, ‘Gosh, how are their families doing?’” she said. “I said, “Where are the families? Because as I come back from the West Coast, I want to hear how they’re doing and, you know, what’s on their minds.'”
Jill Biden is helping military spouses get jobs. It’s personal.
So she decided to add a stopover in Kentucky to an already-planned three-day swing to two cities in Arizona and Reno, Nev., that launched her campaign efforts for the midterm elections this year.
During that trip Biden started most of her speeches with a moment of silence for Ukraine, and mentioned being “heartbroken” by images of Ukrainian women fleeing to safety with their children in their arms. At a DNC fundraiser at the Gila River Indian Community near Phoenix, she called out Putin, saying the United States needs to “hold him accountable for this horrible, horrible war that he’s really trying to drag the rest of the world into.” At an event for International Women’s Day in Tucson on Tuesday, she gave praise to “our sisters from Ukraine who are fighting to keep their country free and their families alive,” and “our sisters in Russia who are protesting and speaking out against the invasion at great personal risk.”
On Tuesday, both she and President Biden spoke about Beau’s brain cancer at different events. Although no link has been proved, President Biden has raised the question many times of whether Beau’s cancer was caused by his exposure to toxic burn pits in Iraq. “We don’t know for sure if a burn pit was the cause of his brain cancer, or the diseases of so many of our troops,” Biden said in a speech at a Veterans Affairs clinic in Fort Worth, on Tuesday. “But I’m committed to finding out everything we can.”
Jill Biden, meanwhile on Tuesday, told members of the Tohono O’odham Nation in Tucson that President Biden had relaunched the Cancer Moonshot Initiative, aimed at reducing the death rate from the disease, because “it’s really personal for me and Joe,” she said. “As you know, we lost our son to cancer. And so one of the things Joe and I decided to do was find purpose in that loss. And it’s something that I think our son would want us to do.”

At Fort Campbell, she empathized with how quickly the deployments had come for the families. “You didn’t get months to prepare. It’s kind of unexpected for all of us,” she said. “You didn’t have time to say that lengthy goodbye. And in a moment, the plans that you had may have probably changed.”
Instead, she said, she imagined that they now have to get up every morning and say a prayer for their loved ones deployed far away in an increasingly dangerous situation. “Because that’s the first thought in your mind, because you’re doing the hard stuff,” she said. “I mean, sure, they’re doing the hard stuff, too, but you’re doing the really hard stuff. You’re keeping it all together for your loved ones.”
It was good to feel noticed by someone in a high position, said Alexandra Swanson, 21, who’s been raising her 17-month-old daughter, Levana, alone since her husband, Spec. Brenden Licon, was deployed three weeks ago.
“At first it was scary, just we didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Swanson. “But to see someone like Jill Biden make time to come here makes us feel so much better,” she said. “There’s a real connection, so I feel like they care more about the situation. And she called my daughter cute, which is a major plus.”
Samantha Ramadani, whose husband, A.J., a staff sergeant, is awaiting news of when he may be deployed, said she can’t feel nervous because she knows what they all signed up for. “You join the Army to make a difference. You don’t join it to be on this duty at home, right?” she said.
Jill Biden paid a surprise visit to the woman who helped her regain faith in God
She hadn’t known about Biden’s visit until A.J. told her the night before that they were going to meet the first lady. Her presence, Ramadani said, was “awesome.” Her 8-year-old daughter, Anna, had gotten to tell Biden all about being a Girl Scout (Biden was one, too), which “made her day.”
Ramadani, 35, said she is focusing her energy on being a leader in the Soldier Family Readiness Group. “Within Fort Campbell, there’s a lot of children that are now, you know, without one parent at home. That was sudden,” she said. Their neighbor has been told he will have 96 hours’ notice to leave his family, possibly for months on end, if deployed.
“It’s just, ‘I’m really sad. My spouse left on no notice,’” said Ramadani of the conversations she’s been having with other families around the base. “But we’re trying to make sure we have enough in place that if there are problems or any other issues, we could get them taken care of before it becomes a major issue.”
After her remarks, Biden gave out hugs and accepted crayon- and marker-colored thank-you cards from children with drawings of toucans and rainbows that said things like, “Joy is in me” and “Not All Heroes Wear Capes.” She told them, “I’ll come around and you can yell at me or you can say kind words, it’s up to you,” and then spent an hour trying to talk to everyone there.
“There are moments when we suddenly realize that history is being written right in front of us, where we can almost feel ourselves cross the line that will divide our world into the before and after,” she said. “And this is one of those moments.”

After speaking with Jill Biden the families are now even more nervous
 
ADVERTISEMENT