Sinise, Brokaw & Veterans…

Sinise, Brokaw & Veterans…

Event photo credit: Brendan Kownacki

“I’ve been involved with supporting veterans for years, going back to the early eighties. I have veterans in my family, so I have big respect for them. I became very sympathetic to what happened to them back in the eighties and then I played one in Forrest Gump, an injured soldier in that movie, and got involved with our disabled veterans and that began an almost 20 year association with the DAV, Disabled American Veterans,” said Gary Sinise in an interview with Hollywood on the Potomac prior to Easter Seals Advocacy Awards Dinner.

6a00d8341c630a53ef0162ff3e456b970d-640wiSinise in Forrest Gump

“It was a terrible, shameful period in our history to treat our men and women in uniform that way when they came home from war. Then when we were attacked on September 11th, I just was in need of doing something and I knew that because of my status as a public figure in the entertainment business, there was a role that I could play in supporting our troops through the USO and by visiting them.

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“Lt. Dan Band”

I started doing that over 10 years ago, and that led to not only visiting them but entertaining them with a band.  I’ve traveled all over the world and I just feel that it’s important to not forget those who are fighting for our freedom and defending our country.  It’s just important that what happened to our Vietnam veterans never happens again.  We can never do enough for our country,” he emphasized.

“I’ve also been involved with Vietnam veterans groups in the Chicago area where I’m from.  I have a theatre there, Steppenwolf Theatre, and I got involved with various Vietnam veterans groups locally in Chicago. I even began a program in the early eighties. It’s called Vet’s Night. We bring veterans in for a free performance.  Our final dress rehearsal is open to our veterans and they’re actually the first audience that sees every one of our plays.  We’ve done that since the early eighties when I was working on a play that was written by a group of Vietnam veterans about their experiences, and I got very involved locally. The veterans work has never ever been as active as it has been in the last 10 years.  Now with my own foundation, there’s a lot of work going into it.”

Sinise has visted many veterans hospitals both here and abroad.

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“The first time I went overseas was 10 years ago.  I’ve been visiting the hospitals in that period of time as often as I can.  I was just at the Bethesda last week. I know when I walk in, they recognize me from film and television.  It can break the ice a little bit and get the conversation going.  My mission there is not to really talk a lot about myself or anything like that, it’s just to show them that I care and appreciate what they do and that we’re not going to forget about them, and support them going through what they need to go through.  There’s a lot of very severely wounded folks, and there’s a lot of families out there that are going through difficult times because somebody’s deployed. 

My nephew’s in Afghanistan right now, so we worry every day about that, and I know what other families are going through.”

I’ve gotten involved in raising money for a lot of different veterans charities over the years and support them.  Hope For The Warriors is a wonderful organization which started by some military wives and they’ve just done great things for our wounded and for our military families.  I’ve supported them, I’m on one of their boards.  I support the Medal Of Honor Foundation, I’m on the executive council for the Medal Of Honor Foundation.  I’m on a board for Snowball Express, which is an organization that supports the children of our fallen heroes, and I’ve been doing that for quite some time. 

There’s so many different veterans organizations and non-profits that have popped up.  I think there’s something like 800 or something like that that are out there now.  I support a group of them, they’re all listed on our website, The Gary Sinise Foundation website, but my foundation is focused on the programs that we’re doing.  The point is that there’s so much need out there in the veterans space and all around the country that good organizations that are strong that can get things done are important and necessary.  Again, while I can’t support all of them obviously, I’ve supported a good number of fine charities and now I have my own and we’re trying to get a lot of good things done.”

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Gary Sinise with veteran Tammy Duckworth

Sinise was among the honored guests at The Easter Seals Advocacy Awards at the Grand Hyatt, along with legendary broadcast journalist Tom Brokaw; 2013 Advocacy Awards Chair Candi Wolff, executive vice president and head of Global Government Affairs for Citi; and Honorary Chair Deborah Mullen, advocate for military families and wife of Admiral Mike Mullen (Ret.), 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  

“I have a bit of a budget in the Washington area,” said Candi Wolff in our interview with her.  “So, what I look at are programs that need support, what we’re doing in the government affairs space, or more often support for what the company is contributing to and so Citi as a company has made a very large commitment to veteran’s hiring and we have a program called Citi Salutes.  We hired 800 veterans in 2012.  We’ve hired more than 2,000 veterans across all our businesses and we’re working with different programs with the military networks.”

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Candi Wolff second from left at top

“We’re members of Joining Forces – it’s part of the national initiative by Mrs. Biden and Mrs. Obama – and it’s encouraging support networking and so when I joined Citi almost two years ago there had already been a significant commitment and we were one of the original founders of Veterans on Wall Street.  So when I came here I said, well, I want to look for programs that I believe in personally and am supportive of, but also where it fits with the overall corporate need so that we can link it and Easter Seals sort of fit that bill.

I had a friend who is on the board who recommended that I go out to their facility in Silver Springs which is their intergenerational facility and has a mix of older and younger folks and really saw the effort that Easter Seals is making for this region, for Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.   And then we got talking about what programs they were creating and working on with respect to veterans and their veteran staffing networks to really kind of create the programs necessary to help veterans transition into what Citi’s doing.  So if we’re hiring on the Citi end and we’re trying to create opportunities, how do you make sure that the skill sets of being able to interview, to write the resume, to understand networking strategies, to just get confidence and assistance in the best way to approach the transition from the military to a civilian job opportunity is working?   The more I heard about it, the more I thought about it and it made sense for me personally and for Citi in the D.C. area to engage in this program because we also want to look at where we have business operations in locations where we can give back to a local community.

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On choosing the celebrity participation?  “I thought of doing more of a joint effort, so I choose the giver and then we work with the rest of the Easter Seal’s team.  We just took a look at some different options and frankly Mrs. Mullen, who is Deborah Mullen, Admiral Mullen’s wife, and decided that she would be the honorary co-chair.  She had some relationships with the various celebrities and we just did an outreach and we tried to find folks that were clearly committed to veteran’s issues, committed to veteran’s hiring, and were very supportive.  So we reached out and we asked them (Sinise & Brokaw);  Gary Sinise comes to the D.C. area fairly regularly and is very committed to veterans, veteran’s programs and participates in different things in the D.C. area.  It was nice of him to also see the value of this particular program.”

Tom Brokaw, of course, is a television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News. His book, The Greatest Generation, has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors.  He now serves as a Special Correspondent for NBC News and works on documentaries as well.

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Tom Brokaw and Gary Sinise

Easter Seals Serving DC | MD | VA  provides exceptional services to ensure that people with disabilities and families in need have equal opportunities to live, learn, work and play.

 

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