DC Veterans day story

All right, welcome back to Fox 5 Weekend Live. Today, the Washington Commanders will recognize Miles for Military and service members from Quantico during halftime of their game against the L.A. Rams. Of course, behind the recognition is a mission that goes far beyond football, as you're well aware. Joining us now is Wendell Jarvis, executive director of Miles for Military. He's going to talk about this mission and really the remarkable connection between generations of service members. Thank you for being with us today. It's an honor to be on the show. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. So tell me what it means for Miles for Military and service members from Quantico to be honored during the Commanders game today. What does it mean to you? Thank you for asking. It's incredible for our service members. We have four Marines from Quantico who are being honored on the field today and I want to send a special thank you to the Washington Commanders organization, Chris Bailey, Laramie Tunsell, who is Having the players onto the field and up in his suite and to the Divine Tree team, it's a big deal for them because they have a whole stadium of fans cheering for them and thanking them for the support and all the service that they've done for our country. And so for those who don't know what Miles for Military is, what is it? What do you do? Absolutely, so Miles for Military is solving a very complex problem in a really simple way. So what most Americans don't know is there are 500,000 junior enlisted service members stationed all over the world. They're coming in typically at 18 years old, right out of high school and they're earning $27,000 a year, which makes it extraordinarily difficult to afford a flight home. So they could be stationed somewhere for one, two, three, four years and never make it back to see their loved ones. So what Miles for Military does is those service members go out in the community, they volunteer. 25 hours and we buy them a ticket home. My goodness, and it's as simple as that, they volunteer, you guys buy them a ticket home. That's it, it's an elegantly simple solution to a really big problem. It really is, and so I would imagine just the emotions that this brings out when you're able to tell someone, hey, you are able to go home and be with your loved one after they've been gone for gosh knows how many years. Tell me about some of these moments and some that maybe have stuck with with you over the years. Well, I'm a father, so I've got a little seven-year-old daughter at home. And so the ones where it's a mother or father coming home. We had one recently in Los Angeles, and the daughter had not been home, and she brought her granddaughter to meet her grandfather for the first time. And the squeal that he made when he opened that car door and saw his little granddaughter's face for the first time is just incredible. So it's the family connections that really mean a lot. And we spend probably half our weekly meetings a little misty-eyed going through these stories every single week. It's incredible. And so for people who are hearing this, they want to say they want to get involved. How can we do that, especially as Veterans Day is around the corner? A lot of times, you know, some people say, you know, it's a day and folks, maybe they say thank you for your service. But what does it really mean? They want to do more. Help us make the connection and how we can really put our put our money where our mouth is, so to speak. Absolutely, so our service members are future veterans, and that's how we look at it. And so they have done in the 100,000 plus volunteer hours they've done during their tickets home in the last 12 months, they volunteered 52% of their time with veterans organizations. So we're really giving back and paying it forward at the same time. And what I would say to anybody watching who's compelled by this mission is if you wanna support us financially, milesmilitary.org is the website, we would love that, we appreciate that. If you have organizations around a military installation that are doing great work for the community, be it a little league, a veterans organization, whatever it is, our volunteers are always looking for new ways to volunteer and earn their tickets. And, of course, you have organizations helping, too, not just the commanders. I understand the New England Patriots are also recognizing Miles for Military. What does that type of national recognition mean? It's huge for an organization that's small and growing really quickly. And we know that the scale of the problem that we're trying to solve is potentially 500,000 service members needing to be flown a year. And so we need a national movement that helps get these service members reconnected to their families. So are you hoping that this recognition encourages more military installations, veteran organizations to get involved? I'm sure you are, but I'll ask the question. We are, and we've been involved with 170 plus bases all around the world. And there are several hundred more to go. And so we wanna connect with every single one of them and with the leadership of those bases. And of course, every E1 to E4 junior enlisted stationed there. In our last 20 seconds, the folks watching this morning wanna get involved, tell them how they can do that. Absolutely. So the junior enlisted are amazing Americans. They're sacrificing an awful lot for each of us to be safe and free. And what we do is honoring their service by getting them home and reconnecting them to their family and loved ones. They're going out in the community to earn their ticket. And we would love your financial support. MilesFromMilitary.org can help make that possible. All right. Wendell Jarvis is the executive director of Miles for Military. Thank you so much for bringing this to our audience's attention. And I know that people are looking for ways to get involved in this. Certainly one good way to do that. We thank you again for your time this morning. Thank you so much for having me on. Appreciate it. 10:31 is our time of Fox 5 Weekend Live. We're taking a short break. Back after this.