Remarks by the President Welcoming the Wounded Warrior Project's Soldier Ride

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

South Lawn

3:54 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, everybody.  (Applause.)  Thank you.  Welcome to the White House.  Thank you, Rick, for your introduction and for your leadership at the VA.  And I want to thank all of you for coming out today. 

This is actually good -- a little overcast to keep you guys not too hot.  This is one of my favorite events of the year.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:  I love you, Mr. President!

THE PRESIDENT:  I love you back.  (Laughter.)

We obviously meet at a time when our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston.  Our hearts are with the families of the victims.  And now we send our support and encouragement to people who never expected that they’d need it -- the wounded civilians who are just beginning what will be, I’m sure for some of them, a long road to recovery. 

It’s a road that the remarkable warriors and athletes here know all too well.  And, as a consequence, they’re going to serve for all of the families as well as all Americans a continued inspiration. 

We do this every spring, and as all of you know, it started in a bar -- where a lot of good ideas start.  (Laughter.)  Chris Carney and some of his buddies, who are here today, were talking about what they could do to support our wounded warriors, and Chris came up with the idea of biking coast-to-coast to raise money and awareness. 

Now, even he has admitted in hindsight, “It may have been the beer muscles talking.”  But he followed through, and he started in Long Island, he ended in San Diego.  Along the way, he inspired people all across the country.  And since then, more than a thousand wounded warriors have joined soldier rides across America.  This is the fourth time I’ve had the chance to welcome these rides here at the White House.  And, as always, we’ve got Army.  (Applause.)  We’ve got Navy.  (Applause.)  We’ve got Air Force.  (Applause.)  And we’ve got some Marines in the house.  (Applause.)  

Together, with your outstanding families, you represent what’s best in America.  When we needed patriots to defend our freedom, you have answered the call.  You’ve risked everything for our country and for each other.  And you’ve made sacrifices most of us can barely imagine.

So thanks to your courage and your resolve, we’ve been able to end one war; we’re beginning to wind down another.  But for you, as is true for all of our wounded warriors, coming home doesn’t mean that the fight is over.  In some ways, it’s just begun.

You think about folks like Sergeant Sean Karpf.  I first met Sean last June at Walter Reed -- he had just lost his left leg to an IED in Afghanistan, he knew that there was a long road ahead of him.  But today, Sean is here, he’s ready to ride.  He’s training to compete in swimming and track at the Wounded Warrior Games.  He’s lined up an internship in the physical therapy section at Walter Reed, where he's going to help fellow wounded warriors make the same journey that he did.

Then there’s Staff Sergeant Erick Millette.  During two tours in Iraq, Erick survived 17 IED attacks.  They left him with the kinds of injuries that you can’t always see:  head trauma, brain injury, PTSD.  Erick’s military career was cut short, but he’s taken on a new mission, and that’s sharing his story with audiences across the country. 

So he spread the message that it’s okay to talk about these unseen wounds of war.  It’s okay to seek out help and to seek out support.  Erick says that the Wounded Warrior Project literally saved his life, and now through his work, he’s helping save even more lives.  So, Erick, thank you so much.  And obviously, to Sean and everybody who is participating, we could not be prouder of you.

I also want to thank folks like Captain Mary McGriff, First Lieutenant Jason Church for returning for another soldier ride as peer mentors for first-time riders.  That’s a big part of what the soldier rides are about –- not just what you can do for yourself, but what you can do as a team.  As one rider put it, “It’s just like in the military.  You ride for the warrior next to you.”

So nine years ago, Chris Carney told a reporter that the most daunting part of that first ride was being alone.  He said he had only played team sports in the past; that he wasn’t used to a solo effort.  But what Chris and others discovered is that when it comes to supporting our returning heroes, there’s no such thing as going it alone.  We do this as a team.  We get each other’s backs.

Those who have served under our proud flag never lose that sense of service to one another or to country -- and we saw that on Monday.  When that first explosion went off, National Guardsmen, servicemembers, veterans in the area all did what warriors do:  They ran into harm’s way to protect their fellow Americans.  They applied tourniquets.  They went to hospitals, they donated blood.  Doctors used experience they acquired in part overseas to help save lives here at home.

That’s the strong stuff that our warriors are made out of, and that’s why we’re so proud and so grateful to the men and women and veterans of our Armed Forces.  And that’s why, as Commander-in-Chief, I’ll keep doing everything in my power to make sure we serve you as well as you’ve served us.  And that means making sure you get the care and the benefits you need.  It means making sure you don’t have to fight for a job when you get home.  It means recognizing our military families and giving them the support that they deserve.  And right now, it means saying a big thank you to all of our riders. 

So I’m asking every American out there and everyone who is along the route to get out and show their support, wave a flag.  Cheer for these outstanding men and women. 

Good luck over the next three days.  Have fun out there.  And know that you’ve got a country and a Commander-in-Chief who appreciates you, who's proud of you, and who will always have your back.

So thank you.  God bless you.  God bless America.  And let’s get this thing going.  You can see that they're ready to go.  (Applause.)

END               
4:00 P.M. EDT

President Obama speaks at in interfaith service dedicated to those who were gravely wounded or killed at the Boston Marathon bombing.

President Obama will deliver remarks this morning at Healing Our City: An Interfaith Service which is dedicated to those who were gravely wounded or killed in Monday’s bombing near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

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Remarks by Dr. Jill Biden at Wounded Warriors Reception at Winfield House

The White House

Office of the Vice President

Hello, everyone! Thank you, Marjorie, for hosting us here today and for your ongoing collaboration as we support our service men and women and their families.

As Second Lady, and as a military mom, I have been honored to spend time with our troops, and our recovering service members—and I am so inspired by the strength and resilience of both British and American military families and veterans.  Major Peter Norton, thank you for your service.

I know a spirit of service is deeply ingrained in all of you … that the warrior mentality doesn’t leave you when you return from war – or when you separate from the military. 

Over the past few days, I have visited with Wounded Warriors and medical staff at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center … and spent the day with soldiers and their families at a US Army base in Germany.

With each visit, I am reminded that our service members and their families have done so much for us … and we can all do something in return.

That spirit is what fuels the Joining Forces initiative the First Lady and I started to support and honor our troops and military families.

And I am very pleased to not only visit with some of the heroes that make the British military so strong, but also all the organizations here that support them.

I know that over the past 10 years, you have all worked so hard to improve the lives of the men and women who have sacrificed so much.  It is your dedication and support that has made all the difference for so many veterans and their families.

You are truly Joining Forces. 

The bonds that British and American troops share are unbreakable. You have served alongside one another every step of the way. Over 250,000 British troops have served alongside Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. You are brothers and sisters in combat, but also in healing. 

In 2010, a soldier named Brian attended a holiday gathering Joe and I hosted in our home. Brian was newly injured at the time, and he and his young family were adjusting to his new normal – walking on prosthetics … separating from the military … and caring for a newborn while healing from amputations and internal injuries sustained during a blast in Iraq. 

Almost a year later, I was visiting wounded warriors at Walter Reed hospital when I met another young soldier who had just been injured in Afghanistan. 

He told me that he had been struggling to adjust to losing his legs, and to the long healing process ahead of him. 

But he said he was feeling much better because a fellow injured soldier had reached out to him and was mentoring him.  That soldier was Brian. 

Just a year after being injured, Brian was thriving. He gave other wounded warriors confidence that they too would once again be whole. 

I use Brian as an example of that same inner strength we have seen in you as many of you have pursued physical challenges beyond what you ever imagined you could accomplish after your injuries.

Not only do you inspire countless other recovering warriors, you inspire me … my husband Joe … President Barack Obama … First Lady Michelle Obama … and all Americans.

To our heroes and your families, thank you for your sacrifice and service, and to our British partners and friends, thank you for your ongoing commitment to our service men and women. 

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Inside Ex-Gay Therapy: Homosexual Behavior Is A Fantasy Addiction To A Wounded Gender Identity

The late psychoanalyst Joyce McDougall believed homosexuality was a perversion.

Joseph Nicolosi, founder of ex-gay group NARTH and trainer of many other ex-gay therapists, is back with another brief article attempting to explain his perspective on the nature of homosexuality. Earlier this month, he explained that his patients can get over their supposed “addiction” to gay porn by simply making friends with more men. This week, he offers a convoluted description of homosexual behavior as an addiction to acting out a fantasy that compensates for a wounded gender identity:

Joyce McDougall has investigated the central role of “theatre and role-playing” in non-typical forms of sexual activity, including homosexuality. She is among the few contemporary psychoanalysts willing to study such forms of sexuality. McDougall understands “sexual theatre” as an acting-out of intrapsychic sexual forces in a symbolic attempt to resolve an identity conflict. In this regard she confirms the classic psychoanalytic understanding of “perverse” (as the term was used in previous years) sexual activity as being rooted in identity confusion. Noting the repetitive-compulsive nature of these role enactments, McDougall found that while her patients complain about the constrained structure of these “erotic theatre pieces,” they could not abstain from their enactments: “…and have to do it again and again and again” (McDougall, 2000, p.182).

What Nicolosi is trying to suggest is that gay people (and “the extreme case of transsexuals”) were somehow sent the wrong messages by their parents about how they are supposed to understand their own gender. This leads to a sense of inner conflict that they then address through compulsively trying to fulfill that “false” identity. Essentially, he thinks that gay people are just actors cast in the wrong role who don’t know how escape the performance because they believe they are trying to fix some kind of “past trauma” by acting it out.

Stepping back from that gobbledygook, it’s actually easy to make sense of how these perpetrators of fraud arrive at such nonsense. The obvious explanation for why there are gay people who don’t want to be gay is because they exist in a society that condemns homosexuality; they are taught from a young age that being gay is wrong and something to be ashamed of. Mainstream social science recognizes this reality, which is why the recommended professional practice is to affirm same-sex orientations to help resolve the inner conflict.

Ex-gay therapists take the opposite approach. They assume same-sex attractions are a defect by default. Thus, they need to invent other explanations for why people feel conflicted about having them. And like most aspects of ex-gay therapy, the easy solution is to blame the patient. Nicolosi’s gibberish is a means of doing just that. It’s a gay person’s fault he’s gay, it’s a gay person’s fault he feels bad about being gay, and only by accepting that shame and blame can that gay person attempt to find recovery. That’s the insidious message behind ex-gay therapy.

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