Sometimes, you carry the weight of history on your shoulders without realizing it. It was Labor Day weekend, but labor was the furthest thing from my mind. Instead, I found myself standing next to a man who does carry history—carrying the invisible weight of generations past, of wars fought and memories etched in time.
SGM Richard Rice, the @HomeDepotFoundation Veteran of the Game. But that title, those words, they don't begin to capture the man. In Vietnam, they called him Green Beret, one of the first. Later, in the cold mountains of Afghanistan, he was the shadow that helped push back the Russian tide. In Iran, 1980, he was hope personified for hostages praying for rescue. To the British SAS, he was the American who came to learn but taught them a thing or two as well.
And Delta Force? Well, let's just say he helped write that particular story from the first page. You see a man, and you think you know him. But you don't know the weight he carries, the memories that flicker behind his eyes like old film reels, grainy and worn but never fading.
I watched as 80,000 voices rose in a collective roar, not for a touchdown , but for a man who had carried so much for so long. It was a sound decades in the making, a belated welcome home that echoed across time, trying to drown out the silence that had greeted him and his brothers so many years ago.
In that moment, standing there, I swear I could feel the earth shift just a little, as if the weight of all those unspoken thank-yous was finally being lifted.
And I realized, that's what we do. We carry. We carry the memories, the thanks, the regrets. We carry the weight of those who came before us, hoping that somehow, someway, we can make that load a little lighter for those who will come after.
That's what Labor Day is really about, isn't it? Not just a day off, but a recognition of the weight we all carry, together. And sometimes, if we're lucky, we get to put that weight down, just for a moment, and remember why we picked it up in the first place.
Honored to call Richard a close friend and to have him as a mentor and advisor to +More Perfect Union.
#AlwaysBesideYou
