'I have held a job, Howard'

It’s Memorial Day in the USA (or it has just passed Tuesday) and I thought I’d post a famous speech by a notable US Marine and Senator, and a not so famous ‘cover version’ of that speech.

John Glenn’s ‘Gold Star Mothers’ speech turned fifty on the 4th of May. It was delivered in a campaign debate in the Democratic Senate primary for the State of Ohio, and stands as perhaps the greatest political slapdown of all time. Howard Metzenbaum, who had strong business credentials, attempted to highlight astronaut and military man Glenn's inexperience in this area. He made the very ill advised comment that Glenn had never ‘worked a payroll’. Glenn, perhaps a fraction unfairly, took this as ‘never worked a real job’, and went whack!

What a speech. A minute of pure magic.

4 May 1974, Cleveland City Club, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Metzenbaum: "How can you run for Senate when you've never worked a payroll?"

Glenn: "I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. I was through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions.

I was in the space program. It wasn't my checkbook, it was my life that was on the line. This was not a 9-to-5 job where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank.

I ask you to go with me, as I went the other day to a Veterans Hospital, and look those men with their mangled bodies in the eye and tell them they didn't hold a job.

You go with me to any Gold Star mother, and you look her in the eye and tell her that her son did not hold a job.

You go with me to the space program, and you go as I have gone to the widows and the orphans of Ed White and Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee, and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their dad didn't hold a job.

You go with me on Memorial Day coming up, and you stand on Arlington National Cemetery — where I have more friends than I like to remember — and you watch those waving flags, and you stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell me that those people didn't have a job.

I tell you, Howard Metzenbaum, you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men — SOME MEN — who held a job. And they required a dedication to purpose and a love of country and a dedication to duty that was more important than life itself.

And their self-sacrifice is what has made this country possible.

I HAVE HELD A JOB, HOWARD!"

I mentioned a ‘cover version’? Well in the hours before Alpha Company of the 6th Marines began its campaign in Marjah, Afghanistan, in May 2010, Gunny Sergent Brian Walgren decided that the Marines needed a motivational speech, and dipped into the famous exchange between Glenn and Metzenbaum. It’s expletive riddled, but it’s also turbo charged adrenaline and passion that very few speakers can summon:

Paid subscribers can follow with transcript below: