{"id":333521,"date":"2020-11-17T06:05:13","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T20:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=333521"},"modified":"2020-11-17T06:05:13","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T20:05:13","slug":"iakopo-our-debt-to-veterans-can-never-be-repaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/iakopo-our-debt-to-veterans-can-never-be-repaid\/","title":{"rendered":"Iakopo: Our debt to veterans can never be repaid"},"content":{"rendered":"
Veterans Affairs Office executive officer Stanley T. Iakopo delivers his remarks at the at the Veterans Day ceremony last Nov. 11 at the American Memorial Park. (Neil Fama)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Veterans Affairs Office executive officer Stanley T. Iakopo, who is a veteran himself, spoke of the unique insights of veterans at the at the Veterans Day ceremony last Nov. 11 at the American Memorial Park by urging people to ask themselves the question: \u201cHow does it feel to enjoy freedom at the expense of a veteran\u2019s life?\u201d<\/p>\n

Iakopo said that the freedoms today that so many people enjoy is because of the men and women who \u201care willing to give their lives for you.\u201d <\/p>\n

Citing a poem penned by Master Sgt. Roy Benavidez from the early \u201990s, Iakopo asked: \u201cHave you forgotten who I am? What I stand for? And where I\u2019ve been? Anzio, Guadalcanal, Korea, Vietnam. Take a good look one of these days\u2026at the memorial honor roll\u2026of all the names that never came back.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed out that people usually have different reactions when they find out that someone is enlisting versus when they come back from deployment. \u201cWhen a family member joins the military, we celebrate. Families throw parties. …These new recruits are the pride of their communities across the country or the Pacific Islands, but when they return, they don\u2019t get that warmth. No appreciation, no incentives, no discounts, and no support. All they get is a mere thank you for your service, if they\u2019re lucky,\u201d said Iakopo, adding that there are veterans who bring physical pains and emotional scars back home, while everyone else enjoys freedom every day, and our veterans \u201cpay dearly for every freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a bond between veterans because they have to suffer the wounds of war. The sacrifices they made, friends they\u2019ve lost, not being there during the birth of their son or daughter, missing wedding anniversaries, to name a few things,\u201d said Iakopo. \u201c\u2026We should take a minute to imagine what it would be like to not be able to be here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iakopo pointed out that freedom gives us the privilege to do what we want, wherever we want, freedom to worship how we want, but most especially, the freedom to speak. <\/p>\n

He said the Northern Marianas owes a lot to its veterans. \u201cMany veterans sacrifice their health, their limbs, their mental wellbeing and, most of all, some gave the ultimate, their life. We could only imagine the agony of war. Our veterans lived it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veterans Affairs Office executive officer Stanley T. Iakopo, who is a veteran himself, spoke of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":333523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-333521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}