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Edwards Tells Grads To Help End Iraq War

May 13, 2007 1:15 PM

Chelsea Conaboy
Concord Monitor
May 13, 2007

Appearing at the New England College graduation ceremony yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards gave the 240 or so graduates some suggestions for the future. But much of his advice focused on what they could do this month to celebrate Memorial Day.

Edwards asked the crowd to do more than picnic and parade. He urged people to "gather as patriots" against the war in Iraq to say, "We are citizens. We are Americans. We are patriots. We support our troops. End this war and bring them home."

Edwards was the keynote speaker and received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the Henniker college. His message closely mirrored his usual stump speech, touching on the cost of college, health care and the war. But yesterday, it carried an overtone that sought to motivate grassroots youth.

He paraphrased the words of Martin Luther King Jr. on the war in Vietnam, saying "silence is betrayal."

Just as young people have called attention to segregation, South African apartheid and the Vietnam war in the past, now, he said, "America needs to hear you. We need to hear your voice." Edwards echoed the statements posted on his new website, supportthetroopsendthewar.com.

He also spoke about being the first in his family to graduate from college. He said many of the graduating students are likely nervous about getting a job or paying their loans. When he graduated from law school at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1977, he was getting ready to marry Elizabeth. "I was more nervous about that," he said.

Edwards praised the students in the class who had spent time volunteering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He lauded them as part of the generation that has brought attention to global warming and genocide in Darfur.

Even after going through the attacks of Sept. 11 and the tragedy of Katrina, "you are still ready to volunteer and to take responsibility for your neighbors, your country and the world," he said. "I'm here to tell you we have never needed you more than we do today."

He tweaked a message that has become a campaign motto: "America needs fundamental, bold change, transformational change. . . . The power to change our country comes from you."

Sean McColgan of Boston gave the class address for the undergraduates. He said he remembers sitting in his dorm the first semester of school asking himself, "How am I going to do this for four years? I'm supposed to live in this box. I'm supposed to share it with a stranger. Wait, this stranger is a Yankees fan? Then I blinked, and I was here."

In McColgan's early college days, Edwards was doing what he is doing today: seeking the Democratic nomination. He said nothing yesterday about how quickly or slowly these four years have passed for him.

Writer and naturalist Chet Raymo also received an honorary degree. Before Edwards spoke, Raymo told the crowd that he was honored to share the stage with him. He said he has been a "lifelong Democrat," for which the crowd cheered. He's been monitoring the race carefully, he said.

"It's either going to be John Edwards or -" Raymo paused, "Elizabeth Edwards." College officials presented John Edwards with a framed poem for his wife, who announced in March that her breast cancer had metastasized. At the end of the ceremony, the class officers announced that they had two class gifts to present. They would help restore Henniker's covered bridge, and they donated money in Elizabeth Edwards's name to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

John Edwards wasn't there to hear the announcement. He had left for a campaign event in Hollis.

 

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Q&A: Educational Disparity
John Edwards answers a question about educational disparity at Hanover Middle School in Hanover, N.H. on September 27, 2007

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