Picture us going down to our desks to take a look at our email like we do every night of our lives before we head up for the night and I have over 50 emails from our Kelly Car Buyer form. When I open them up, my emotions are reeling from sorrow, to awe to humility. Parents of soldiers are thanking us for what we have done and soldiers are asking us for jobs. We heard from an uncle who has been out of work for two years and he’s supporting the child of a serviceman in Afghanistan and a woman who has three sons “over there” right now and I want to thank you.
The emails are coming now at a clip of 5 to 10 a minute. Our son-in-law called and said that the phones are ringing off the hook and they can’t keep up. Everyone is either looking for a job or wanting to thank us or talk to Sue or me. We are sitting at our desks in utter awe of the power of a 6 minute piece on Dateline. Then I remembered how “The Road Back” affected our lives to the point of driving 4 hours to offer a man a job when he thought I was a “get rich quick” purveyor.
We stayed at our computers for another two and a half hours just answering emails and thanking people for their kind words and answering every Vet who wrote looking for a job. Justin sent me some links to job websites to send these Vets but somehow it felt like I was abandoning them. “Here Buddy, go to this site and all your problems will be solved.” What is happening? We went from a couple hoping to do something for a Vet to wondering what else we can do.
We head to bed wondering what to do or say to all these people.