'You're already changing the world': Biden gives surprise speech at Parkland graduation

[JoeOtterbein]

Source: Politico

President Joe Biden on Tuesday surprised graduates of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with a speech praising their resolve after surviving a mass shooting and the Covid pandemic.

"Three years ago, your lives and the lives of this community changed in an instant. This class lost a piece of its soul," Biden said in video remarks, referring to the 2018 massacre that killed 17 people and injured 17 others at the Broward County, Fla., high school. "You've been tested in ways no young person should ever have to face."

"From a freshman year, a year of unspeakable loss, to a junior and senior year upended by a pandemic, the story of this class and the Parkland community isn't just a story of pain. It's a story of resilience, turning pain to purpose, darkness to light," the president continued. "This is the legacy you're building, the legacy you'll continue to build."

Student survivors famously became gun control activists in the aftermath of the deadly day, including a confrontation with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) during a CNN town hall. Political candidates Mark Kelly and Michael Bloomberg, among others, seized on the disaster in their advocacy. And earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was criticized for a 2018 video of her confronting Parkland survivor David Hogg on Capitol Hill.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/08/biden-speech-parkland-graduation-492359

[Roy Rolling]

1. Proactive

He’s everywhere! And keeping his foot on the gas so they never catch up.

[twodogsbarking]

2. I grieve the dead but

I fear for what the living have faced.

Death isn't the worst thing that can happen to men.

Thanks Joe. A million.

[FM123]

3. Still breaks my heart every time I think of those kids.

A friend and I made a visit to a local museum in Coral Springs (next to Parkland) during the summer of 2018. While we were there we saw a group of teens working on what looked like some sort of arts & crafts project at a table near the exbibit area - we asked the lady who worked there what the kids were doing and she replied "those are the kids who survived the shooting at MSD and they are doing art therapy for when they can return back to school in the fall". We wept, right then and there. Still makes me cry when I think of them.

[JoeOtterbein]

4. Thank you, for sharing this heart-breaking story.

I'm so sorry, I can only add my own tears.