You May Have Heard That Mayor Mamdani Stole Our Ruck March. Let's Talk About It.
The Truth Behind The Rumors & Why Honoring The Post-9/11 Generation of Veterans Requires More Attention To Detail.
The 2023 Memorial Ruck March, bringing together military-connected New Yorkers of all generations.
Since the announcement of the Mayor’s “Remembrance Ruck”, we’ve received waves of calls, emails and text messages expressing frustration surrounding the cancelation of the “Homecoming Heroes” parade and the creation of a ruck march that looks seemingly familiar to ours here at Five Borough Veterans.
First and foremost, we hear you, which is why I wanted to address this directly to all of you.
The Original Plan
As many of you know, the Memorial Ruck March was a personal tradition of mine that acted as both an event to build camaraderie, but also an educational opportunity to visit each of the memorials on our route and learn their history from our chosen guest speakers. This event has joined multiple generations of our community together with the general public, speaking to my personal mission of building the bridge between military-connected and non-military New Yorkers. This year, our founding year, will be the first time we host the Memorial Ruck March as an official Five Borough Veterans event.
When we first announced the event, the Mamdani Administration reached out to us, was eager to learn more, and wanted to join us on May 24th as we march the five miles from Brooklyn to Manhattan. We were ecstatic and sent over the details, including our route. After all, this would be the first time a sitting Mayor would be joining the military-connected community in an event that holds such a personal meaning to us all.
Upon receiving confirmation of his attendance, I shared the news with our leadership team and our organizing partners, so we can begin to put the necessary safety protocols in place to ensure the Mayor’s first event with our community was a memorable one that welcomes him into our way of life. Plans were set, and the work was done. That was the last word from the administration.
On April 13th, to our surprise, the announcement was made of the replacement of the “Homecoming Heroes” parade, with a new “Remembrance Ruck” and resource fair in September. We weren’t initially aware of it until the community reached out to us with the news.
Lack of Communication Is The Ongoing Trend
While we are flattered by the Mayor finding inspiration in our event to replicate in his September plan, we do have concerns with how the Mayor has treated our community behind his social media campaigns and press conferences. As you all know, we hosted our first Candidate Roundtable Series and Voter Guide last October to bring the candidates running for Mayor, Public Advocate and Comptroller face to face with our advocates to discuss their platforms and how they align with our concerns as the military-connected community. Every candidate participated, except two. Former Governor Cuomo never replied to us. The, then Assemblymember Mamdani, accepted our invitation, only to never show up to his scheduled time slot. We never heard back from his campaign as to why.
Fast forwarding to the present, we recently celebrated the passage of Intro-291A, a law that now requires the Commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to track the impact of suicide on New Yorkers annually, including our amendment of veteran status as a standalone data point. The bill passed the City Council with an overwhelming majority and made its way to the Mayor’s desk for signature. Unfortunately, we were made aware that it was returned, unsigned. This was a bill with no fiscal impact on the city’s budget, that would take the first steps to effectively address veteran suicide in New York City, a virus that is wreaking havoc in our community nationwide.
When I first accepted the responsibility of serving as President of the Five Borough Veterans, I held numerous conversations with fellow advocates and families around the city, to understand what they needed most from our efforts. One message, consistently shared, has stuck with me to this day:
“Do not let them (elected officials) use us as props anymore.”
Which is why when we hear that “This is a new era that wants to make sure that veterans and their families are included” in the press, but actions behind closed doors don’t match the message, we will speak up.
This is a community trained to be leaders. If the Mayor wants to truly wants to work with us, he must learn the first lesson we all did about effective leadership: how to follow.
The Complexity of the Post-9/11 Generation of Veterans
We are rapidly approaching the 25th anniversary of the attack on the Pentagon, The Twin Towers and the loss of Flight 93, where everyday people gave their lives to stop Al-Qaeda hijackers from taking more American lives in Washington, D.C. This is the event that became the starting point of the longest war in American history, and for many of us, the reason why we chose to serve.
I was six years old, in the middle of reading class in the first grade, when my school was evacuated on the west side of Manhattan as the twin towers came down. I would learn in the coming weeks, that one of my role models, FDNY Captain Patrick J. Brown of Ladder 3, a Marine, gave his life refusing the order to evacuate the North Tower, committed to ensuring as many people made it out of the tower safely as he could. As I grew older, inspired by the Captain’s legacy, I looked to serve the public as he did. Then I learned about the Great Boatlift of 9/11, the largest maritime evacuation in history, rescuing half a million people from Manhattan in nine hours, led by the United States Coast Guard. I found my call to service and served ten years in the Coast Guard, specialized in Search & Rescue and Anti-Terrorism.
We all have our own story.
What’s the most important lesson to be shared about our generation is simple: we didn’t win. We spent twenty years fighting wars we were told was to ensure our freedom. That we were providing safety from weapons of mass destruction. Liberating oppressed populations. Then, in a matters of months, we left.
I witnessed friends deal with the moral injury of watching the Taliban acquire equipment ordered to be left behind by our forces. Fellow advocates scrambled to ensure the safe evacuation of their interpreters, now being hunted by their oppressors for helping American forces. Organizations like Stop Soldier Suicide reported a 92% increase in veterans seeking help, while the VA crisis line saw a record number of calls. For those of us that worked on the Afghan Adjustment Act with organizations like the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), we had Afghan families reaching out to us directly on social media, begging for us to not abandon them and to help them get their families to safety.
These stories, experiences and wounds requires more than a short ruck march and resource fair to effectively address.
A Message To Mayor Mamdani
You have a unique opportunity available to you Mr. Mayor.
The military-connected community is one of the most civically engaged, community focused populations we have in American society, and it’s much larger than you may think here in New York City.
Ruck marches are deeply personal to us, and are held frequently by community partners beyond just ourselves, like The American Legion, Veterans for Foreign Wars, United War Veterans Council and the Travis Manion Foundation. You are more than welcome to (and should) join us when we host them, but come to learn and engage with us, not host one of your own and expect us to come running to yours.
Learn from us, so we can better support you as you lead the city that we all love.
If you do plan to move forward with a resource fair style event, I recommend the following:
Connect with and include the leaders of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in the planning conversations. Their Chairman/CEO is an Air Force veteran who can help guide the intentionality of this event with her years of experience in leadership.
Position the event as a celebration of not only their service, but the impact the Post-9/11 generation continues to make on New York City overall. Our veteran business owners have an 80% higher success rate than non-veteran business owners, creating jobs and fueling the local and national economy. Our veteran advocates paved the way for the creation of the NYC Department of Veteran Services, which now acts as our local resource for the benefits and programs we have available to ensure our success. We have one of the largest populations of student veterans in the country using their GI-Bill in here in the city, with many attending Columbia, NYU, Fordham and the CUNY system.
Ensure the general public is encouraged to attend and learn about us as well. Let them see us not as a “broken” population in need of charity work, but as the ones who will continue to answer the call for our nation’s success, when it needs us.
We didn’t get a win after twenty years of war, Mr. Mayor. You can give that to us here, with our community to guide you.
A Reminder To The Community
We are still moving forward with our Memorial Ruck March on May 24th and welcome you all to join us at noon at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. We encourage you all to challenge yourselves by packing your rucks (backpacks) with non-perishable goods, that we will then collect after the march to be delivered to our community members in shelters around the city.
Thank you to all of you who continue to support our work and our military-connected community as a whole in the five boroughs.
In Service,
Michael Matos
President
Five Borough Veterans