{"id":75751,"date":"2017-11-03T10:05:47","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T14:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=75751"},"modified":"2017-11-03T10:05:47","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T14:05:47","slug":"vet-advocate-declines-honor-from-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=75751","title":{"rendered":"Vet advocate declines honor from Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bill sends us a link to a story<\/a> about retired Navy Commander John Wells, the Executive Director of Military Veterans Advocacy, a veterans group in Slidell, Louisiana. He was offered the People’s Health Champions award to be awarded at a New Orleans Saint football game this weekend. He declined the honor citing the kerfuffle over some NFL players’ refusal to stand during the playing of the National Anthem;<\/p>\n

Wells says he’s had enough of the actions by players in the league and their disrespect. He says he is a longtime fans of football and the Saints.<\/p>\n

”I haven’t gone to any games, I’ve talked to other veterans and we feel these protests in the NFL are a slap in the face to veterans,” said Wells.<\/p>\n

Wells was to accept the People’s Health Champions award. Wells says while he’s touched to be selected, he just can’t accept.<\/p>\n

”Basically, I want it to stop, and if there’s a conversation to be had, then let’s have a conversation, but let’s not disrespect the very flag that gives us the right to have that conversation,” said Wells.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Saints<\/a> responded;<\/p>\n

Throughout Mr. Wells\u2019 media appearances today, he has stated he no longer supports NFL football. That is unfortunate and disappointing considering the New Orleans Saints’ unwavering 50-plus year commitment to honor, support and recognize our servicemen and women and veterans. We will not allow Mr. Wells\u2019 decision and subsequent media appearances to distract our players and organization from continuing to honor and support our military and veterans. We, as an organization, have decided to move on from this sad and divisive discourse and focus our attention on supporting our military and veterans. In lieu of honoring Mr. Wells, we will use the time allotted for the Peoples Health Champion Award to highlight non-political military advocacy programs and encourage our fans and community to join us in contributing to these groups who directly support our military and veterans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, well, good luck making your empty gestures to an empty stadium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill sends us a link to a story about retired Navy Commander John Wells, the Executive … Vet advocate declines honor from Saints<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}