“Let’s stop handing out medals. Let’s stop telling people they’re heroes and give them jobs,” he said to applause at the Seaport World Trade Center, where several hundred disability activists from around the world gathered for the inaugural Ruderman Inclusion Summit.
“People look at veterans who are disabled and say, ‘Oh, I totally understand this, you’re like a hero and you gave up chunks of your brain and a couple of your limbs for our country. I get it, wow, you’re a hero, thank you very much. Wow, give them a flag,’” Hockenberry said. “Nothing makes veterans go crazier than that, feel more disempowered than that, feel more demeaned than that.”
The focus should be on jobs, inclusion and diversity, said Hockenberry, a paraplegic due to a car crash when he was 19.