An interesting thing happened toward the end of Vice President Joe Biden's nearly 40-minute speech at a community center in Sun City Center on Friday. He stopped ripping into the policies being promoted by the Romney-Ryan ticket, and began paying tribute to members of the U.S. military, 68,000 of whom are currently serving in Afghanistan.
He launched into that part of his speech after commenting on Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" remarks referring to the percentage of U.S. citizens who don't pay taxes — a group which includes the military.
Switching from a near shout to a loud whisper, Biden mentioned the 6,500 U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 11 years, calling them "fallen angels." (A Washington Post count has the number of troops killed overseas at 6,591).
"50,010 wounded. Maybe of them, close to 25,000 with wounds that will require extensive medical care for the rest of their lives…..they will need our help the rest of their natural lives," he said solemnly, bringing the approximately 1,160 people jammed into the Sun City Center Community Association Community Hall to near silence.
He then resumed blasting the Republican ticket, saying he had never seen two candidates in his life more negative and with less faith in the American people than Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. "I don't recognize the country they're talking about," he said, again going back to the 47 percent comments.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2012.