Every Day Is Veterans Day For Heat’s Pat Riley

While Veterans Day are celebrated once a year, for Pat Riley, it’s a different ball game altogether. The president of the Miami Heat celebrates Veterans Day more one time each year.

Last week, he helped America’s Moms For Soldiers with the making of care packages for service men that’ll be out of the country during the holidays. On Tuesday, he assisted with the renovation of homes belonging to two former American soldiers.

When the Indiana Pacers was hosted by the Heat on Wednesday, the “Home Strong” platform he established will pay homage to eleven military men at the game and a lot of them around the globe as part of Veterans Day.

Riley has never served in the army or marine. But that has never stopped him from being very vocal about the importance of giving assistance to the military men that have served in foreign countries. And he has been doing it now for several years now. In 2010, the Heat took their training camp to a couple of army bases in Florida’s Panhandle. Riley stated that the group may consider engaging in something comparable in the coming years.

Speaking about Veterans Day, Riley said he think it is a day of paying homage. According to him, they do not want, search for, or actually look forward to it. But he believes they are really thankful for that, they minute they get it. He continued by saying how grateful they are for being associated with it and taking part in many Veterans Day.

Heat assisted with making enhancements to the Miami-area properties of Matthew James and Willie Franklin who are both Army Veterans on Tuesday. In 2008, James was the casualty of an armed robbery operation that took place in the front of his residence. And the wounds from that robbery attack compelled the man to abandon his work. Franklin is struggling with health problems; he is a World War Two hero.

According to Riley, it is impossible to ever actually get enough done for these war heroes, the ABC News reports.

At every single household Heat game ever since 2006, the group has celebrated a soldier who came back from Afghanistan as well as Iraq as part of Veterans Day. Miami is going to pay tribute to ten American Army staff sergeants on Wednesday, and the national anthem will be executed by the United States Army Sergeant Corrin Campbell. There is going to be a live, pregame salutation to the American Army’s Florida-based 810th Military Police Company based in Kabul, Afghanistan.

NBA players have already been celebrating troops for a number of days with Veterans Day events, but nonetheless Miami’s celebrations are some of the most refined.

Speaking about their work and Veterans Day, Riley said it is simply good to be associated with it. It is an important part of who we are and the individuals who manage it are genuine, exceptionally straightforward about it and are genuinely interested in it. At the moment, there really are still a lot of US citizens that are displaced in locations in which they most likely should not be — but then they are there due to the way we as a nation are interested in other people in other places around the world.

Ian Harvey

Ian Harvey is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE