I've seen on the news that Neil and Pegi Young have received an honorary doctor of humane letters from SFSU at their graduation ceremony. They have a son, Ben, who has very severe disabilities, and goes to the special school called "The Bridge School". Pegi and Neil have been working to help this school for a long time. Neil puts on an annual charity concert, and many famous groups come to play. They were recognized for these activities and received the honorary doctorate.
Neil came up on stage to receive the honor, and gave a speech.
"And when you're walking down the street and you're looking around at your fellow man, when you get up in the morning and you look at your TV set, you see signs of, of war, you see signs of pain, guilt, all kinds of feelings every day among all of us wondering what we're doing and how we got to where we are. "
"There's no answer for that that's going to come from me. But all I can say, I can ask you, for the rest of your life, every time you see something that reminds you of war and hurts you, that you're involved in it, that you're responsible for a country that's killing a lot of people..."
"...just try to remember peace."
There was a video clip of this speech on the internet taken by someone who attended the ceremony. There was a transcript of this speech as well. "I need my buddies to see this!"
Just as I entered into my digital diary, buddies started to respond. "I will try to remember the peace I have now." Then we talked about peace. Peace of America, peace of Japan, and peace of the world.
The graduates of SFSU who were there when Neil spoke would never forget about this for the rest of their life. I will not forget about what we talked about today.
Bridge School Concert
Neil Young Speech Video
SFSU, CSU to award honorary degrees
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