HARTLAND, Wis. – No Better Friend Corp. team hosted Kevin Hermening, a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, on July 23, 2021 for a showing of Desert One. Hermening shared his story with about 100 attendees on the importance of achieving peace through strength.
In 1979, Hermening was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Iran when it was ultimately taken over as part of the Iranian Revolution. For the next 444 days, he was held hostage with a group of other Americans before eventually being released.
“So much of what we’re going to talk about tonight with this event is understanding what exists elsewhere in the world and we believe our children should understand that,” Kevin Nicholson said before the movie screening started. “They should understand the benchmark for which the United States should be judged are societies in which people are imprisoned for their belief structure, or their religion, or their ethnicity.”
He added, “We believe that a strong and strategic national defense is critical in order to stopping wars before they start in the first place. That is absolutely essential. The people of Wisconsin don’t want to see their sons and daughters set off to fight in wars and conflicts like the ones that we’ve experienced,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson and Hermening explained that throughout the course of history, bad actors, like the Iranian regime, have filled the gray space.
“Even today, the Iranian regime cannot be trusted to come to the table as an equal partner in a negotiation,” Hermening said before the movie started playing at the event. “The Iranian regime, for more than 40 years, has never been held to account for violating international law by taking over the US Embassy in 1979, and we are going to see a little bit of this tonight.”
After the movie concluded, Nicholson and Hermening addressed the crowd again.
“Despite all of the problems that our nation is facing, this country, these United States of America,still stand tall as the greatest on the planet,” said Hermening.
“We need to remind the people here in the United States of America that we have this freedom because fights that have occurred before. It’s not easy to get back once it slips away,’ said Nicholson.
This event was the second showing of Desert One that No Better Friend Corp. has sponsored this summer. The first showing was in Rice Lake on June 17th. You can read a write-up of our event in Hartland from Wisconsin Right Now here.
