Kevin Hermening
CONLEY COMMENTARY – I’m not here today because of an outside speaking engagement. This morning I’m hosting the Portage County Business Council’s breakfast today in Stevens Point. I will get to introduce their featured speaker, Kevin Hermening.
I’ve heard Kevin Hermaning speak before. He most often discusses politics; he’s a leader of the Marathon County Republican Party. He’s also an expert on school issues in the state, as a member of Mosinee’s school board. And he’ll be happy to talk to you about your personal finances. Today he is the President of Hermening Financial Group in Wausau.
It is far less often that Kevin speaks about his service in the United States Marine Corps. While assigned to the security detail at our Embassy in Tehran, he was one of 65 Americans taken hostage in 1979. He was held for 444 days in unspeakably harsh conditions.
Here is how I will introduce him this morning:
“Whenever someone decides to serve their country, there is a price that they pay. They volunteer to give up some of their personal liberty. They’ll be away from loved ones and will be under the command of others. Their service will take up some years – the best years – of their young lives. They really don’t know where they’ll go, or what they might be called upon to do.
At the time a younger Kevin Hermening stood up to serve his country, he could not possibly have imagined the price he would be called on to pay. He would not have known then that he’d be part of our security detail at the United States Embassy in Tehran, or that on November 4th 1979 Iranian fundamentalist radicals would storm and seize our embassy, and that he would be one of 65 Americans taken hostage. He was held captive for 444 days. I don’t know how someone recovers from such inhumane captivity. How does someone rebuild a life after such an ordeal?
Patriotism means different things to different people. I suspect it has a much deeper meaning to those who have stood up for our country and have paid a high price.
It is my high privilege this morning to introduce United States Marine Corps Sargaent, Retired, Kevin Hermening.”
Chris Conley
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