Starbucks Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz announced a $30 million charitable gift for troops returning home from war in an interview with Scott Pelley that was broadcast last night, March 19 on the CBS Evening News (6:30-7:00 PM, ET) on the CBS Television Network.
In last night's interview, Schultz told Pelley that the $30 million donation to the Schultz Family Foundation will help veterans and their families transition into civilian employment, seek medical and mental health care and pursue educational endeavors. In addition to the charitable gift, Schultz told Pelley that Starbucks will hire 10,000 veterans and their spouses over the next five years.
A transcript of tonight's interview is below.
PELLEY: Tell me about one thing that the $30 million is going to go to, that you think's really important.
SCHULTZ: I think one thing that is necessary is a comprehensive mechanism for job training. But another is the fact that, depending on who you're talking to, 20, 30, 40 percent of the two million people who have served are coming back with some kind of brain trauma or P.T.S. So, we're going to fund the opportunity for significant research and for medical practitioners and
Science to understand the disease, and ultimately, hopefully, come up with some-a level of remedy.
PELLEY: More research for post-traumatic stress syndrome?
SCHULTZ: Yes.
PELLEY: And more research for traumatic brain injury?
SCHULTZ: That's correct. The truth of the matter is, and I say this with respect, more often than not, the government does a much better job of sending people to war than they do of bringing them home. These young men and women, who are Coming Home from multiple deployments, are not Coming Home to a parade. They're not Coming Home to a celebration. They're Coming Home to an American public that really doesn't understand, and never embraced, what these people have done.
PELLEY (VOICE OVER): WHAT THEY'VE DONE, SCHULTZ SAYS, IS INCREDIBLY VALUABLE TO AMERICAN BUSINESS.
PELLEY: These returning troops have management skills that you can't get any other way.
SCHULTZ: No.
PELLEY: No Harvard Business School is ever going to teach you how to lead people into combat.
SCHULTZ: This is something very, very different, and these life skills can't be taught. And what I'm saying is that they're extraordinarily valuable to any business, any institution, any enterprise.
PELLEY: You were recently at Walter Reed Army Hospital. What did you see there? What was that experience like? What did you learn?
SCHULTZ: I was not mentally prepared - or emotionally prepared - for what we saw at Walter Reed, and a young 21-year-old warrior, who had lost both his legs, was being wheeled around by his mother. And you ask yourself, "If that was my son or my daughter, how would we respond?" And I think my responsibility now is I have seen things, and I've heard things, and I've met these people and their families, and you just can't be a bystander. You have to do everything you can to tell their story and help them.
Patricia Shevlin is the Executive Producer of the
CBS Evening News WITH SCOTT PELLEY.
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