we owe you more than we can ever ever, ever repay you. as i said, my prayer is, that that smile will come sooner than later. but i promise you it will come. god bless you all and may god protect our troops. thank you.

>> what a true message from the heart. thank you so much to our special gue guest. we are honored to have such special friends as the chairman and his wife. and vice president and dr. jill biden. they truly, as you could see

from their words and their presence with us here today, and their hugs and their words of encouragement how much their hearts go out to each and every one of us and how much they truly know and understand, and they are with us and they support us. and we are just so pleased to have been lucky to have them join us today. so thank you very much again to our special guests. it is now my pleasure to introduce a lady that most of you know. she is a person who has been part of the t.a.p.s. family since its very inception. she comes and gives us her words of wisdom, her words of hope, her words of a shared journey, and her laughter and her humor.

she is truly a friend, a dear, dear friend of t.a.p.s. and we all love her so very much. it is my privilege to introduce to you now dr. darcie sims. >> whoo-who, i will tell you i have never had to follow the vice president. so fib me if i'm not as sparkling and as awesome. but how amazing for him to come and share his story, not his politics. his story. he truly is one of us. he truly is one of us. well, we have a couple minutes before lunch so i get to fill in

while they're picnicking the sandwiches. thank you all for coming. for your courage, for your patience today. for putting up with some of the extra stuff that has to go on when we have such very special guests. i'm a military daughter. i'm a military wife. i am a military mother. and once i lived the american dream just as you did. and that dream was shattered once, twice, just as it was in your life. and a very long time ago, 36 years ago when our son died when daddy was dropping bombs on another war, there was no t.a.p.s. there were no support groups. there were no books. we were told to be strong and when you walked out of your -- you will have a smile on your face. and grief went inside because it wasn't acceptable to talk about it. and i learned early on that

grief will wait for us. it will wait forever for you, and i am so very, very grateful that now we have a family. this is our clubhouse for the weekend and we're here. and thank you for coming and even though you're not -- some of you, i see the suitcases under the table. you're going i don't know if i'm going to stay. i'll give you another ten minutes. and then maybe i'm going to go. please give us the next ten minutes. please give us the next hour. and the next day because every single person in this room has been where you are now. every one of us who wears a red shirt has been where you are now. and we didn't believe we'd be here again and again. but you see us hugging each other. it's a family reunion. and that's what this is. this is our family. so my job as the opening speaker is to give you a coup of tips of how to survive this circus this weekend.

you've already learned a couple of them. one is have a little patience. have a hug. a hug goes a lot farther than a harsh word with each other. we've only got a couple of potties so take your time. hug each other a lot. give yourself permission to be here. you need a pair of track shoes if you've already read the schedule. however, you don't have to go to everything. pace yourself. sometimes just going up and laying down on the bed face down is a pretty good idea or just sitting in a chair in the lobby and snoozing for a second. go to every workshop that you think sounds good and i tell you on behalf of all the speakers here, if it turns not to be the right workshop for you, get up and go. don't cause a big scene. but just go and say you foe what? that wasn't what i thought it was. it wasn't where i am today. and every speaker will be okay with that. this is your time. do what you need to do to heal. bring a little patience. be prepared for all of the

emotions that we've got. all of them. we come sometimes with our heart lighter this year, sometimes we come with a heart that is heavier this year. sometimes we aren't quite sure we even have a heart left. you're going to need a lot of kleenex. or perhaps kleenex isn't enough. because what i've learned over the years -- oh they put a box up here for short people. okay. what i've learned over the years is this isn't enough. and have you ever noticed that if we need a tissue, we actually say may i borrow? do you want to borrow a tissue? oh, yes, thank you very much. and here, have it back. but i learned a long time ago that people if they have tissue, they will give us one. there you go. we hope you're over that soon. it's been three or four days. you ought to be better by now.

do you know by the third or fourth day, it's worse because we were so numb in the beginning we have no idea what we were doing. and as we go through the weeks and months of early grief, it almost seems as if we're thawing and defrosting and it does feel worse. oh if you're in that is taken, you're right where you need to be. but one isn't going to do it. so if you're a crier like me, i'm a professional crier, i figured out a long time ago i would have to carry 30 or 40 of these packs, glued all over me with velcro. or just every morning, go in the bathroom. and get your toilet paper. now, i love them. i loved them this much. and all you have to do, you know i'm going to do this, so i do it. you just stick it in your pocket. and out you go. now, is anyone going to notice? yes. everyone is going to notice

that. are they going to say something to you? no. how do we know that? because we have all seen someone come out of the restroom with a little bit on the back of their shoe and none of us say anything to them. we go, look at that, look at that. but we don't say excuse me, you have toilet paper on your shoe. no one is going to say anything to you, and if they do we can look at them very kindly and i want you to say very clearly i'm bereaved. and nobody knows what that word means. so they're going to go okay. that's fine. and if they continue the conversation, just look at them and say, i'm prepared. and i've never had anybody go farther than that. cry if you need to cry here. laugh if you can. and you'll learn you can do the same. it's a dishonoring our loved ones to find joy again?

oh, lord i hope not. in fact, you can do no less. if you ever laughed with your husband or wife or son or daughter or mother or father or brother or sister or aunt or uncle or grandparent or battle buddy or ex-or fiance, if you ever had a laugh with them during life, you can do no less now than to bring it back. you know you have choices in this world. we've always has choices which thumb to suck, whom to date, whom to marry what, should we do and then we have other choices. do you want to bury them, do you want to cremate them? what funeral home do you want to use. then we had other choices, do i want to wake up this morning, do i want to breathe today? what am i going to do with the stuff, and as grief moves through us, we have even more choices and some of you are at choice points right here today, the choice can i stay, can i make, it can i be with a strange group of people that wear toilet paper in their pockets?

what do you choose to bring with you? what do you choose to remember? you can carry anger and hurt and bitterness for the rest of your life. or sometime i want you to also remember they lived. you can choose a good memory. you can choose joy. you can choose gratitude. you and i are blessed beyond any measure we could count because someone walked into our life whether they walked in your life, whether they were born into our life, they snuck into our life, we have no idea how they got there and we fell hopelessly and madly in love with them and aren't you glad we did? i wouldn't have missed a moment. i think the truly believed in the world are those who is have never known love at all and you and i in this room are rich beyond measure because somebody

lived and we loved them. and we still do. we did not lose them. we did not lose them. they are forever and always right here right now. we talk in the present tense in this room because they're still here. it's what makes the tears come down our face in the beginning. i home some day will bring a smile to your face. please stay, family. please turn to each other, please find that hug that's waiting. please find that hand that's waiting to reach to yours. you will find people wearing shirts that are called peer mentors. they are bereaved who have been here a long time who have taken special training and who are willing to reach out to you and to sit all night if we need to and to laugh if we need to and to cry and to sing and to dance.

not in sadness. but in gratitude. in gratitude that somebody loved me that much. and that didn't go away. they died. but i didn't lose them. and neither did you. change the language, yes, they died and that's a hard word to say, but lost say hopeless word. and no matter what you believe religiously or spiritually, no matter where you believe they are, they are right here right now threads in our fabric to wraparound us in the darkest of nights. never to be forgotten. choose, choose anger for now. choose guilt for now. choose depression for now. choose joy for now. choose to breathe one more time. you can do no less in honor of our loved ones.

in honor of their lives. that's what brings us here. we're linked not through the death of someone we love, you and i are linked through the love of someone we still love. it's in this room. i want you to spend all weekend telling your death story. we have support groups. we have sharing circles. we have workshops. i want you to tell your death story until you are through with it, and it may make months, it may take years. but when you see me in the hall this weekend, would you tell me a life story? would you pick a moment that makes your heart sparkle? if you can't think of anything else, tell me the color of their eyes. and you and i will hug for that. it's been a very long journey for me. and i finally choose joy. every single moment. i am forever blessed because i

have been loved by a little boy and an old man, a general and a pretty good dog. choose joy. so right now, as we're getting ready to start our weekend, would you just reach out to the person next to you and connect with hands? just hands. just hands. wipe your hands off. wipe your hands off. we'll play the waltons here for a minute. and we now in this room are forever linked through the love of our husbands and wives and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and moms and dads and grandpas and grandmas and aunts and ungs and best friends and fiances and exes and battle buddies and all of the people who dance across the rainbows ahead of us. we are in this room now a family circle broken by death but mended by love.

i am so glad you are here and so sorry we will all have to be, but i choose love. join me in that. welcome home, t.a.p.s. family. you're in the right place. welcome home. >> live today here on c-span3 at 11:45 this morning, federal communications commissioner robert mcdowell will discuss an international proposal to give the united nations more control over the internet. including cybersecurity and domain names. commissioner mcdowell opposes the plan saying that economic and political progress every would grind to a halt. this afternoon at 49:00 eastern, a house subcommittee is holding

an oversight hearing to examine the department of veterans fairs purchasing practices of prosthetics. according to the department's inspector general, the va's prosthetic supply costs have increased by 80% over the past four years, in large part due to excess supply. again, that's live today at 4:00 p.m. eastern. and switching over to politics, mitt romney made news last night wenning the texas republican presidential primary. the delegates he picked up helped him surpass the 1144 delegates needed to secure his party's nomination. former massachusetts governor will not gain the official nomination until august's republican national convention in tampa, florida. and in wisconsin on friday, republican governor scott walker and milwaukee democratic mayor tom barrett faced off in a debate ahead of that state's june 5th recall election, only the third in u.s. history. governor walker became the targets of recall efforts just over a year ago when he signed a bill into law effectively ending collective bargaining right for

public union workers. in 2010, scott walker defeated tom barrett 52 to 46% to win the governor's seat. the hour-long debate was hosted by the >> live from the studios of membership membership public television, the wisconsin broadcasters association foundation presents a statewide broadcast debate between the leading candidates in an historic governor's recall election. and now the president of the wisconsin broadcasters association foundation. >> good evening. we're pleased this evening to continue our public affairs broadcast tradition. this evening's debate will engage the two leading candidates in the first governor's recall election in the 164-year history of the state of wisconsin. governor scott walker and

milwaukee mayor tom barrett. this evening's debate is made possible in part through generous grants from the wisconsin association of independent colleges and universities and wps health insurance. and now on their behalf mr. ralph revagi and mr. jim reardon. >> good evening. >> along with wps wisconsin's 22 private nonprofit colleges and our more than 60,000 students are pleased to sponsor this gubernatorial debate. to be competitive in the global knowledge economy wisconsin needs to expand educational opportunity. wisconsin's private nonprofit colleges have been committed to excellence in education since before wisconsin became a state. we believe that an educated and

civil debate focused on the issues is essential for moving this state forward. >> we've been insuring wisconsin's health since 1946. in that time we've seen our society and government grow in challenges especially in health care and health insurance. we hope that our sponsor shoip of this debate will gain an understanding of how each of these candidates will represent us and govern our state. >> please join us in watching this debate and thinking about the future. then make your voice heard by voting on tuesday, june 5th. >> the format for this evening's debate will allow for each candidate to make an opening statement, to respond to questions from a panel of reporters and to have one opportunity to ask a direct question of his opponent. and finally for each candidate to make a closing statement.

the order of responses has been previously decided by a coin flip. our panelists this evening include bob dore, news director for the radio stations of the dorecountydailynews.com in sturgeon bay. erin davison reporter, anchor for wfrb tv green bay. and a reporter anchor for wtjt tv milwaukee. we'll begin with a 1:30 minute opening statement. first, from governor walker. >> thanks, john. thanks to the panel and most of all thanks to all of you for tuning in all across the state of wisconsin. two years ago i ran for governor because wisconsin faced both an economic and a fiscal crisis. see, at the time, we had lost more than 100,000 jobs, and the state faced more than a $3 billion budget deficit. we knew we had to take action. we balanced that budget without raising taxes, without massive layoffs and without cuts in programs like medicare. we actually added money to medicare.

the program that fund badger care and family care we put more money in the medicare than any governor in wisconsin history. instead we chose to balance our budget through long-term structural reforms to help balance not just our state budget but our local government budgets as well. what we did was thinking more about the next generation than we did about the next election. isn't that what you elect us to do? the good news is our reforms are working. that's why our opponents don't talk about them anymore. we documented more than a billion dollars worth of savings that's led to property taxes going down for the first time in 12 years on a median valued home. that's high the state of wisconsin now has a budget surplus of $154 million and it's why, best of all, jobs were created in 2011 and since i was first sworn in as your governor more than 30,000 people have gone back to work. we're turning things around. we're heading in the right direction. together we're moving wisconsin forward. >> mayor barrett, your opening statement.

>> i want to thank you for hosting us tonight. thank you for to all the listeners and all the people watching tonight. this election is not a rematch or a do over. because we can't do over the decision of scott walker to start a political civil war which resulted in this state losing more jobs than any other state in this entire country in 2011. a decision that tore apart the state and made it impossible in some instances for neighbors to talk to neighbors. for relatives to talk to relatives for workers to talk to co-workers because it was too bitter a fight. we can't do over his decision that put his national ambitions ahead of the state of wisconsin. as he traveled around the country and became the rock star to tea party activists and billionaires who have funded his campaign with millions and millions of dollars of contributions. money that he has used to distort my record. this isn't a rematch or a

do-over because we can't do over the fact that scott walker's administration has been investigated. a criminal investigation that looks at the activities of some of his key aides while he was county executive. and his decision, his refusal to release secret e-mails that were on a system that was in his county executive office and his failure to tell us who is raising his funds. this is about the future and about who will put wisconsin first. i will put wisconsin first. >> thank you. our first question will be from bob dore for mayor barrett. >> good evening, gentlemen. >> good evening. >> the first question is why are we here? 20 months ago on this same stage the two of you debated before the 2010 election to see who would be elected to a four-year term. what's your view of why we're back here less than halfway through that first term? >> i think i answered that question in part in my opening statement.

we're really here because governor walker made a decision. he made a decision that he would try to divide this state. and he used phrases when he was talking to his key donors like he was going to drop the bomb and he was going to divide and conquer this state. and he has. he has divided the state unlike anything we've ever seen. and as a result of that, what we've seen in this state is we saw hundreds of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people in this democracy who decided that they wanted a change. they wanted an opportunity to get a governor who would put this state first. a governor who would focus on creating jobs in this state and not traveling around this country trying to enhance his national image. a governor who would restore trust to the governor's office. a governor who would end these divisions where neighbors can't talk to neighbors. and they want a governor who is going to end this civil war. scott walker started this political civil war. i will end this civil war.

and that's something the citizens of this state want, because they understand that the real issue we face is jobs. and we have to have a governor who is going to focus on creating jobs in this state. again, that is the governor who i will be. >> governor walker? >> bob, to answer your questions it's about reforms. that's the way it started out. we don't hear about it largely because our reforms are working. you look at the last year and a half, and we've documented more than a billion dollars worth of savings because of our reforms. that led to the first time in 12 years that property taxes on a median value home is going down. that's great news not only for homeowners, for small business owners but particularly for people on fixed incomes, senior citizens and working families. our state has $154 million surplus. for the first time we've put two consecutive years where we put money in the rain day fund. best of all in 2011 wisconsin gained jobs.

the mayor and his allies talk about a job number that was based on a sample of 3.5% of employers in this state. our numbers are based on a survey of 160,000 employers. that's more than 96% of employers in the state of wisconsin who are required by law to submit that information. they showed that last year wisconsin gained jobs since i've taken office, we've had more than 30,000 new jobs in the state. i understand why things have shifted. if you look at my record and compare that with our opponent, the mayor of milwaukee, in the last eight years taxes and fees have gone up. sadly milwaukee is one of the poorest big cities in the country. the unemployment rate is 28% in the city of milwaukee. in contrast people want to go forward. they want to move on. they want to get past this. they don't want to rehash the same debate we had which is what the mayor talked about in the primary. they want to move on and move forward and i'm the candidate to do that. >> follow up for both of you, should the recall election laws in this state be changed? 30 seconds a piece.