Word: Biden and stuttering

Cambell Parker - There are certain moments you never forget — moments that end up changing the course of your life.

In my case, it was seven words, spoken to me by the Vice President of the United States backstage in Nashville, Tennessee.

It was the summer after sixth grade. I was a middle school kid with a debilitating stutter.

My mom had brought me with her to an event, where then-Vice President Joe Biden was delivering the keynote address.

An aide brought us backstage before the event — and there was Joe Biden. He pulled me aside, and said this:

“I hear we have something in common.”

He told me that he’d had a stutter when he was younger, too. That he’d been bullied for it. He told me how determined he had been to overcome it.

So he’d spent hours memorizing paragraphs of Irish poetry. Then he’d stand in front of the mirror in his childhood bedroom and recite them to himself, keeping the muscles in his face steady, repeating the passages again and again.

This is how he had overcome his stutter, he told me. And he told me that I could, too. He told me to never let my stuttering define me.

In that moment, he completely changed my outlook. I decided I wasn’t going to hide anymore — I decided to face my own stutter head-on.

I started speaking more in public — giving speeches, and facing my fears. And Joe checked-in and encouraged me along the way. We kept in touch over the years with letters. I’ll never forget a line from one of them, which read:

“Dear Campbell — I'm so very proud of you. You've grown to be just what I expected of you — an articulate, generous, wonderful young man with a heart of gold.”

Joe Biden knows that every single person in this country has had to deal with his or her own setbacks. And he knows that it’s how you deal with them -- how you choose to get back up when you’ve been knocked down -- that truly defines us.

That's what has always defined Joe Biden. He never quits. He always gets back up.