WEBVTT

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Captain John V . Kelly of the New

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Jersey Army National Guard , where I'm

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AJ A G officer and I'm also the mayor

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of Nutley in my free time . I have a

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very nonlinear career path . I

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graduated college in 2007 and upon

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graduating college , I started in the

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video game industry where as a video

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game programmer and designer and then I

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went to law school in , in 2009 where I

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graduated in 2012 . And from there , I

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ended up receiving a commission to be a

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jag officer in New Jersey Army National

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Guard . It's

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not a 9 to 5 job on Saturday or

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whenever your drill is as a junior jag

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officer , you're getting thrown into

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the fire , so to speak right away .

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You're , you're briefing huge elements .

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It could be up to like a battalion size

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element in areas of the law . So you're

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getting that kind of face time at

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public speaking time that's really

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portable to both civilian practice of

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law . But also as a politician , being

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able to get out in front of people and

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speak confidently and coherently to

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people . Uh So there's a lot of

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portability between both civilian and

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military .

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I first got elected in 2020 . I was

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just a regular attorney and so there

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really wasn't much of a difference

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between going from wearing my attorney

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clothes to wearing my jag clothes . As

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mayor of Nutley people looked to me to

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shepherd the town , make sure the town

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is taken care of financially ,

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physically and make sure everything

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runs smoothly in the Army National

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Guard in some respects , especially

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when you're serving the , the other

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soldiers , whether in a legal

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assistance capacity or child defense

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capacity , they're looking for you to

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protect them and make sure that legally

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their needs are being met . Life's like

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any other citizen soldier . We do our

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job , our civilian job and then when

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called on , we take our civilian

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clothes off , put on the uniform and do

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our jobs in the same professional

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manner as we do any other job .