Speech about courage, honor, leadership, patriotism, scholarship, and service

I am having trouble thinking up of a beginning for a 2 minute speech for the American Legion Award.

I need to write about courage, honor, leadership, patriotism, scholarship, and service.

Any suggestions?

Well ... the American Legion is a veterans' organization focused on community service, advocating for veterans, and basically building a better America (or an idealized version). How do you see the attributes that you have listed fitting into the mission of the American Legion? How does the Legion support those ideals? What does it mean to be a patriot? How does honor, courage, scholarship, and leadership play into the concept of service? Service to who .. country? Fellow countrymen? What debt of gratitude do we owe to those who have fought for our country? What debt do we owe to our country and our fellow man?

I know that I am not giving you an opening for a speech, but I hope that I am sparking some ideas. When you write, think about who the speech is for and gear your words toward that audience. A speech for the American Legion would look very different from one for the Sierra Club.

These are great ideas...
I guess I would approach this task by talking about the American Legion and how meaningful it is that they offer this award. You can write about the award not as something that you earned but rather as something they do. That would be a very gracious approach. You can talk about the fact that they provide this award and about how their providing it makes students strive to cultivate these qualities you listed.

If you focus on the American Legion as the subject of your speech, you can talk about those qualities as qualities that the American Legion represents.

That means you need to research their organization and maybe even talk to other students who have won this award.

:-)