Introduction

Christened as Joseph Robinette, Joe Biden was born to Joseph Robinette Sr. and Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Finnegan on November 20, 1942. A first-born child in an Irish Catholic family, he has two brothers and one sister. Until the age of 10, his family lived with his grandparents.

For part of Joe‘s childhood, he grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He lived in 5-bedroom colonial home on a tree-lined street in Green Ridge, an Irish-Catholic neighborhood. Because of financial reversals, his family lived with Joe's maternal grandparents. However, when Joe was ten, they moved to New Castle in search of work. When his father found work as a car salesman, the family's situation improved. However, Joe still spent vacations and weekends at his grandparents.

As a boy, he attended parochial school. Like many other boys, he played football and baseball. Hank‘s Hoagies, a corner store, was a favorite place to hang out and buy penny candy.

A natural born leader, he would encourage others to be part of the group and be successful at whatever they tried. It was said he never turned down a dare. One time he climbed to the top of a smoldering mountain of coal refuse. Another time, he ran underneath a heavy piece of equipment. Both times, he was unharmed. One time when he was a teenager, he borrowed his dad's new Plymouth Fury and gave his friends the ride of their life.

His parents instilled a sense of faith, family, and dignity in their children. They told the children anyone could make it if they would try hard enough. Their father taught them never to give up. His dad would say, "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up. Get up."

Biden's First Major Obstacle

As a child, Joe had an embarrassing, debilitating stuttering problem. He was terrified of speaking in front of people and reading aloud in class. If he knew he was going to have to read aloud in class the next day, the night before he would memorize the pages out of the book to minimize the stuttering and teasing. Not only did the other children tease, but Sister Eunice at St. Paul's nicknamed him Bi Bi Blackbird since he stuttered when trying to pronounce his last name.

The stuttering plagued him throughout his childhood into the first couple of years of college. During his first semester at Archmere, Joe took a Latin class, and classmates started calling him Joe Impedimenta. Jokingly, his friends called him Dash because he sounded like he was talking in Morse code. Because of all the teasing, Joe's self-esteem was battered. However, his mother was instrumental in molding Joe into the man he is today.

Looking back on his past, Joe said his mother taught her children "you're defined by your sense of honor and redeemed by your loyalty. She believes that bravery lies in every heart, and her expectation is that it will be summoned. Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable. His mother's creed is that no one is better than you. Everyone is your equal, and everyone is equal to you."

In addition to laying down foundations for manhood, she was always encouraging him. When Joe's self-image was floundering, his mother would lovingly look at him and say, "Joey, it's because you're so bright you can't get your thoughts out quickly enough." When he was not dressed as well as others, she would say, "Joey, oh, you're so handsome, honey, you're so handsome." When he was knocked down by someone bigger, she would say, "Bloody their nose so you can walk down the street the next day."

With his mother's support, Joe Biden did not give up. Since Joe was little, he would sit upon his grandfather's name and listen to his discussions on politics. Joe aspired to be either a priest or a politician. However, he knew his stuttering would prevent him from achieving his dreams. Determined to overcome his stuttering, he would stand in front of the mirror, quoting poems of Emerson. After a few years of college, Biden overcame this obstacle. Not only did he overcome the obstacle, by the time he started campaigning, he was a skilled public speaker. Memorizing long passages when he was younger enabled him to give speeches without looking at notes. Since he was able to look his audience directly in the eye, he was a masterful speaker. One journalist accused him of being more of a show horse than a workhorse.

With the stuttering behind him, Joe still wanted to be a politician. However, without any political connections, Joe decided to become an attorney to help him achieve his political goals. In June of 1965, Joe graduated from the University of Delaware with a double major in History and Political Science. However, while he was at the University of Delaware, he did not apply himself academically, and it almost ruined his chances for being accepted into law school.

Joe met his future wife, Neilia, while he was a junior at the University of Delaware. Meeting each other during spring break in the Bahamas, he was smitten by her beautiful smile and gorgeous, green eyes. Being love at first sight, he could not see any flaws in her. Since Joe was Catholic, her father objected to the marriage. Howeer, they eventually married on August 27, 1966 in Skaneateles, New York.

Joe had the same problems at Syracuse University that he had at Delaware University. Although he was bright, school bored him, and he was not a motivated student. However, with Neilia at his side, he buckled down and turned his academic situation around. He graduated in 1968.

A Politician is Born

After graduating from Syracuse, Joe opened up his own law practice and worked as a trial attorney in Wilmington, Delaware. Shortly thereafter, on February 3, 1969, Joe and Neilia had the birth of their first child, Beau. Within a year and one day, their second child, Hunter, was born. During the same year, Joe's public servant career began. He ran for the city council of New Castle, Delaware and won.

The following year, Joe's third child was born, Naomi, on November 8, 1971. During that same time, a few of Delaware's top Democrats approached Joe about running for the U.S. Senate. Although Joe was skeptical whether he could beat the long-term incumbent, J. Caleb Boggs, he ran for the office anyway. Using his underdog status and youth to work for him, he campaigned for the new 18-year-old voters. Surprisingly, at the age of 29, he became the fifth youngest senator in history.

Tragedy Strikes

Everything was rosy. Joe was deeply in love with his gorgeous wife. He had three beautiful children. His political aspirations were becoming a reality. But then, tragedy struck.

One week before Christmas in 1972, eighteen days before Biden was set to be sworn in; he received a phone call from his sister who said there was a slight accident. He did not need to be told anymore before he said, "She's dead, isn't she?"

After shopping for a Christmas tree with her three young children, their station wagon was sideswiped by a tractor-trailer after Neilia pulled away from the intersection. Upon impact, the station wagon was spinning and careened another 150 foot. Going backward down an embankment, it came to a stop when it smashed into three trees. Neilia and her eighteen-month-old daughter were instantly dead. The two boys were alive but seriously injured. One son sustained leg injuries and was in a full body cast while the other son sustianed head injuries.

Upon hearing the news, Biden recalled feeling weirdly numb, distraught, and outraged at the same time. He said, "I began to understand how despair led people to just cash in; how suicide wasn't just an option but a rational option...I felt God had played a horrible trick on me, and I was angry."

Regardless of how he felt, Joe Biden had to go on because his injured sons desperately needed him. He flew back to Wilmington with his sister and campaign managers. Thirty minutes later, he accompanied one of his sons in ambulance to Delaware Division Hospital nearby.

After the accident, Joe was no longer interested in being a Senator, and he considered quitting office completely. However, Hubert Humphrey and Senate Majority Leader, Mike Mansfield urged Joe not to quit. On January 5, only 18 days after the tragic accident, Joe was sworn into office at the hospital bedside of his sons.

Life Goes On

Understandably, at first he admittedly did the minimum required, and he resented the press for it's morbid curiosity about his personal tragedy. Regardless, with the support of his family, especially his sister, Valerie, Joe kept going. His family moved in with him to help support himself and his children. During this time, he never remembers being physically alone. To be there for his sons, everyday he was in Washington, he commuted home. The commute took him approximately 90 minutes one way. He still does the commute today, only now his mother lives with him rather than his children.

As usual, the passage of time heals wounds of the heart. In January 1975, Biden became a member of the Senate Foreign Relation's Committee. Five years after the fatal crash, he remarried.

Love Comes Again

His brother introduced Joe to Jill, his future wife. At the time, she was a senior in college. When he asked her for the first date, she already had another date. However, since he was only in town for a day, he asked her if she cancel the other date. She did.

On their first date, they went to see "A Man and a Woman" at a Philadelphia theater. Unlike other casually dressed boys she had dated in the past, Joe came to the front door dressed in a sport's jacket and loafers. Nine years older than she, she doubted whether a future between them was possible; however, surprisingly they hit it off well. When the date was over, he walked her to the doorstep. A complete gentleman, rather than kissing her goodnight; he shook her hand instead. After the date, at 1:00 in the morning, she called her mom and said, "Mom, I finally met a gentleman."

Joe proposed to her five times, but each time except for the last proposal, she said, "Not yet." She had not only fallen in love with Joe, but she loved his boys too. Since they had already lost one mother, she did not want them to lose another mother. Consequently, she wanted to be 100% sure, the marriage would work.

When she did decide to marry Joe, one of her reasons for marrying him was because he had loved his first wife so deeply. She concluded if he could love so deeply once, he could love that deeply again. She also felt that somehow Neilia had brought two of them together.

Finally, on June 17, 1977, a priest at the United Nation's chapel in New York City married them. The wedding was small with only the closest of friends and family. Joe's two young boys stood at the altar with them. Since they were all joining as a family, they included the boys in their honeymoon too. Following a big reception after the wedding, they rented two rooms at the hotel. One for the new couple, and one for the boys. Later, the four of them, went to see "Annie" on Broadway.

With Jill by his side, Joe began feeling a new zest for life and a renewed interest in politics. He credits her with putting his life and his family back together. With his life back on keel, Joe became a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee . A few years later, the couple's daughter, Ashely, was born June 8, 1981. Today, they have been married over thirty years with five grandchildren.

In June of 1987, Biden announced his presidential candidacy. However after he was accused of plagarism in a political speech and in college, he withdrew.

Tragedy Strikes Again

After Joe withdrew from the presidential candidacy, tragedy stuck again. Joe was diagnosed with two life-threatening brain aneurysms, one on each side of his brain. One of the aneurysms had a slight leak. When even a minute amount of blood mixes with cerebrospinal fluid, it can cause pain. With Joe, pain was one of the first signs something was wrong.

During the campaign, he was having reoccurring headaches. And then one night while he was at a hotel in Rochester, he had a sharp stab of pain in his neck and a lightening flash in his head unlike any pain he had ever experienced before. No matter what he did, nothing relieved the pain. Finally he curled up on the floor in a fetal position and slipped into unconsciousness for five hours.

The next morning he flew home and called his wife at school. She immediately took him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with two brain aneurysms. His condition was so severe, a priest gave him last rites. A team of neurosurgeons put a clip in his brain to stop the bleeding. However, during the recovery period, Joe developed a blood clot in his lung. After resolving the blood cot problem, doctors operated on the other aneurysm a few weeks later.

After a 7-month convalescent period, Biden returned to the Senate. During the time before and after his aneurysms, he accomplished many things. Some of the things he accomplished are:

• During his time in the Senate, he has served on the Committee on Foreign Relations; Committee on the Judiciary; and the Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
• The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
• Violence Against Woman Act
• RAVE Act
• Kids 2000 legislation
• He presided over the confirmation hearings of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
• Tropical Forest Conservation Act
• Helped bring stability and peace to the Balkans
• A leader on the congressional effort to bring an end to genocide in Darfur
• Authored legislation to create a National Registry of Sex Offenders
• A strong supporter of the Family and Medical Leave Act
• A consistent supporter of equal pay
• One of the first to address global warming issues
• A strong supporter of making college educations affordable through the tax code

In addition to these accomplishments, in 1991, Biden began teaching Constitutional Law as an Adjunct Professor at Widener University Law School.

Biden Becomes Vice President-Elect

Twenty years would pass before Biden would bid for a presidential candidacy again. On January 31, 2007, Biden announced his bid for the 2008 Democratic Nomination for President of the United States. However, when he received less than one percent of Iowa's state caucus vote, he decided to withdraw. However, on August 24, 2008, Senator Biden was nominated and accepted the Democratic Vice Presidential nomination. On November 4, in a victorious race, he became Vice President-Elect.

Conclusion

Joe Biden is a man of determination and drive. He was the fifth youngest senator to be elected and the longest-serving senator of Delaware. A man of deep religious convictions and family oriented values, he has been married over thirty years. Furthermore, he is not only brave, but he is a survivor. He has risen above the obstacles thrown in his path. He overcame his childhood stuttering problem. He survived the death of his beloved, first wife, and two life-threatening aneurysms. Accepting responsibility when he did wrong, he blamed no one but himself when accusations of plagiarism ruined his first presidential campaign. Couple these qualities with his leadership in the Senate for more than two decades, I have no doubt he can successfully support Barrack Obama in leading America to better days.

For more information on the Vice President-Elect, Joe Biden, his memoir Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics was released on August 1, 2007.

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