I have benefitted from a rich tradition of military service.  In 1979, I was part of an exchange work-study program on a potato and hog farm in southern Germany.  Working outside of my home environment in the Midwest United States woke me up.  Up till that point, I was coasting.  Working in the comfortable, but very different, nation of Germany opened my eyes.  It was West Germany at that time.  Traveling to East Berlin at the end of my farm commitment with my WWII veteran father, was also formative.

Dad, left in the photo, wrote in 1979, ‘When Grandpa Mike, center of photo, was 21, he went to Germany to fight the Germans in WWI.  When I (Dad) was 21, I went to Germany to fight the Germans in WWII.  And when Mark was 21, he went to Germany to learn from the Germans.’

I am still touched by that.  Not that I did anything in 1979, but the broader lesson is we need military strength to establish boundaries between our values.  But once we are secure, we can do more, reaching out to other nations so we all are more.  That takes generations.

Education is the strongest policy in our toolbox.  Without the values provided by our families and friends in military service, we could only focus on survival of the nation.  Because of the military heroes that came before me, I was able in 1982 to spend two years in Nepal in the U.S. Peace Corps.  It changed my life.  I went to help Nepali farmers grow more food.  I learned more personally in those two years about being human, than the greater agricultural knowledge I left in Nepal.  I have spent the last 40 years adding to the US economy with lessons I learned in Nepal.

I learned first in Germany, and later in Nepal, that we are stronger together as humans than any one nation is as an individual nation.  I live in the United States because – all my life – for me it has been the greatest nation in the world.  It only stays that way when we all work together every day to make it better.  It is up to each of us to seize each day and make it count.  Elected leaders yesterday and tomorrow play a much smaller role.

I am grateful for the millions that have secured our values through their military service so that we could as a US community be more.