JoAnne Bass

So I am the daughter of an army soldier.

And so for my entire life, I have known nothing but national defense, right?

Like as a military child.

And then as an 18 year old, I'll never forget.

I wasn't quite mature enough yet to go to college.

I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I grew up old school, by the way, where my parents were not paying for my college and

and I'll never forget my dad always said four years in the military never hurt anybody and so I thought well I'll do four quick years get a GI Bill and figure out life and then at the and I tell people this all the time right so I so I joined the United States Air Force and I'm not thinking that it was going to turn into a lifelong career and and a real honor but

but at the four-year mark, I only re-enlisted Mick because I had a Honda Civic that I need to pay off.

So I wasn't completely all, we're going to have to get a picture of that Civic and post it, but I wasn't completely all set in.

I'm a normal 18-year-old like most folks who didn't necessarily sign up for patriotic reasons, but I certainly stayed for those reasons.

So

signed up to figure out life, get a GI bill at the four-year mark, signed up another four years to pay off my Honda Civic.

And then it was probably about the eight-year mark when I started serving with people who we read about, right?

Some of our nation's heroes who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

And I was part of those organizations and those units of true heroes.

And so I started to really understand what it meant to wear our nation's cloth

and to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

And the bigger than ourselves piece is where I like to talk about it because only 1% of our nation serves.

Only 1% of the United States population serves our military.