JoAnne Bass

Yet we are a free and prosperous nation because of that 1%.

So it took me a long time to really grasp and understand that what we do is for the sake of our children and our children's children.

You know, I am a persistent optimist, I call myself, by the way.

I think, by and large, the majority of people in our nation do support the military.

I think what it is is most people don't know how to really support the military or have a full understanding.

You know, as we talk about some of the challenges that our nation is going to face when it comes to, for instance, recruiting in the military, if only 1% serve, what I share with people broadly is we can't count on just the 1% serving to figure out our recruiting challenges.

Mm-hmm.

We need 99% of America who knows that this is their military.

And by the way, I share that often with people.

This isn't my Air Force or my Army or my Marine Corps, my Space Force, right?

Like this is America's Air Force, America's Army, America's Navy, America's Marine Corps, America's Space Force and Coast Guard.

But it's America, so how do we start to educate and inform?

I think it's platforms like yours that really do that.

People, again, by and large, appreciate what their service members do for them.

They just sometimes don't know the how.

And so now as I've transitioned out of uniform in the last 20 months, that's part of some of my how is I know the power of our military service members and their families, but I think it's important that we really do educate America on the value proposition

of a strong military and make one of those things.

I do call our service members America's greatest competitive advantage.

Like if you have again, if we realize if employers, if industry of corporate America really realizes the value that they get when they hire or bring on or on board a service member, their family member, and that is talent.

Yes.