JoAnne Bass

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

And I was part of those organizations and those units that

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 one percent of the United States population serves our military.

Yet we are a free and prosperous nation because of that one percent.

So it took me a long time to really grasp and understand that that 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.

As we talk about some of the challenges that our nation is gonna 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.

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 or my Space Force, right?

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...