Since 2018, With Honor has helped elect more than one hundred military veterans and national security professionals. In Courage Can Save US, I profile ten of them in office: five Democrats and five Republicans. As of this writing, six are in the House of Representatives, two are in the Senate, and two are governors. Nine are veterans, hailing from nearly every branch of the military; one served in Iraq with the FBI. Each offers a distinct perspective, and each aspires to be a servant-leader.
I selected these ten—Mark Kelly, Dan Crenshaw, Mikie Sherrill, Wes Moore, Todd Young, Brian Fitzpatrick, Seth Moulton, John James, Don Bacon, and Jared Golden—not because I agree with all of their decisions, but because I have grown to know and respect them. We built relationships of trust deep enough for honesty and, at times, vulnerability. I traveled to hometowns across the country, spoke with veterans who served beside them, and met parents, spouses, siblings, staff, and friends to understand who they are, how they chose public service, and what happened in moments of courage.
Taken together, these ten offer a rare perspective across party lines at a pivotal moment in our history, as our republic—in its 250th year at the time of publication—approaches what some historians have described as the average lifespan of empires.
Foreign adversaries seek to exploit our divisions, while polarization weakens our ability to respond to internal challenges. Millions of families are uncertain whether their children will inherit a better future. A widening mental-health crisis touches every generation, bearing most heavily on the young. And a technological transformation is reshaping work itself, making it harder for many to find meaning.
The same polarization that weakens our political institutions now seeps into every corner of American life. More than 80 percent of voters on both sides view elected officials from the other party as “a clear and present danger to American democracy.”
We created With Honor to bridge partisan divides—in the House, the Senate, and state government. This book shows how such bridges can be built and sustained through service, and the results they can deliver for the country.
Courage can save us as a nation, from ourselves. History suggests that great civilizations, such as ancient Greece and Rome, are rarely undone by conquest alone. More often, they erode from within, weakened by corruption, internal strife, and civic decline.
The lives of the ten Americans profiled here point towards few simple truths: that Americans have more in common than our outrage-driven politics reveal; that shared values can still overcome partisan differences; and that it is often harder to truly hate someone once you know them.
Courage can also save us as individuals. I first encountered it not as an abstraction, but as a scar on my father’s face, a mark left by service and carried quietly.
As I have grown from a boy into a father myself, I have seen courage many times in others. It appears in moments of choice, when fear is real, the risks are high, and the outcome is uncertain.
This book is about ten Americans who have chosen service at a difficult moment for the nation they love. What we do with their stories—how we recognize courage in others and assess it in ourselves—is where the work truly begins, for us and for our country.
