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About this candidate response
DutyStation contacts candidates to ask whether and how they support service members, military families and veterans, and invites them to share their thoughts and priorities. We share their replies here in the candidate’s or campaign’s own words, with minor formatting for readability and correction of obvious spelling mistakes.
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Experience informing these priorities
- I served 30 years in the Army, first as an active-duty infantry officer and later as a National Guard chaplain. I am also an 80 percent service-connected disabled veteran, and my family and I have used TRICARE for a decade. Those experiences shape the priorities below.
Government shutdown and cooperation
- I oppose a government shutdown. I served 30 years in the Army, first as an active-duty infantry officer and later as a National Guard chaplain, and I have seen what happens when pay, benefits, or care are interrupted. Having lived through multiple shutdowns and repeated funding lapses, I hate it when service members and their families are used as leverage in a budget fight.
- If Democrats control one or both chambers, I would work with the administration to protect defense and VA funding first. I know from experience that the force keeps operating during a shutdown; the people in it just stop getting paid on time. I would support automatic continuing resolutions or targeted appropriations so military pay, TRICARE, VA care, and disability benefits continue while other disputes are resolved.
- If a shutdown occurs, I would back legislation that guarantees timely pay for active duty, Guard, and Reserve members and prevents interruptions in healthcare and benefits. Families living on base or paycheck to paycheck should not absorb the cost of congressional failure.
Quality of life
- I have lived these issues as an infantry officer and as a chaplain. Active-duty pay has to stay competitive or we will keep losing people we trained.
- Healthcare through TRICARE needs to be reliable; when my own family used it, the difference between a system that works and one that does not was obvious.
- Childcare and spouse employment matter because frequent moves make it hard for a spouse to keep a career. Licensing reciprocity, remote options, and practical hiring preferences help.
- Moves are part of service, but the process can be less damaging with better housing timelines, school support, and reimbursements that cover actual costs.
- We should also reduce how often families move. Where the mission allows, the services should default to longer tours, with a target of moving most families only once every four to six years. Command, joint, and high-demand assignments will still require exceptions, but fewer moves should be the norm rather than the exception. That single change would improve retention, spouse employment, and stability for children more than most other quality-of-life adjustments.
Veterans’ care
- I am an 80 percent service-connected disabled veteran. My family and I have used TRICARE for a decade, and like most service members and veterans I have talked with, we have found it to be reliable, accessible care.
- As a chaplain I have also sat with soldiers and families dealing with delayed VA care, mental health gaps, and slow disability claims. These are not abstract problems. I have watched good people struggle with them after they left active service, and I have seen the difference when care is timely and continuous.
- TRICARE is the model that works. It already gives service members and their families reliable access, including community options when the military treatment facility cannot meet the need.
- Expanding that same coverage to service-connected disabled veterans would close the gap between the system they knew on active duty and the delays they often meet at the VA.
- When the VA cannot deliver timely care, the veteran should be able to use TRICARE-level coverage or community providers without starting over. That improves continuity, especially for mental health and for Guard and Reserve members who already fall between systems.
- Disability benefits still need faster and more consistent processing, and the transition to civilian life still needs a practical TAP, transferable credentials, and employers who can hire veterans without friction.
- But the core access problem is solvable by extending the TRICARE standard that service members and veterans already know works, rather than asking them to navigate a second, slower system. I have laid out the broader case for that approach at voteyoung.com/fix-healthcare.
Family housing
- I have seen the range of military housing, from adequate to unacceptable, both as an infantry officer and as a chaplain. I also served as an executive officer of a company that supported base housing at military installations, so I have watched the contracting side of this problem as well as the family side.
- Availability and affordability improve when the services maintain enough inventory and hold partners to clear standards.
- Maintenance has to be timely, with tracking that families can see. Unsafe housing requires independent inspections, published results, and consequences when hazards are not fixed.
- Families need a way to escalate problems without retaliation, and commanders should be measured on housing outcomes. No soldier should have to worry about mold, pests, or broken systems while they are deployed or training.
- The cleaner model is government-owned, contractor-operated. The government should own the housing on its installations and contract for responsive maintenance and resident services under tight standards. From the contracting side, I have seen that performance follows the contract: clear requirements, published metrics, independent inspection, and real consequences for failure produce better results than loose privatization arrangements that shift liability without shifting accountability. That is the structure I would work toward.