I am a mother of two daughters. I am a Catholic. I served in Afghanistan. I was a psychologist who treated veterans suffering from PTSD in the Veterans Affairs. I do charity work in Ukraine, where I have watched ordinary people pick up rifles and stand in the rubble of their cities because they decided, with clear eyes, that their country is worth dying for. I lead a national security and policy center at Independent Women because I believe American women and girls deserve to understand the threats around them—threats foreign, yes, but increasingly and alarmingly domestic.
I tell you all of this because what I am about to say comes from lived places. It is not abstract. It is not academic. It is the thing I think about when I look at my daughters and ask myself what kind of country I am leaving them and whether they will have the formation, the faith, and the conviction to defend it if history asks them to.
