Announcement: A Letter to the Men and Women of the United States Military

I See You

I want to start there, because I think it is something you do not hear enough from people who hold or seek power.

I see what you carry. The weight of deployments that stretch on longer than anyone told you they would. The invisible wounds that do not show up on any scan but follow you home anyway. The nights your family spent without you, holding things together in ways you will never fully know. The transitions that left you feeling like a stranger in a country you gave everything to protect.

I see the women in your ranks who have been assaulted, harassed, and then told — through action or inaction — that the institution mattered more than they did. That is a betrayal. I will not call it anything less.

I see the families relocating again. The spouses walking away from jobs and careers they built because the orders came through. The children changing schools for the third time. The financial pressure that no one wants to talk about openly because it feels like ingratitude — but it is not ingratitude. It is a system that has failed you.

I see the veterans sleeping on streets in the country they served. I see the ones waiting months for a mental health appointment they were promised. I see the ones who did not make it — not in combat, but after. Because we did not take care of them when they came home.

I see all of it. And I am not going to look away.

I Am Troubled By What Is Happening Right Now

You deserve honesty, so here it is.

Renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War was not an accident. It was a signal — about how the people in power view the military and what they intend to use it for. The conflicts that have followed have only confirmed it. You are being sent into harm's way, and the American people are not being given honest explanations for why. That is not how a country that respects its military treats its military.

When elected officials cannot see all human beings — their own people, the people of other nations — as equal in worth, it shows in everything they do. They make decisions that cost lives without losing sleep over it. They send you into the field for reasons that have more to do with private power and private profit than national security. And when you die, they fold a flag and move on.

I refuse to accept that. And I do not think you should have to either.

What I Am Pledging To You

I am not here to make promises I cannot keep. What I am about to say is specific, it is on the record, and you can hold me to every word of it.

I will investigate every deployment where one of yours died.

Every use of military force in which an American service member lost their life will be subject to a full, independent investigation under my administration. We will determine whether that deployment was necessary — whether it served the national interest — or whether it served someone's private interest. If officials, contractors, or executives pushed for a conflict knowing Americans would die, and their reasons were profit or power rather than defense of this nation, that will come to light. You deserved the truth when you were sent. Your families deserve it now.

I will take military sexual trauma seriously — with prosecution, not policy.

The 20,000-plus instances of unwanted sexual contact reported in a single year within your ranks are not a statistic to be managed. They are individual human beings who were violated and then too often failed by the institution that was supposed to protect them. Under my administration, there will be independent oversight, mandatory command accountability, and real consequences — not reassignments, not sealed files, not quiet discharges of the perpetrators while the survivors are pushed out.

I will fix the mental health system that is failing you.

Fully funded mental health care for every active duty service member and every veteran. No waiting lists measured in months. No stigma enforced from the top down. No service member lost to suicide because the bureaucracy moved too slowly. We will change the culture, not just the policy — because culture is where the real harm lives.

No military family will qualify for public assistance because their service pay is not enough.

That sentence should not be possible in the United States of America. Under my administration, it will not be.

Military spouses will not be left behind economically.

Licensing reciprocity across state lines. Employment portability. Real, funded support systems for the people who hold your families together while you are gone. Their service to this country is real. It will be treated that way.

Transitioning out will be treated as the major life event it is.

Guaranteed healthcare coverage during the transition window. Real employment support. Real preparation. You spent years learning to operate in a structure that most civilians will never understand — we will help you translate that into a civilian life without abandoning you at the gate.

War will be the last option — not the first impulse.

No service member will be deployed into harm's way for reasons this administration cannot defend openly before the American people and their elected representatives. Not for private contractors. Not for corporate interests. Not for political theater. You will know why you are being sent. The American people will know. And the people making the decision will know they will be accountable for it.

On Accountability — For Those Who Sent You For The Wrong Reasons

I want to speak directly about the people who have treated your lives as expendable.

The leaders who ordered deployments for profit. The officials who signed directives that got people killed and then hid behind classification and immunity. The contractors who shaped foreign policy to protect their revenue streams. The financiers who knew what their money was funding.

Their cries of national security and executive privilege will not protect them forever. The world has long memories. The families of every service member lost to an unnecessary war have long memories. And the people of the countries that bore the consequences of those decisions — their grief is recorded too.

I have already drafted and published Executive Order 2029-01, which I will sign on my first day in office. It ensures that war crimes committed in the name of the United States — by any official, commander, contractor, or financier — will result in extradition to any nation that has issued a valid warrant backed by a UN determination. No domestic pardon will stop it. No title or former office will prevent it.

You can read it at cordova2028.com/executive-orders/executive-order-2029-01.

The people who sent you into unnecessary wars, who let you be assaulted without consequence, who cut your benefits while protecting their own — they will not find shelter in power forever. This administration will not be their sanctuary.

To The Fallen

To the families of every service member who did not come home:

Your person mattered. Not as a symbol. Not as a line in a speech. As a human being with a name, a life, a future that was cut short.

I am committed to finding out — in every case where it is possible — whether the sacrifice demanded of them was honest. Whether it was truly in service of this nation, or whether it was in service of something far smaller and far less worthy.

You deserve that truth. They deserved better than to be used. And if they were — then the people who used them will have to account for it.

This Is Why I Am Running

I am running because I believe leadership begins with seeing people as fully human — all people. Every service member. Every military spouse. Every veteran on the street. Every civilian in a foreign country who was caught in the crossfire of a war started for the wrong reasons.

When you have leaders who cannot do that — who cannot see every life as carrying the same worth their own does — you see the consequences everywhere. In the wars they start. In the people they leave behind. In the silence they maintain when you are hurting.

It does not have to be this way. Leadership that sees you is possible. A government that fights for you the way you have fought for it is possible.

That is what I am asking you to help build.