Why Do We Wait?

America has a problem with the way it treats its military.

We are very good at asking young Americans to sacrifice.

We are very good at training them to follow orders, overcome adversity, accomplish the mission, and defend the nation.

We are very good at telling them they are warriors.

But are we equally committed to preparing them to become successful, self-reliant citizens?

That is the question behind My American Home.

We Keep Dealing With Problems Instead of Solving Them

There are countless programs addressing the problems facing service members, veterans, and their families.

Food insecurity.

Financial hardship.

Mental health.

Homelessness.

Transition difficulties.

Unemployment.

Substance abuse.

Family stress.

The list continues to grow.

And our response is predictable.

Create another program.

Provide another benefit.

Appropriate more money.

Assign responsibility to another government agency.

Then declare victory because we have done something.

But doing something is not the same as solving something.

When interconnected problems are treated as isolated problems, we fail to see what connects them. We spend money addressing symptoms while leaving the underlying causes untouched.

And then we wonder why the problems keep returning.

My American Home challenges that approach.

The objective is not to create another organization that simply helps service members deal with the consequences of poor preparation.

The objective is to help prevent those consequences in the first place.

The Warrior Ethos Should Not End at the Battlefield

One of the fundamental responsibilities of the federal government is national defense.

Congress is constitutionally responsible for raising and maintaining the Armed Forces. But military service has never been intended to strip a person of his or her identity as an American citizen.

George Washington understood this.

In June 1775, while establishing the Continental Army, Washington wrote:

“When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.”

That principle is just as relevant today.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has made restoration of the warrior ethos a central objective. He has repeatedly emphasized readiness, lethality, warfighting, standards, merit, and accountability.

Good.

America needs warriors.

America needs a military capable of deterring conflict and, when necessary, winning wars.

But there is a question that should not be ignored:

What happens to the warrior when the mission ends?

Because military service eventually ends for almost everyone.

The uniform comes off.

The government stops issuing orders.

The paycheck changes.

The housing allowance disappears.

The next assignment is no longer waiting.

And suddenly the young American who was trained to accomplish difficult missions is expected to figure out how to build a successful life with little more than a DD-214 and a collection of benefits brochures.

That is not preparation.

That is transition.

There is a difference.

A Warrior Who Can't Feed His Family Is a Readiness Problem

The Department of Defense has documented a disturbing reality: approximately 24% of active-duty service members experienced food insecurity in the 2020 Survey of Active Duty Service Members.

RAND has similarly described food insecurity as affecting roughly one-quarter of active-duty personnel and noted the uncomfortable question of how service members can earn more than comparable civilians and still experience food insecurity.

Stop and think about that.

We are asking these men and women to defend the United States.

We trust them with weapons.

We trust them with classified information.

We send them into dangerous places.

We expect them to perform under conditions most Americans will never experience.

Yet a significant percentage struggle to put enough food on their family's table.

That should not merely be viewed as a social-services problem.

It should be viewed as a military-readiness problem.

And if the answer is simply to give them another government benefit, we have missed the bigger question.

Why are we producing highly trained warriors who may be completely unprepared to manage the financial realities of life?

The Problem Isn't Always the Paycheck

This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable.

It is easy to say military families need more money.

Sometimes they do.

It is easy to say government assistance should be expanded.

Sometimes it should.

But neither answer addresses the entire problem.

A person can receive a larger paycheck and still make poor financial decisions.

A person can receive more benefits and still remain financially vulnerable.

A person can receive assistance today and still be unprepared for tomorrow.

More money does not automatically create financial independence.

Preparation does.

Knowledge does.

Discipline does.

Planning does.

Personal responsibility does.

And those are precisely the characteristics we already demand from our military.

We teach service members to assess a situation.

Identify the objective.

Develop a plan.

Execute.

Adapt.

Overcome.

Why shouldn't that same mindset be applied to personal finance?

We Train Warriors to Adapt and Overcome—Then Tell Them Personal Finance Is Different

Military training teaches initiative.

It teaches responsibility.

It teaches preparation.

It teaches that failure is not an acceptable outcome.

It teaches that when circumstances change, you adapt and overcome.

Yet when it comes to personal finance, we too often replace that philosophy with something entirely different:

Just get through it.

Use the benefit.

Apply for assistance.

Find a program.

Ask the government for help.

There is nothing inherently wrong with accepting legitimate assistance when it is needed.

But assistance should be a safety net—not a strategy for life.

My American Home believes we should prepare service members to need that safety net less often.

That means teaching them how to build financial resilience before financial hardship occurs.

It means involving spouses and families.

It means teaching young service members how compensation actually works.

It means teaching them to understand taxes, housing allowances, credit, debt, insurance, investing, home ownership, and the financial consequences of the decisions they make today.

Most importantly, it means changing the objective.

The objective should not be:

How do we help this service member survive?

The objective should be:

How do we prepare this service member to succeed?

Dealing With the Problem Is Not Enough

America does not need another organization dedicated to explaining why service members are struggling.

We already know they are struggling.

The question is why.

And more importantly:

What are we going to do about it?

If nearly one out of every four active-duty service members has experienced food insecurity, we should not be satisfied with distributing food.

We should ask why.

If a young service member cannot survive a missed paycheck, we should not simply provide emergency assistance.

We should ask why.

If a veteran leaves the military financially unprepared, we should not simply point him toward another government program.

We should ask why.

If a young family repeatedly finds itself in financial crisis, we should not simply treat each crisis as an isolated event.

We should ask what connects them.

That is the difference between dealing with a problem and solving a problem.

The Mission of My American Home

My American Home is built on a simple premise:

The best time to prepare a service member to become a successful veteran is before he or she becomes a veteran.

We should not wait until the DD-214 is in hand.

We should not wait until the first missed mortgage payment.

We should not wait until the family needs a food pantry.

We should not wait until a veteran is unemployed, homeless, drowning in debt, or searching for a new purpose.

Preparation must begin while the individual is still wearing the uniform.

The military already knows how to train people.

Veterans already know what it means to serve.

Recent veterans understand the culture, the language, the expectations, and the challenges facing today's young service members.

That experience represents an enormous resource.

We should use it.

America Needs More Than Warriors

America needs warriors capable of winning wars.

But America also needs citizens capable of winning at life.

Those objectives are not contradictory.

They are connected.

A service member who understands how to manage money is more financially resilient.

A financially resilient family is less vulnerable to crisis.

A resilient family produces a more focused service member.

A service member who leaves the military prepared for civilian life is less dependent on government assistance.

A successful veteran becomes an asset to the community rather than another problem for the government to manage.

That is not charity.

That is preparation.

And preparation is what America already expects from its military.

My American Home

The name is intentional.

A military member does not serve in isolation.

Behind every service member is an American home.

That home may be a spouse and children.

It may be parents.

It may be a young couple just starting out.

It may be a single service member building a future.

Regardless of its form, that home matters.

Because when we protect America, we are not merely protecting territory.

We are protecting American homes.

And if we are willing to spend billions preparing Americans to defend those homes, we should be willing to invest a fraction of that effort preparing them to successfully build their own.

My American Home is about doing exactly that.

Not dealing with the problem.

Solving it.

Not creating dependence.

Creating self-reliance.

Not preparing people merely to leave the military.

Preparing them to succeed after it.

Not asking what America owes its service members.

Asking what we can do to ensure they are prepared to succeed as Americans.

Because when we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.

And when the Soldier eventually comes home, America should be ready for the Citizen.