AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America’s Upper Classes from Military Service — and How It Hurts Our Country, Kathy Roth-Douquet and Frank Schaeffer - Pete Buttigieg

For all white Americans there is an opportunity, and obligation, to examine and change how we have benefited from

The economic equivalent of a tornado did go through town. And it's not just in a symbolic way. It's in a physical way. You look at some of these buildings, and it literally looks like a bomb went off or like a natural disaster happened. So, you know, getting past that legacy - and if I don't I'll be in trouble - getting past that legacy is not going to be easy, and it's not going to be obvious.

As a military officer serving under Don't Ask Don't Tell and as an elected official in the state of Indiana when Mike Pence was governor, at a certain point, when it came to professional setbacks I had to wonder whether just acknowloging who I was was going to be the ultimate, career-ending professional setback. I came back from the deployment and realised that you only get to live one life and I was not interested in not knowing what it was like to be in love any longer. So I just came out. I had no idea what kind of professional setback it would be especially cos, incoveniently, it was an election year in my socially conservative community. What happened was that when I trusted voters to judge me on the job that I did for them, they decided to trust me and re-elected me with 80% of the vote and what I learned was that trust can be reciprocated and that part of how you can win and derserve to win is to know what's worth more to you than winning.