I am a white, straight-passing, cis-gender male. My life has not been particularly easy, but I have benefited from the fact that I have fewer systemic challenges in my way. I am able to attend a school of higher education while I work and parent my three kids. At the time of my high school graduation (which I shared with 66 other students), the median household income for my hometown was $50K (error of ±$10K). I am no longer suffering from combat related PTSD, now I'm just living with it. I lost a younger sister in an accident, I have lost friends by their own hands, and I have survived my own. Something I am passionate about is helping people understand one another. I have a privileged position in life. I feel that I am morally and ethically obligated to utilize this position to help those I can. My life, like the lives of many, has been a collection of experiences, including witnessing injustice in many forms. Some injustice is the callous indifference of the world, but human made injustice seems much more heinous. I think this is due to the largely preventative nature of human made inequalities. When we witness human made injustice, sometimes it is systemic, other times the source is much more personable. Systemic problems are the result of compliance and misdirection, sometimes with intent, but it is important to understand that malicious intent is not necessary for the cause of great harm. Explaining this concept to people can be tricky, but my favorite way to communicate this topic is through analogy. If we imagine a hotel that is to be built by someone who hates people incapable of climbing stairs, they will likely ensure that there are many stairs within their establishment. If this hotel later changes management to someone who has no problem with people who cannot climb stairs, the systemic problems of the stairs still exist, despite the relatively more ethical new management. The new management will undoubtedly need to address the problem and create means of conveyance for those unable to climb stairs, and if they do so then they will be making systemic change. However, in order to create this change we would need to convince the management that a problem exists, that the problem needs to be corrected, and that the problem can be corrected. I have used this specific analogy in college classes, conversations with coworkers, and family members. However, these changed minds don’t feel like I am maximizing my impact. In order to increase my outreach, I have created an organization within my community focusing on creating meaningful conversations that hopefully can make a difference in people’s lives. If we start with the instrumental goals of changing the minds of others on a handful of topics, we can achieve larger goals that enable positive change. Some people that I interact with believe that everyone starts at the same place in life, that racism dies with the racist, or that change isn’t worth the effort because of diminishing returns. My goal is to change this kind of thinking in such a manner that the ideas can self propagate, like a virus of the mind. Allyship isn’t about singular acts of defiance against injustice systems. It’s about making conscious and continuous efforts to create a better tomorrow for everyone. Systemic change starts with honest communication to help people understand that other people are worthy of dignity, respect, and opportunity.

Struggle and Survival The year is 2018, and I am sweating on a flight line in Kandahar AFB, Afghanistan. The KC-135 I am fixing is filled with 80,000 pounds of fuel and will be supporting a dozen aircraft in northern Afghanistan the following day. I've just completed the physical installation of a necessary component when the "wavering tone" attack warning siren goes off. I have seconds when I need minutes. Moving quickly, I dash down the ten-foot ladder and sprint to the hardened shelter. The thunder of the Phalanx defense assaults my ears and I feel several explosions reverberate in my lungs. I make it to the bunker, where I hunker down with a dozen other aircraft maintenance professionals, my heart pounding out my chest. Accountability is taken while we wait for the violence outside to stop. The year is 2019, I am home, and I am safe. So why don't I feel like I am? Three separate rocket and mortar attacks had struck my base, but I think I am unaffected. I never got injured, a barracks near me had its protective walls damaged with no casualties, and I enjoyed the food. It's not until I am working on homework or listening to music that a song comes on and reminds me of my experiences. I break down, tears streaming down my face, and I know I am not okay. Over the next three months, I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and I was put through a therapy program and prescribed a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Talking to my therapist, I began to realize the symptoms I had been ignoring. I am distracted and jumpy, and I have a low threshold for anger, this is not who I was. I was focused, unflappable, and good-natured; how had I become what I am? Stranger still, how had I not noticed? The year is 2020, I can recognize patterns in my behavior, and I have found what triggers me. Explosions, sudden noise, and sometimes complacent silence will make my heartbeat faster, and my mood worsens. Working on jobs like those I did during attacks causes me to panic and forget important steps. The year is 2021, and I have learned strategies to mitigate the effects of what triggers me. My SSRI is working. I know that I am safe, and I have been able to speak about my experiences with coworkers who have been in similar situations. From these interactions, I know I am not alone in a way that I had not internalized until then. I want to push past this strain and fix myself. I don't want my family to have to avoid fireworks, so I decide to take them to a local town celebration featuring fireworks. I rationalize that, if need be, I can seek shelter in the car. Unfortunately, this turns out to be false. My children have never seen fireworks this close before and are scared themselves. Despite wanting to flee, my babies need me, so I stay and stare down the inferno. The year is 2022, and despite the stress of the past five years, I am in my last week of taking the SSRI. I have finished several classes with above 90% grades, and life is good. I no longer suffer from my PTSD, but I can live with it. I can focus on my goals. Finally, I am myself. My life isn't perfect, but it's mine again.

I am an active duty USAF Staff Sergeant. I am a part of a religious identity that is marginalized, distrusted, and otherwise discriminated against in America. I am able to serve my country, put my life on the line, but if I were to run for an office, due to the religious label I have, I would be unofficially disqualified, despite the protections of the constitution. My career focus is in Aeronautics. I believe that the future of humanity is not locked on this planet, but to go out beyond the grasp of Earth's gravity. I am passionate about space and I hope to one day help us in our stellar endeavors. Recently, I took a class in Leadership which has already helped me to make a difference in my place of work. My current aspirations are to finish my degree so that I came become an officer in the USAF. With this position, I will be able to aid in creating policy changes that affect a quarter of a million enlisted individuals, and all their successors. I will be able to make positive changes to not only how we protect the nation, but also give tools to those who can have the biggest impact in my goal for a better future. It is my belief that humanity will not stay on Earth, and that someday our planet side past will be seen as a rough stepping stone to our future. I believe that we will begin to invest in space infrastructure in ways that allow for our current planet bound society to reap the benefits. Already with the ISS and Hubble Space Telescope we have learned incredible things that help our daily lives. For example, the ISS has advanced medical technology by developing ultrasound machines that doctors now use to see the unseen, developing robotic arms that are used in surgeries, creating life saving vaccines, and improving our understanding of how to repair the body from its responses to stress. When people talk about renewable energy, solar power is often brought up. It is practically free energy, but it is terribly dependent upon the environment that the solar collector is in. Cloud cover ruins efficiency, dust and debris obscures detectors, and the sun is blocked by the planet for around half the day with peak efficiency occurring during midday. When I think about the future of solar energy, I think of a solution that negates all these problems. Where can we go where there are no clouds, no dust and debris, and where the sun is shining 24/7? Space gives us this specific environment where we can build solar collectors very cheaply with locally sourced materials. We could utilize the aluminum found in excess on Luna to create thin mirrors capable of directing Sol's energy to a solar collector that converts that energy into wavelengths of light capable of being received through Earth's atmosphere. A project like this would require billions of dollars, but the energy industry is a trillion dollar industry, so I think we will be able to support this plan within the next decade. Additionally, this level of solar power generation can be utilized to create biofuels, essentially ensuring that transportation is not neglected from the market To complete a project like this, we need leaders capable of helping companies, organizations, and agencies get the most out of their people. While I am intelligent, I am smart enough to know that there are people who are much smarter than me who will think up stronger materials, better technologies, and more efficient processes. In order for those people to be most effective, they will need people to lead them, focus their energies, and remove unnecessary roadblocks. My vision for the future is not one where I create some life changing invention, but one where I help the people that can make those things. I choose to study Aeronautics because I know that it will give me a stepping stone towards my goal of helping people be the best they can be, for humanity. I plan to use my education to create lasting structural changes that work as force multipliers for the betterment of all of Earth's people. This ultimate goal of helping people be the best they can be keeps me going towards my incremental goals. Currently, this all hinges on me getting my degree, which is progressing nicely and with good marks. In my last class (Leadership) I received a 98%, in my next class I aim to do better. If all goes well, I may be perfectly timed to help complete the project I described above as this next decade moves us forward into a better, brighter future.

Empathy is the key to understanding. When we look at the world around us, if we have the goal of being ethical actors, we need to understand the world we find ourselves in. Because of this, I believe that my ability to utilize my emotional intelligence to understand the positions of others will help me in my life journey to be the best human I can be. Empathy is also very important when it comes to teaching, which is a large part of my job as a Sergeant in the USAF. Everyday, I need to see the world from the perspective of the people I teach in order for me to effectively communicate complex issues relating to our job, which is repairing a massive tanker necessary to nuclear defense. One way I adapt my teaching style to my students is to develop analogies relevant to their life experience. For example, I was teaching about how bus protocols work when starting up a computer system to someone who is very mechanically inclined, but the secrets of computers remain enigmatic and arcane. With my understanding of their position, I compared bus protocols to a gear assembly, where two gears need to have their teeth and troughs lined up properly or the gears won't work. This analogy caused them to have an epiphanic reaction where their whole face lit up and they were able to follow the analogy to its conclusion; when the gears aren't aligned, we have to shut down the machine (restart the computer) to realign the gears. Additionally, I engage in scientific education. In the classes I take, we have discussion posts relating to the field that the subject is covering. Utilizing my empathy, I take what I understand about my fellow students and try to compare my conversation to their understanding of the world. A good example of this is from my most recent class, Leadership, which dabbles in Sociology. On a discussion post about communication and relationships, one of my fellow students, Linda, had described a situation where a relationship was becoming strained due to the scientific illiteracy of a family member. This was around our fifth week of interactions, so I understood that Linda learned well through humor. To help her better her relationship and communication with the inaccurate and highly opinionated family member, I directed her to Brandolini's Law, which describes "the amount of energy needed to refute [nonsense] is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it", which helped her understand a differing perspective for how her interlocutor might have become convinced of an inaccurate position. Interacting within the same post with Linda again, she was having communication issues with her son (17 year old male), where she would finish a sentence for him and it would sometimes be inaccurate. So I described how I had similar issues with letting the other people find the words to finish their thoughts, but that I had learned recently to utilize the power of silence, waiting for my interlocutor to finish their thoughts and to only provide words if they seem to be struggling to get their thoughts out. With this action, I am sure that I have made an impact on Linda for the better. In conclusion, I utilize my empathy to better those around me, not just for short term issues, but to create a wave of impact that propagates into the future, improving a multitude of lives. In the end, I hope to make the world a better place, where people understand the world, and other people, around them better.