Use Your Voice

This weekend is Memorial Day.?It’s a U.S. national holiday where we remember and honor the sacrifices common everyday men and women have made around the world so that each of us can enjoy freedom and peace. I like to spend Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery. My mother is buried there just down the hill from the eternal flame.?At noon, an honor guard blasts a 21-cannon salute to remember the fallen.?And the cannons usually result in my son running into my arms for a hug and warm embrace!?

Speaking of hugs, I may have hugged my dad for the last time this week.? As some of you know, my father has been in a 5-year battle with cancer.?I spent the last month working out of California and spending quality time with my father.?Boarding a plane home was one of the toughest things I have ever had to do. But, he’s nearly 81, has lived an incredible life, served his country, and built a wonderful family and legacy.?He and I have enjoyed plenty of hugs over the years.?And where it used to be him tucking me in at night as a child, it was me tucking him in this time.?That’s how the circle of life is supposed to work.

Sadly, this week, nineteen children and two teachers will no longer have the opportunity to experience the kinds of simple, powerful moments my father and I cherished because of the senseless actions of one 18-year-old with a gun.?I absolutely cannot imagine what it would be like to drop my kids off at elementary school and never see them again because they’d been killed. Or my wife if she was a teacher. The terror those children, the teachers and administration, their families, and the entire Uvalde community felt and experienced during the violence is unimaginable. My heart breaks a little more every time I think about one of the parents, siblings, or friends of the victims. It’s just so senseless to me.

In the United States, we allow such weapons of mass destruction to be purchased without a background check before you can even legally drink.?I think this is ridiculous. I don’t believe for one moment this is what our nation’s forefathers had in mind when they wrote the Second Amendment.?But a vocal minority of Americans clamors about gun rights and freedoms every time this happens. And rather than choosing to sacrifice a little freedom, far less than is asked of our men and women in uniform every day, we choose to do nothing.?Instead of coming together to find a solution, we do nothing.?Elected officials will debate and posture. Put out press releases. Lobbyists will do their thing. Some people will march and protest. But in the end, we do nothing. And if we do nothing, this will happen again. And again.?Children will be murdered in a school. ?Citizens will be killed in grocery stores or churches.?Because we choose to do nothing.

The last couple of years have been tough on everyone. Those of us in leadership positions at companies large and small have been faced with situations we were not prepared for in business school.?Just when it seems we are coming out of the woods of a once in a century pandemic, Putin invades Ukraine, violence in cities is on the rise and the global economy is looking like it will be volatile for the foreseeable future.?It’s easy to watch the news and feel helpless and numb.

But I’m not okay with that.

My conversations with my father this past month reminded me of something very important: use your voice.

To live in a democracy, one that my father spent a lifetime defending, means we all have a voice.?And our voice should count.?But the only way it will count is if you use it.?You have a responsibility to use your voice. ?Don’t keep your voice to yourself.?Use your voice in your workplace, your community, and your country.?There is no hall pass here.?If you don’t use your voice, you won’t be heard and if you aren’t heard, someone else will be.?

What’s the Point?

I’m tired of the loudest voices being the ones most opposed to a little sacrifice.?If our men and women in uniform had the same attitude, we wouldn’t have the freedom to have this conversation.?Sacrifice is part of the deal if you want to ensure the broader good.?And personally, I would rather experience a little less freedom when it comes to guns, in exchange for being able to be free to safely send my children and our educators to schools.

?When the 21-cannon salutes go off this weekend, I will remember twenty-one voices that will never get to hug anyone again.?I hope that their sacrifice will count for something, but that will be up to each of us and whether we choose to use our voice.

?And then, I will hug my children and never again take that for granted.?

?Use your voice.?I’m using mine.