When the Commander in Chief Calls Your Sacrifice “The Way It Is”

Over the last 48 hours, as the first reports of American service member casualties from escalating conflict in Iran reached the White House, the President gave us a window into how he views the men and women he sends into battle. When asked about the growing number of dead and wounded service members, he told the press that “there will likely be more before it ends” and followed it up with a shrug of the shoulders: “That’s the way it is.”

To a family in Tennessee waiting for a text or a phone call from a loved one in the Gulf, “that’s the way it is” isn’t a strategy. It is the language of a man who views our sons and daughters as line items on a balance sheet rather than flesh and blood. When the Commander in Chief suggests that American lives are just the “unfortunate” overhead of a deal he’s brokering on a map, he is telling you exactly how little he values the people who actually pay the price for his decisions. Our neighbors are NOT expendable. 

The Pattern of Choice

We are being told this conflict was inevitable, but history clearly suggests otherwise. Reagan saw service members die in Lebanon while his administration ran backroom deals in Iran-Contra. George W. Bush ignored the warnings of inspectors and allies to launch a  war built on the lie that Iraq possessed  weapons of mass destruction.

Now, on day three of the bombing in Iran, we are watching the same play. By late February, the administration claimed Iran was days away from a bomb; claims disputed by our own intelligence agencies and international monitors. While diplomatic talks in Geneva were nearing a final deal, the President chose to drop bombs instead. 

Speaker Mike Johnson admitted the truth on Capitol Hill when he said Israel was determined to act on its own timeline. That timetable has now become our timetable, and the American people were never consulted.

What This Costs Us in Tennessee

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz isn’t just a foreign policy headline. It is an immediate tax on every family in this district. With 20 percent of the world’s petroleum currently trapped, the price of oil will undoubtedly be impacted. 

Energy costs dictate the price of everything. You will see it at the checkout counter of the local Piggly Wiggly and in the aisles of the Dollar General. Transportation costs feed the price of groceries and household goods. This war is pushing prices higher at the exact moment working families are already stretched to the breaking point.

While the President celebrates “Peace Through Strength,” your gas prices are reversing their downward trend. The administration knew this would happen. They chose the operation anyway. 

The Healthcare Accounting

The facts are cold and clear. Since October 2023, we have sent over $16 billion in direct military aid to Israel. Israel provides universal healthcare to every one of its residents by law.

Meanwhile, in Tennessee, we are ranked 45th in healthcare in the US. We lead the country in infant mortality. Rural hospitals in this district have been forced to shut down their labor and delivery units. Over 130,000 of our neighbors just lost their ACA coverage.

We are funding a war for a country that guarantees healthcare to its citizens while we are cutting healthcare for our own. Does this sound like America first? 

A Word to the Families

I wore this country’s uniform. My father wore it too. We don’t always agree on this conflict, but we agree that leaders must exhaust every available option before sending neighbors into harm’s way. Diplomacy was on the table in Geneva. It was abandoned.

If you have someone deployed, I want you to know that I see you. Your loved ones are not bargaining chips. They are not acceptable collateral for decisions made in rooms you will never see.

To the Republicans and Independents Reading This:

I am not asking you to change your values. I am asking you to apply them to this moment.

• If you believe in fiscal responsibility: Ask why we have billions for unbudgeted wars but can’t afford to stabilize the rural health safety net that keeps hospitals open across the Upper Cumberland.
• If you believe in American sovereignty: Ask why a foreign military’s clock triggered American strikes without a single vote from Congress.
• If you believe in small government: Ask why the federal government is focused on Tehran while the Epstein files are hidden from the taxpayers who paid for the investigation.
• If you believe in the sanctity of life: Ask how we can accept “that’s the way it is” as a justification for the deaths of six American soldiers in three days.
• If you believe in the Constitution: Ask why the power to declare war has been stripped from the people’s representatives and handed over to a single office that treats international law as a suggestion.
• If you believe in “America First”: Ask why we are prioritizing the security of a foreign border thousands of miles away while our own infrastructure crumbles and our rural healthcare system is in a state of total collapse.
• If you believe in Accountability: Ask why we are being asked to trust “disputed intelligence” once again, when the same voices led us into a twenty-year quagmire that cost us thousands of lives and trillions of dollars for nothing.

We are told this war is an act of strength. It isn’t. Real strength is the courage to choose diplomacy when the easy path is violence. Real strength is protecting your own people’s health and pockets before funding the ambitions of a foreign military.

It’s easy for the President, a draft dodger who has had everything handed to him, to say “that’s the way it is” because he doesn’t have to live with the consequences. But we do. We feel it at the pump, we feel it in our hospital waiting rooms, and some of us are feeling it in the quiet, terrifying silence of a home waiting for a soldier to call.

We don’t have to accept this. We don’t have to be the collateral damage of a “great deal” that leaves Tennessee behind. It’s time to stop being the casualties of someone else’s ego. It’s time for better choices, it’s time for a brighter future.