The Full Cost

DEDICATION

To the veterans.

To all those who suffered and died to protect this great nation that we get to call home - a nation of a kind never before seen in history.

This is a dedication to their sacrifice, their suffering, and their eventual deaths: on the battlefield, and long after it. To those lost to suicide. To the cancers. To the autoimmune diseases that arrived without explanation. To the heart disease that came thirty years early. To the brain injuries of every kind, the ones that showed on a scan and the ones that never did.

It is written in remembrance of them all, and for everyone touched by the totality of war and by what many have called the military-industrial complex.

For too long our nation has endured attacks from within - a slow poisoning of our institutions, our children, and our sacred values. We have watched the deliberate erosion of the moral foundation that once made America a beacon of freedom to the world. We have seen our children subjected to confusion and indoctrination, our neighbors turned against one another, and our society weakened from its core by those who mean to see it fall.

But this is also a dedication to the moment when We the People rise up and say enough. When we reclaim our schools, our communities, and our nation from those who have sought to lead us into darkness. When we cast out the forces that have worked their way into every level of government and corporation, using our own goodness and our own trust against us.

This account is born of a conviction: that truth will prevail, that the light of freedom cannot be put out, and that the American spirit - rooted in faith, in family, and in the pursuit of justice - will in the end triumph over every collective force of evil that has troubled this land.

To every patriot who has struggled, sacrificed, and died for the nation we love - our soldiers, our police officers, our firefighters, our doctors and nurses and EMTs, our farmers and ranchers, our builders, electricians, plumbers, welders, truck drivers and delivery drivers, our manufacturers, and the countless others who form the backbone of this country - this book honors your service and your unwavering commitment to preserving liberty for the generations still coming.

Thank you to every patriot who holds tight to their ethos and protects this great nation, each and every day.

God bless the protectors: every branch of the United States military; every federal law enforcement and intelligence agency; every brave officer in state, local, and tribal law enforcement; and every company building the equipment and technology meant to keep citizens safe. Thank you for protecting our nation, our homes, our families, our husbands and wives, and above all our children. Thank you for your efforts even in the seasons when you are restrained by the politics of our system and by the bureaucratic goals of people who do not share your ethos.

Thank you to the families who carry the weight at home so that they can go out and carry it for the rest of us.

Thank you to the American taxpayers who gladly fund and support veterans' causes and benefits - even amid the fraud and corruption of leaders and systems that too often fail the very people that money was meant to reach.

Thank you to the private companies developing and funding real treatments for them all.

Thank you to every man and woman who has taken up the fight against evil in the open, at cost, and without apology.

God bless America, and God bless all who stand for freedom.