COVID-19 Recovery is an Investment

Recently, I shared with Kayla, my wife and co-founder of CHAMP, just how much support I have received and continue to receive during my post-Iraq War transition to aid in my mental  and physical health recovery. Literally, hundreds if not thousands of hours.

Likewise, my fellow Air Force personnel – pilots, for example – have received millions of dollars in training to fly aircraft and defend democracy here in the U.S. and around the world. Clearly, investments are vital to success.

Investing is the way to go in order to solve societal problems in the era of COVID-19 recovery and its aftermath. Investing in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) is vital to America’s continued success. COVID-19 has taught us that we don’t have enough Americans fulfilling these important roles. If anything, we should have so many that we export STEM around the world in the form of Americans working abroad to uplift and collaborate with other communities. 

The time to stop infighting is NOW! The house is on fire and we are bickering about who started it while the whole structure is crashing down. My hope is that more people will wake up and get involved in the solution and not simply regurgitate the problem. We can do it! I still believe in the greatness and potential of American ideals. COVID-19 recovery is possible.

In conclusion: remember the television commercial showing the man choking and people around him discussing the issue instead of performing the Heimlich? You get the picture…

Sam Alix is Co-Founder of CHAMP (www.champ.vet)

Featured photo credit: Gabriel Ocaña Rebollo, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons