I am writing to you today, because today is Giving Tuesday.  First, I want to share some history:

Five years ago, during the Fall of 2014, I was brainstorming ways to influence public policy on the national security issues so important to High Frontier.  Out of that brainstorming, the concept of the South Carolina National Security Action Summit was born. 

Our objective for that event, which was held in March of 2015, was to stimulate local, state and federal discussion in the early primary state of South Carolina, where we reside, on the following issues:

1. The insecurity of our nation’s electric grid,
2. The insecurity of our southern border and immigration system,
3. The influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in our Constitutional Republic, and
4. The overall decline of the American military.

In addition to subject matter experts, we invited every Presidential Candidate who had announced, and most participated.  Due to the success of this event held in Columbia, South Carolina, additional summits were held in other early primary states.

Click here to watch that Summit, either in its entirety or the four panel discussions separately.

Today, due to multiple circumstances, not least of which is a Commander in Chief who understands these issues, each of these issues is being addressed in a way they hadn’t been during the previous three administrations. 

For example, High Frontier’s traditional role advocating space based defenses is bearing fruit as President Trump’s Space Force becomes realty and private innovators are on their own developing technology that can underwrite a revival of the most important ideas produced by Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). And President Trump’s March 26, 2019 Executive Order directing his administration to provide a whole of government response the existential electromagnetic pulse (EMP) threat emphasized at our conference five years ago. We discussed these issues last week with folks from all over America in an important Capitol Hill Conference.

See our High Frontier webpage (www.highfrontier.org) for the many weekly messages that have detailed our progress on these and related issues. Needless to say Washington remains in political gridlock, and we need to continue working the “bottom’s up strategy,” which High Frontier is known for and which has been instrumental is bringing us this far.

On this #GivingTuesday, I want to emphasize that 2015 event also elaborated another initiative that we expect will assume a greater roll in our future efforts. It too, will require changes likely to be slow as citizen involvement expands. In 2015, in my portion on the panel discussing the insecurity of the electric grid, I shared my belief the need to incorporate sustainable, local agriculture into the discussion, for a wide range of issues. Today, there is growing interest in this important initiative.

I believed then, and I believe now that our nation’s food supply is tied to the nutrition of our citizenry, our healthcare system and ultimately to our national security.  Over the course of the next year, Lord willing, with your help, we will bring this discussion into the next chapter of High Frontier’s mission.

Much could be written about my time period engaging in the agricultural industry.  During that time period I have also served on a rural Hospital Board, in local government and several regional boards.  The experience I have gained these last few years increases my strong belief that it will take a grassroots, non-partisan effort to change practices currently pursued in the agricultural, nutritional and medical communities to produce a more resilient citizenry, at all levels.  It will also require citizens choosing wisely how they invest their food dollars.  Again, I believe this is a national security issue.  I also firmly believe these issues are non-respecter of person issues – meaning your race, culture, faith or economic status is irrelevant.  These should be unifying issues.

This past fall, I returned to farms I had visited between 2013 – 2015 and spoke with leaders in the sustainable agricultural movement about my desire to have them join us in this national discussion.  Point blank I told them I didn’t approach them when I was just getting started in agriculture, because I believed it was important I had actually gone to the “school of hard knocks,” taken my product to market, and built a brand first – to which they replied, “that was very wise.” 

My point in sharing that is I believed I needed to invest in agriculture myself, before attempting to bring other nationally known leaders into this discussion, from a national security standpoint.  That investment has paid off, through their willingness to participate in the future.  If you have spent any time at all studying the current impacts on today’s American farmer, you know this is a timely, critically important issue.

I would ask on this #GivingTuesday, that you help us continue the mission of High Frontier:

1. To continue working toward securing our electric grid.
2. To continue building out the missile defense Lt. Gen Daniel Graham and his team advised President Reagan to initiate, beginning in the late 1970’s–leading to his 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative, and
3. To pursue this next chapter, I referenced above.

Many blessings to you and yours –