From 9/11 to the Bench: A Journey of Service

Like many Americans, I remember exactly where I was on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was a high school student on the way to first-period biology when the course of my life—and our nation’s history—changed forever. My family and I had been listening to NPR on the drive to school when we heard that a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers. By the time I sat down in class, the television was on, and like so many Americans, I watched live as the second tower was hit. In that moment, innocence gave way to resolve.

The attacks were meant to weaken and divide us. What I saw next taught me the opposite lesson. Firefighters ran toward danger. Neighbors lined up to give blood. Men and women stepped forward to serve without hesitation. That collective resolve is what pulled me toward a life of public service.

At eighteen I enlisted in the United States Air Force. For the next six years I worked as an intelligence analyst, doing my part to protect the people beside me and the country that had raised me. The Air Force did not merely train me for a job. It gave me a code I still live by:

Integrity First — do the right thing when it is hard, unpopular, or costly. Integrity is not a slogan on a wall. It is the bedrock of any justice worth the name.

Service Before Self — put mission and duty above personal comfort. Leadership is not self-advancement; it is the willingness to take responsibility when others are counting on you.

Excellence in All We Do — refuse to treat “good enough” as a finish line. High standards are not perfectionism for its own sake. They are respect for the people who depend on your work.

Those values followed me out of uniform into the courtroom. As a trial lawyer and veterans’ advocate, I saw how often the justice system fails people who lack money, language, health, or a guide through the maze. Equal justice is not a slogan either. It is preparation, careful listening, and decisions grounded in law and reason—delivered with clarity and, where the law allows, compassion.

I carried that same commitment into my run for Hays County Court at Law No. 2. The campaign is over. The obligation is not. Whether I am on the bench or before it, the call that began on a September morning in a high school biology classroom remains the same: serve with integrity, put the mission before self, and hold the work to a standard worthy of the people who never came home.

To the victims of September 11, to the first responders who ran toward the fire, and to every service member who answered the call that followed—thank you. The least we can do is build local institutions worthy of your sacrifice.