While I honor the soldiers in my family, and I am a student of history, the past is the past, and I do not live in the past.

As part of any new leadership organization, you come in with a team. You come in to assess. You come in to rearrange.

The last thing I will pay attention to is any of the usual Washington back and forth.

When our veterans walk into any VA facility, they converse with men and women who speak the unique language of military service.

My dad died, and he wasn't in my life because he had schizophrenia, so it's been something that my entire family has been fighting against since I can remember.

I was thinking about it: so many of my stories are about my family life, not about being related to a lot of famous people. That's my grandma, that's my mama, my daddy, my aunt, my uncle, my stepdaddy. I'd probably tell them even if they weren't well known.

America is the only high income nation without a paid family leave program. This means that if you or a family member gets sick, there is no guarantee that you can take the time you need to take care of yourself or your loved one, leaving already vulnerable families in the position of making hard decisions in cases of illness.

My grandmother was a typical farm-family mother. She would regularly prepare dinner for thirty people, and that meant something was always cooking in the kitchen. All of my grandmother's recipes went back to her grandmother.