In 2002, Tulsi Gabbard became the youngest legislator ever elected in Hawaii’s history at the age of 21. Though she filed for re-election in 2004, Gabbard ended up volunteering for the Army instead of running for a second term. As a specialist in a field medical unit assigned to the 29th Infantry Brigade Support Battalion, Gabbard had the difficult task of going through a list of casualties and looking for injured soldiers from her unit.

“This daily experience is something I always remember and keep very close to me because it’s not just a reminder but a slap in the face to remind you what the hellish cost of war is. In any position of leadership that I’m privileged to serve in now, if there’s a decision to take our troops into conflict, it’s not a decision that can be made lightly. It’s a reminder also of what I had learned growing up, which is the temporary nature of the life of this body and the eternalness of our soul. And that we really don’t know when our time can come. And the urgency of needing to make the most of the time that we’ve been given.” — Khabar Magazine

At the end of her first tour in the medical company, Gabbard was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal. She then went on to serve as a legislative assistant to Senator Daniel Akaka, during which she also became the first distinguished female honor graduate in the Alabama Military Academy Officer Candidate School’s fifty-year history. Later, Gabbard served in Kuwait as a Military Police Platoon leader with the 29th Brigade Special Troops Battalion of the Hawaii Army National Guard. It was during this tour, that Gabbard was tasked with making sure that all of her brothers and sisters came home — they did. Add to this that Gabbard was also awarded for her work (another female first) training the Kuwait National Guard, an unthinkable feat as a woman who overcame their initial refusal to look her in the eye.

It didn’t take long for Tulsi Gabbard to get to work on veterans issues once she was elected to Congress in 2012, beating her rival with 76.9% of her district’s vote. Whether it’s pushing for legislature that would incentivize hiring veterans or writing bills like Talia’s Law, which seeks to require service members and their family to report cases of child abuse, Gabbard persists with a soldier’s resolve. While Trump is making a mockery of our American values by flip-flopping on interventionist regime war policy and congratulating wounded veterans on their purple hearts, Gabbard is battling attempts to assassinate her character by many of her own colleagues for speaking out against Trump’s strikes in Syria.

When confronted with overly concerned Baby Boomer put-her-in-her-place “feminist” rhetoric with statements like: “You don’t strike me as a woman arrogant enough to believe that in a meeting with a man [Assad] like that you’re going to influence him,” at her Oahu town hall, Gabbard handles even the most tactless of accusations with the grace of a stoic.

By all appearances, Gabbard bears the yoke of public servitude with ease; coupling expert compassionate listening skills with a natural tendency to a smile — you might even be mistaken into thinking her burden is light. The sense of urgency with which Gabbard speaks on the subject of bringing about peace is unmistakable, yet well-tempered with comments about the human cost of war, which she reminds her audiences includes both American soldiers and innocent civilians.

A recent report released by NPR stating that an average of 20 veterans a day commit suicide should floor every person who hears or reads of it — what’s even more shocking, is that as of 2016 data, more of them are women than men. In a time when many Americans are more interested in the suicide of an accused murderer and New England Patriots football player than their own soldiers, it’s unequivocally tragic that public figures like Gabbard aren’t probed enough by the public for her meaningful insight and experiences as a respected female Army veteran.

Tulsi Gabbard at The People’s Summit in Chicago, 2016.

You would think, that while on life support after the exorcism of Hillary Clinton, perhaps Democrats might want to take the outstretched hands of progressives like Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard in leading the fight to save our country from Trump’s presidency, but there’s always those who would rather watch the world burn than join the “other” side. Either way, Gabbard holds her head high and her eyes trained on peace; partisanship is a foreign concept to the woman who loves gifting her colleagues with her family’s famous toffee. While Trump launches flaming golf balls at our civil liberties and attempts at brokering peace from his Mar-a-Lago vacation home in Florida, Gabbard is putting out fires and gaining more recognition by the day — not that she ever asks for it.

The question of whether or not America needs someone like Tulsi Gabbard is a no brainer; four years of Trump will undoubtedly warrant the need for our country’s healing, and calls for the congresswoman to run for President in 2020 have only grown louder and more numerous. But the real question is, do we deserve a President Tulsi Gabbard?

Discussion of a bid for the White House is far from the top of Gabbard’s priority list — she’s focused on her district and her constituents as their elected representative and has never shown interest in teasing the media for publicity.

However, given Tulsi Gabbard’s history of accomplishments, the possibility of her being our 46th and the first female president doesn’t seem like so indulgent a dream — after all, it was Shakespeare who said:

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”