Shortly after I graduated from UVM, I had my first wake-up call about the meaning of freedom and democracy.

In 1981, my first assignment with the Vermont Air National Guard was to go to pilot training at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. From my own plane, I watched as my good friend Will Stern, navigating the final turn for his approach to landing, tragically crashed in a ball of fire. I flew over his burning wreckage, frantically searching for his parachute. He didn't survive.
It was at this moment that I instantly realized the personal sacrifice so many fallen heroes have paid for our freedom. I understood that freedom comes at a heavy price.

Twenty-three years later, in 2004, I traveled to Havana, Cuba. I met a 61-year-old man named Vladimir Roca. His father wrote the Cuban Constitution of 1976, and Vladimir had been a MIG 23 pilot in the Cuban Air Force. Later he became a government economist. In the mid-90's, Vladimir and three friends wrote "The Broken Promise of the Revolution". As a consequence, he was imprisoned for five years by Fidel Castro -- four years and two months of that in solitary confinement.

I asked him, "Vladimir, what did you learn in prison?"

He answered, "I learned that freedom and democracy are worth five years in prison. Also, my faith in God allowed me to survive my captivity, and because I did not harbor hatred for my captors, I came out of prison a better person than when I went in."

That was a powerful statement about both personal and political freedom.

If you can choose your response, you're the captain of your ship. You can choose to have hatred in your heart, or you can choose to free yourself from it, and make any experience a positive one, no matter how hard.

I have chosen to serve in elected office, as a way of contributing my part of the price of freedom -- first as a school board member, and now as Vermont’s Lt. Governor. Democracy requires that people to give of their time. Vladimir and Will would say it is small price to pay for freedom.