Updated June 24, 2026 at 2:35 PM CDT
If you want to find models of civility, selflessness and humility, you might not think to check Washington, D.C., where divisiveness and discord rule.
But Rye Barcott thinks you may not be looking hard enough.
Barcott is a 47-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served three tours in Iraq. He’s a co-founder of the group With Honor, a nonprofit that’s helped to get dozens of military veterans elected across the country. For his new book “Courage Can Save Us,” he profiles 10 of them in his new book — five Democrats and five Republicans — who’ve been courageous in their public service.
Americans tend to feel like there is an absence of courage in the country. But Barcott disagrees.
“It is still there. It exists,” he said. “As a country, we need to not only celebrate and recognize moments of courage in others, but also seek it in ourselves.”
6 questions with Rye Barcott
Why do military veterans stand apart with their courage?
“The average age of the average Marine is something like 20 years old. So that commitment to service at an early age is embedded in your DNA, and I think that is a particularly important attribute for our current political environment.
“The other piece to this that’s important is that not long ago, within my lifetime, veterans represented over 70% of the U.S. Congress . And now they’re below 20%. We did a study with a West Point professor that was really illuminating because it showed that veterans have acted in a more bipartisan way in terms of co-sponsoring legislation and really getting things done in the United States.”
But I wonder if you can explain how courage from military service translates to courage in Washington? Because they’re two very different kinds of challenges.
“It certainly changes your perspective on risk. For example, one of the congressmen that I profiled, [Rep.] Jared Golden from Maine, was a Marine infantryman who trained and then went to Iraq. And because there weren’t enough explosive ordinance disposal, Marines were disabling bombs with his hands. And another, [Rep.] Dan Crenshaw. He is a Navy SEAL and was so grievously wounded that he spent six weeks lying on his stomach to enable one of his eyes to heal and lost the other one.
“When you come that close to mortality, it changes your perspective on risks.
“Of course, most of the courage that we see in public office, when we do see it, is moral courage differentiated from physical courage, although that’s not always the case. I profile [Sen.]Mark Kelly, whose wife [former Rep.] Gabby Giffords was shot in the head and nearly assassinated. So these jobs carry their own levels of risk. But the act of putting your life on the line for something that’s larger than yourself enables you to rise above the din of the everyday noise of politics and constantly seeking to benefit one’s self.”
Many people you profile have risked their lives through the military. Have they also risked their political careers? I mean, let’s look at Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) He was a vocal critic of President Trump, and he is retiring. And we’ve seen many people who, once they decide that they’re going to retire, are much more outspoken.
“That can certainly be the case. In the case of Don Bacon, though, he was outspoken long before he decided to retire from Congress, and so I sketch that out.
“Being in Congress comes with a cost, but we often don’t recognize it. We also often don’t incentivize it, which is part of our problem because these are human beings at the end of the day.
“And it’s not only losing one’s seat. The chapter on Don Bacon speaks about how his wife, Angie, sleeps with a gun. Why? Because of the level of threats that came at Don Bacon for taking a stand and speaking what he believed was truth and the right thing. In one case, he was one of the first individuals to oppose a candidate for the speaker of the house, and then that spiraled further.
“But of course, the political rhetoric and the violence is not limited to one side. We have Jared Golden, who’s a Maine representative in his early 40s. He has a two-year-old, and one of his acts of political courage was when Lewiston, Maine, had a mass shooting just a couple minutes away from his home and his kids. And he had been not in favor of a ban on automatic weapons. He’s a conservative Democrat in a Trump district. And he decided to change his position without consulting staff, even though it was clearly a political liability for him to do so. He’s also stepping down.”
The year before, though, when there was a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, he was one of five Democrats in the House to oppose banning assault weapons when it came up. So you could say as much as it took great courage for him to vote for a ban on assault weapons, he could have shown empathy earlier to families who lost people in Uvalde or anywhere else where assault weapons were used – like Pulse nightclub or Sandy Hook. And it was only when it came to his hometown that he changed his mind.
“Readers should read the chapter and kind of judge for themselves what his true intentions are. But as I know him, he believed that his position was the right one prior to changing it, and then he had the guts, which very few people do, to say, ‘I was wrong, and I’m changing my position, even if it costs me my career.’ And I just think that’s a rare and notable thing that we could use more of in public life. Doing the right thing even though it may cost you.
“One of the biggest surprises for me was just the level of resilience that each of these 10 public leaders demonstrated throughout their lives, sometimes very early in childhood facing a terrible loss of a parent or domestic abuse. They developed the ability to put service above themselves.”
Which story that you tell here affected you the most?
“Well, [Rep.] Seth Moulton is a Marine and congressman from Massachusetts. He’s a Democrat. I’ve known him the longest. And Seth demonstrated courage on many levels, but one that I had not anticipated was his own ability to demonstrate courage by admitting that he needed mental health assistance and help himself from [post-traumatic stress disorder].
“Seth had suffered from PTSD. He was open with that at a time when very few politicians were speaking about this, and then he channeled that into action and worked with a group of veterans across party lines. He established and helped pass into law the 988 national suicide hotline. And it takes courage to ask for help when you need it, and that number, 988, has assisted millions of Americans.”
One of the things that Moulton has said is that even the number, 988, caused an enormous kerfuffle on Capitol Hill because they were just trying to decide which numbers would be best.
“Right. I mean, it sounds silly, but the Congress as a body is so polarized that it takes courage just to be seen with individuals from the other side, let alone work with them. There is courage now in just being able to build relationships and trust across our party divides, and I believe that’s true in our politics, but also true at home. And being able to break from the algorithms that are trying to pit us against each other and influence the ways that we think to actually build relationships is so important for the country. And that is part of the way that we can not only save ourselves, but really thrive again as a nation.”
This interview has been edited for clarity.
____
Will Walkey produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Mark Navin. Walkey also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2026 WBUR
