To the Editor:

Arizona Senator John McCain faced many battles in his life — as a Navy fighter pilot, as a Senator, and last week the United States of America lost a man of resilience, honor, and respect to his final battle — with brain cancer.

Senator McCain came from a long family of military service, with both his father and grandfather serving as admirals in the US Navy. He grew up in a family of service to others: serving his fellow citizen, his nation, and everyone who supported freedom and liberty on the planet. He was raised in a family of honor, and after his military career ended abruptly due to injuries sustained while running bombing missions over Vietnam and his subsequent imprisonment, he turned to a different method of service in the United States Congress.

Senator McCain’s family and military career taught him valuable lessons about our nation and our mission to bring liberty and freedom to the rest of the world. He learned about sacrifice, courage, compromise, and an openness to admit mistakes. He brought those values to the Senate where he served for 31 years.

The leadership of the State of Connecticut can learn some valuable lessons from Senator McCain’s service. We in this state face serious challenges: significant projected budget deficits, a struggling economy, corporations and people leaving our state for greater opportunities elsewhere, a criminal justice system that is failing our society, and the continued need to provide basic services to our greatest needs population.

As we head full-force into the election season between now and November, candidates are provided the opportunity to present themselves and their vision on what they believe Connecticut can and should be. As voters, it’s important that we engage ourselves and become informed citizens when casting our votes. With mailings, media coverage, and the ever presence of social media, the information is available, we simply need to seek it out. Then on Election Day, choose wisely, because elections have consequences.

Once the elections are over and our leaders for the next two (or four) years are chosen, it will then be time to get to work on those aforementioned issues that Connecticut faces. And the values that Senator McCain taught us — courage, respect, compromise, respect, honor — must all be engaged to work toward a solution to improve our corner of the planet and create a new vision for the State of Connecticut.

I look forward to being a part of that new vision and will invoke Senator McCain’s legacy of service wherever possible.

State Rep JP Sredzinski

280 Shelton Road, Monroe September 7, 2018