The Story

Growing up, I had the unfortunate "privilege" watching the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. live, an event that still remains vivid in my mind. I was sitting in my 5th grade classroom when the news footage started rolling in; buildings engulfed in smoke and flames, people throwing themselves from the top floors in an attempt to survive or, perhaps more horrifically, to end the torment quicker, the towers collapsing and finally the images coming in from the Middle East of men, women and children dancing in the streets, chanting and burning American flags. I was too young to really understand what I was looking at or why it was happening, but I was curious. In the days that followed, I began asking questions: Why did this happen? Why were people on the other side of the world celebrating this? What was going to happen next? It was an awakening of sorts, a realization that my childhood was coming to a rapid end and that the world was going to be changing.

As I entered middle school, I became more and more fascinated with politics and government, thanks to a youth-focused school news outlet called Channel One and my middle school teachers discussing more complex topics with us. What I didn't understand, to my and my classmates' detriment, is that we weren't receiving an unbiased worldview on these topics. When we asked questions about why President Bush was becoming unpopular, we were told that it was because Bush, his cabinet and the rest of the Republicans were evil. Labels like, "xenophobic," "homophobic," and "racist" were thrown around these conversations with reckless abandon. At the time, all my young brain knew is that these were NOT good things to be called, and so my worldview simply became, "Republicans are evil, so I need to be a Democrat!"

It wasn't until 2008 that I began to see the damage this had done to me during some pivotal periods of development in my life. My uncle, a role-model in my life, was a good man, but he was a Republican and I couldn't understand why a guy I looked up to so much aligned with such evil people. I wrote it off as him being ignorant or possibly that he had been intentionally lied to or deceived. But the truth wasn't apparent until in my senior Government/US History class that our teacher took us to the library and had us take a quiz on CNN's website to determine which of the presidential candidates (primaries were still being held at that time) we aligned with more. I was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that my results would say Barack Obama. Because of course it would; I was a good Democrat, after all, and not supporting Obama would make me a racist.

Imagine my surprise when my results came up as 97% for Mike Huckabee.

These results rocked my world. How could I, a proud Democrat, who wasn't homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, whatever-kind-of-phobic, be aligned so much with a Republican?! I was deeply troubled by this for days and finally went to my teacher to discuss these results. I told him what had happened and how confused I was that this had happened. He asked me a simple question: "What are the core values of the Democrats?" That stopped me in my tracks. I started to realize that I didn't know. In fact, I didn't even know what the beliefs of the Republicans were! I started to research these topics and was shocked at how different my actual beliefs were compared to the DNC's values. I felt betrayed by teachers I had looked up to for years, lied to by people I was supposed to be able to trust. In that moment, I made myself a promise: I would never, EVER, be that uneducated about a topic this important ever again. When I turned 18, I registered as a Republican and plunged head-first into staying on top of political happenings.

In the years that followed, I started to feel more and more like not even the GOP had my best interests in mind and that I was something of a political transient. I had many conservative viewpoints, to be sure, but I also had some more liberal ideas. The Libertarian Party started to appeal to me and I even voted against both major parties in two elections. I prided myself on being middle-of-the-road and was convinced that nothing would ever be able to push me in one direction or the other.

Then everything changed on September 10, 2025. I was in the middle of playing a video game on my off-day, my wife peacefully taking a nap nearby. People in-game started repeating the same thing in chat: "Charlie Kirk was just assassinated." I thought maybe there was some viral video that had been misinterpreted or that maybe someone had published an AI video depicting his death. To my shock and horror, there it was on national television. On social media, the video was already circulating unedited. The image of Kirk dying on camera was burned into my mind. It stuck with me. More than anything, though, were the comments and responses. People around the country were celebrating his death. Kirk, a man who held many of my same beliefs, was being demonized and belittled by his political opponents. They said he had it coming. And it hit me then that if they would celebrate such a high-profile conservative being gunned down for having a different opinion than them, I wouldn't even be an afterthought. If I were killed for my beliefs, the country wouldn't even whimper.

I wasn't content to sit around anymore. I wasn't ok with being moderate. I wasn't ready to watch a man I respected be dragged through the mud while his body was still warm. And to my astonishment, I discovered others weren't either. But people were scared. Their voices, while not silenced, had diminished in volume. Once proud conservatives, who at the beginning of the year had been loud, proud and sure of their ideals, were going quiet.

I wasn't ready to let that happen.

Volunteer Patriots was born from the idea the death of one man, the great Charlie Kirk, could not silence an entire generation. We could not retreat into the shadows simply because one of our greatest voices had been silenced. What we needed now were leaders to take up the torch Kirk dropped and finish the race. Not a leader, but leaders. Not next election cycle, not a decade from now if or when things settled down. Now!

Our goal is simple: to create and inspire bold conservative leaders in our nation to continue the mission of keeping our republic strong. Leaders who will be bold and courageous not just in politics, but at home and in church. We will accomplish this mission through education on faith and government, activism within our churches and communities and civil discourse with those who seek to stop us. Charlie dropped the microphone; it's up to all of us to finish what he started!