'Empathy Is Not a Weakness'

The Advance sits down with HD 63 candidate Forrest Miller.

By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Forrest Miller is making his first run at public office, contending for the House District 63 seat. In this interview, he discusses how his military background has prepared him to lead, the importance of understanding that a leader’s first job is to care for those they’re charged with representing, and the importance of empathy — “It’s not a weakness. It’s required to govern.”

FXBG Advance: What brought you to the point of seeking office in the Virginia House?

Forrest Miller: It’s been a multiyear journey that goes back into my active-duty days. For me, the call to serve was still there. I knew I had it inside myself to go back out there and be in front and make decisions and represent people again.

Given the current situation of where we’re at, and what we call leadership doesn’t align with the leadership I knew from my military days.

Taking care of people is what it starts with. And I just don’t see that happening across the board in our government’s leadership.

FXBG Advance: Can you talk more about the “call to serve” and what that means to you?

FM: This call to service was baked into me during 21 years in the military. They teach you when you’re young as a private the Army values — Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. Selfless service and integrity always stood out for me.

When you grow up in those leadership ranks and roles, you find out over time that people are always looking up to you to get things done. You become obligated to provide back, and you become wired that way. You wake up in the morning and you want to make sure your section, squad, platoon, company all better as a result of your actions that day.

I view service as that, and I haven’t until recently — when the train went off the tracks in our political environment — a lot of decisions out there aren’t based on that. Folks aren’t waking up to see how they can better the lives of others anymore. So I’m trying to put the train back on the tracks by showing up and trying to do that.

Helping people achieve that next thing they’re trying to achieve, I think that’s the responsibility of government.

I’m hoping that I’m one of many veterans who think like this and step up and say, “Hey, I’ve got this, we’ve got this, we’ll take it from here.”

FXBG Advance: There are a number of vets running for local office, and at least at the local level this commitment to service is a thread we often hear. Why do you think that is?

FM: I think it’s a positive byproduct of 20 years at war. You have a generation now that doesn’t know the military without war. I joined in 2000. September 11 then happened when I was in parachutist school, and we went right into deployment mode. We’ve been running at that speed ever since.

Our generation is retiring now, but we have all that leadership time managing troops in deployed locations. Even when people were stateside they never shut it down, so you were always preparing for that next deployment.

I also worked at the White House for a while on the communications team, which gave me a chance to see things from that perspective. Whenever the president, vice president, first family went out we would set up the communications for them, Secret Service, and White House staff.

All this gave me the confidence to say, yes, I’ll step up and do it.

FXBG Advance: Setting up communications for the White House is certainly high stress. How did that affect the way you look at leadership?

FM: Whenever you’re dealing with the First Family, Second Family, those communications must be no fail. So there’s a lot of pressure to get it right. We had fun doing it, and it was a very good culture. In fact, that was one of the best organizations I’ve even been a part of. To balance a no fail mission with a culture that allowed you to not experience stress and get things done was instructive.

I reflect back on that now, and that’s how I’m trying to create my campaign team — it’s about transparency, everybody bringing ideas to the table.

FXBG Advance: People seem to have a harder time managing stress these days. We all seem to be more on edge. Do people with military backgrounds have an advantage here over those without military backgrounds? After all, one learns to deal with stress by confronting it and having success getting through it.

FM: I’ve not given much thought to that. I just know that people are more hardened in their trenches regarding where they’re at. So it’s tough to have public conversations anymore. Very often there is something triggering in those conversations that people just can’t get past.

I hope we can get back to more of a middle ground.

I also think people are looking to government for things that government should not be doing. Especially as regards personal matters. When we get back to making policy on infrastructure, education, and jobs just focusing on what’s better for the majority, we’re in a better place.

FXBG Advance: Can you give us an example of improving policy in one of these three areas?

FM: Abigail Spanberger recently took some flak over her comments on Virginia’s right-to-work law, saying she wouldn’t overturn it. I can see where she’s coming from, but organizational performance data supports repealing it. In addition, non-right-to-work states have better workers’ rights metrics as well.

I believe this is a culture issue. People should join a union because they feel compelled by the benefits they receive, or the protections they offer.

Therefore, I would support repealing right-to-work, and I will show up at union events and talk to folks about the benefits of joining. That’s where the leadership piece comes in.

FXBG Advance: Were you to win, you’d be coming in as a junior-level representative. How do you see yourself operating knowing that you have to start at the bottom, so to speak, and earn the right to take on more-important roles?

FM: I’ve thought a lot about that. It’s a combination of leveraging my background in the military decision-making process, and my personal skills of bringing people together. I was good at this in the military, and now outside the military as a sales engineer. Gather people, talk with them, and hearing them. Then going a bit deeper into technical stuff.

FXBG Advance: What are the most challenging issues for the 63rd District?

FM: The 63rd is a very diverse region, and you have to pay attention to the range of socioeconomic and cultural realities that exist there.

By 2050, the population in the surrounding Fredericksburg area is expected to increase to about a million people. If we don’t make decisions now to deal with that, we’re going to be a bad spot in 10 to 15 years. However, you’ve also got to protect the battlefields, and address the issues along Route 3, especially as services begin creeping further west along that corridor.

In Orange County they have a significant issue with water. I’ve had conversations with people out that way, and there is an effort to set aside funding to address that issue. These people are tracking it. We just need to ensure the money shows up and addresses the issues it needs to address.

FXBG Advance: Should you win, how do you stay in touch with people in the district when you are holed up in Richmond for much of the first of each year?

FM: My family and I have talked about this. Should I win and go down there, it’s going to be a full team effort. We’re treating it like another deployment.

We are there doing the work, but staying in touch with folks here. I truly believe in the fundamentals of the Republic. I’m just a representative of the folks.

It’s important that staff is up to speed, responds to every email or phone call in a timely manner.

In the military we had a list of the Top 10 things we’re trying to accomplish. We want to bring that idea to Richmond, and build that list based on what our constituents say matters to them. And then make that list public.

FXBG Advance: Is there anything we haven’t covered that you’d like to add?

FM: Yes — one of the things that I’m telling people right now is that empathy is not a weakness. It’s required to govern. If you can’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you shouldn’t be doing this.

We have to get back to what’s necessary for the people.

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