An Open Letter to Our TAPS Family During Election 2016

Since 1994, TAPS has worked with leaders at all levels of the military and government to provide the best compassionate care for families of the fallen. We remain to this day a non-lobbying, non-partisan organization working across party lines to ensure quality programs and resources for military survivors regardless of anyone's political affiliations or beliefs.

We recognize in the past week many across our TAPS Family are feeling the fatigue of political debate and fighting. Our primary mission remains your comfort and care. When grief and stress are high, when misunderstandings arise, you will always have with TAPS: ears that listen, hearts that innately understand your pain, and arms to hold you. 

During this election season, we encourage all across our TAPS Family to be informed, involved, and vote.  Our loved ones made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our freedom to cast ballots for the candidates we feel most in keeping with our own individual standards. So regardless of party - Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Independent - we support everyone's right to take part in the process. 

Whatever our differences of individual opinions in who best represents us as President of the United States this year and elections to come, our common unique thread - the sacrifice that has been ours alone to bear for this country - is what will always bind us together. We are a family. "Family means nobody gets left behind." 

We can expect to see more rancor and upset in the news cycle into November and beyond. We want always this page, our events, and our words to be the sacred safe places providing hope, help, and healing for those who deserve the respect of every citizen. As we raise awareness together to support families of the fallen, let us also raise our voices in accord with kindness and civility as our heroes' living legacies.

With love and gratitude,

TAPS