Scene: Why I am an activist

I am an activist. By definition, an activist is a person who campaigns to bring about political or social change. I do not subscribe to a particular political party, but I will support politicians that push a humanist cause. My name is Chris Ward and I am about as typical a mid-Western man as one can find. I was born in small town Iowa and raised in small town Missouri. Late night, even as a small child, I laid in the barren fields, after harvest, and stared into the infinite starry nights and knew inherently that there was another world out there with a boy laying on the ground staring back at me.

My one-way ticket out of my tiny bubble was to join the U.S. Army. I was always such a futurist that I never took much interest in history. It wasn’t until my first duty station, Camp Casey, Korea, that I began to ask, “Why Are We Here?” Not about life in general, but why after 40-plus years, the U.S. military is still in South Korea. Shortly after my year there, my unit from Louisiana was deployed as part of NATO (North Atlantic Trade Organization)’s SFOR (Stabilization Force) in 1997. The Yugoslav War (1991-1995) was one of the greatest human rights violations since World War II. It took place while I was in high school and the media didn’t pay it much attention.

It was then that my passion to defend civil rights and civil liberties began. I saw the effects of what happens when a people’s own military turns against them. The horror stories will haunt me forever. The level of corruption in the government was unparalleled by anything I had ever seen. Over the course of the next decade, I would spend two and half years in Bosnia-Herzegovina. My final year, January 2004 to February 2005, I would work in NATO’s Human Intelligence Collection team, which was called Allied Military Intelligence Battalion. I worked in war crimes, organized crime and terrorism. I learned a magnificent amount about how the world turns and this experience revealed a lot about the crimes of our own government.

My passion for liberating the oppressed led me to my current career as an independent associate with LegalShield. I realized that all the darkness that exists in the world also resides in my backyard. I work diligently to participate in the political process. I openly speak about issues that are important to me and educate the community on not only existing problems, but what we can do to fix them.

I see a better world for humanity. The problems of today have come with their own solutions for decades; however, there is a lack of implementation. I move forward with love and ensuring that any resolution to a challenge benefits all living beings involved, including the flora and fauna. When people say, “Nobody can change the government.” When people cry, “Nobody can stop the Oil & Gas industries.” When consumers dictate, “Nobody can change the economy.” I remind them, “I am Nobody.”