I thought I knew why my youngest son wanted to join the military. I assumed it was about patriotism, steady pay, or a desire to travel.

Then a Marine recruiter sat down with our family—and showed me how much I had assumed.

My wife and I were handed small, engraved domino-sized tiles and asked to guess Hayden's top priorities for enlisting. Meanwhile, at the kitchen island, Hayden was doing the same exercise for himself.

When we sat down to compare, our predictions missed by a mile.

It was one of the best listening exercises I've ever been part of. Before anyone tried to explain his choices, Hayden had a way to show us what mattered to him.

Hayden decided against becoming a Marine. He enlisted in the Navy instead and spent five years as a Seabee. His reasoning was simple: the Seabees offered the kind of construction work he wanted to do, work he hoped would last.

That afternoon taught me something I still need to remember: caring about someone isn't the same as understanding what matters to them.

Before I go farther, among the designers, drafters, suppliers, and builders reading this today are men and women who traded the uniform of our armed forces for the blueprints of our built environment.

You carried the discipline, precision, and dedication learned in service into a second calling: shaping the spaces where families live, and communities gather.

To our AIBD veterans: thank you for your service.

Some of you have told me about moving from military service into design and construction. Those stories have reminded me that the transition is personal, and no two paths are alike.

Coming home and having a home are not the same thing.

At the end of World War II, that distinction became an urgent national problem. In 1945, experts estimated that America was short roughly five million homes. Returning veterans were coming back to a country that did not have enough places for them and their families to live.

What followed helped change the work you and I do today.

Federal loan guarantees helped many veterans become buyers. Builders organized construction into repeatable steps. Standardized components and specialized crews helped make large-scale residential development possible.

But before this becomes a story about mortgages, floor plans, and production schedules, it deserves to remain a story about people.

People who had served.

People returning to civilian life.

People looking for a place to begin their next chapter.

When you look at a postwar neighborhood, you can see repeated rooflines and familiar floor plans. You can also see a response to a generation returning home.

The response was ambitious. It was imperfect. Many Black veterans faced discriminatory lending and housing practices that denied them the same access to homeownership.

As you consider the housing needs in front of you today, what assumptions about cost, construction, and access deserve another look?

Today, another challenge deserves your attention: making sure a home works for the particular veteran who lives there.

A thank-you matters. So does learning how your work might better serve someone who served.

Not every veteran needs an adapted home. For those who do, the starting point is a conversation with the person who will live there.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs publishes a Handbook for Design specifically addressing specially adapted housing. It includes guidance for architects, residential designers, and builders on planning homes around a veteran’s individual needs.

This week, download the handbook and begin with its design sections. Choose one recommendation and consider how it would change a plan on your drawing board—not as a substitute for understanding a future client, but as preparation for asking better questions.

​Download the VA’s Handbook for Design (PDF) (See the PS)

A drawing can't express the full measure of our gratitude. But listening carefully to the person who will live inside it is one place to begin.

To everyone who has served: thank you.