Learning to value freedom, equality drove Ernst’s career
Learning to value freedom, and making sure men understand she is their equal, helped Joni Ernst to achieve the career success she has.A veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, now-U.S. Sen. Ernst, R-Iowa, retired from the Iowa Army National Guard in 2015 as a lieutenant colonel and spoke of her experience in response to a question from Superintendent Jay Jurrens.An undergraduate exchange trip to what’s now independent Ukraine under the former Soviet Union in 1989 turned out to be formative to her career path, Ernst indicated on a visit last week to New Hampton Middle School.— For more on this story, see the Nov. 16 New Hampton Tribune.