One vision of American military power is to retain our service personnel at the homeland in order to better capture their economic outflows when they spend money and receive the social and cultural benefit of their presence. Maybe they want to launch a business after getting out of the military.

We can treat our state like a salt cavern that can be filled with an economically strategic resource: people who receive training and money from the U.S. Department of War.

When Mr. Trump tried to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, three senators including one whom I respect — Mr. Markey — made the wrong call and wrote a letter against the better interest of this country. The Oklahoman is no stranger to resource flows shared with the world. Our state’s interweaving with the military history of the United States is a cultural deep.

Economically, vocationally, and culturally, Oklahoma can enrich itself by pursuing a two-pronged hearths and homes doctrine: formally establish a standing argument for why Oklahoma is a world-class home for bases, and express a financial argument for why bringing American military personnel to Oklahoma is a capital injection in the hearth.