4 Years Ago, I Left Active Duty and Ran For Congress
That was my life exactly four years ago.
If whiplash had a spokesperson, it was me. But for all intents and purposes, I felt fine. Sure, I was leaving a career that I loved, having served with honor for more than a decade. But I was doing something else that I was sure that I’d love and that I’d dreamt of since the first grade: entering the political arena to represent my neighbors in government. I hadn’t anticipated cutting it so close between leaving active duty and starting the campaign; that ended up being more of a function of the military personnel system taking a lot longer than anticipated.
I thought I knew what I was getting into. I had been a political junkie since I was a kid. I had majored in political science at Annapolis. Heck, I even took the Harvard Kennedy School course aptly named “How to Be a Politician.” I did my “rolodexing,” hired (mostly) top-notch campaign consultants, and had started calling friends and family to begin filling my fundraising war chest. Sure, I was looking down a competitive, three-way Democratic primary where I was viewed as an outsider. But I had the plans, knowledge, and belief that nobody was going to work harder than me on the campaign trail.
