{"id":104306,"date":"2023-05-14T17:05:40","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T15:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=104306"},"modified":"2023-05-14T08:15:54","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T06:15:54","slug":"22-05-89","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=104306","title":{"rendered":"Brian Mast: \u2018Proud\u2019 to be only congressman to have worn US Army and IDF uniforms"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Brian Mast: \u2018Proud\u2019 to be only congressman to have worn US Army and IDF uniforms<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

MENACHEM WECKER<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) volunteering on a military base near Tel Aviv in January 2015. Credit: Courtesy.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta get your hands dirty,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cComplaining about what\u2019s going on with the attacks in Israel is not the same thing as going there and helping.<\/strong><\/span>\u201d<\/h4>\n

.<\/p>\n

The anti-Israel activists draped in Palestinian flags in the tony Beacon Hill neighborhood who yelled at and taunted the U.S. Army veteran and his family in Boston\u2019s Public Garden couldn\u2019t have known that they\u2019d be partly responsible for shaping one of Israel\u2019s staunchest defenders in Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this wasn\u2019t just any man upon whom they chose to pick.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not hard to figure out that I\u2019m a veteran. I don\u2019t have any legs, and I wear a hat that says \u2018Army Ranger,\u2019 so most people with half a mind can put two and two together,\u201d Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) told JNS.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, Mast had retired in 2012 after a dozen years of service as an explosive specialist who lost both legs to a bomb in Afghanistan in 2010. He was studying at Harvard University, and he and his then-pregnant wife, Brianna, and their two sons (they now have four children) would go to the picturesque Public Garden in the evenings so the kids could ride their bikes and play in the grass.<\/span><\/p>\n

The protesters, who showed up weekly or so, decided to yell things like \u201cYou\u2019re the big Satan\u201d and \u201cYou\u2019re a pawn\u201d at Mast, the congressman told JNS. Mast, who is Christian, hadn\u2019t followed Israel closely at the time, although he saw references on the news.<\/span><\/p>\n

Rep. Brian Mast (D-Fla.) Credit: U.S. House of Representatives Photo<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The jeers represented the \u201cfirst catalyst\u201d for the congressman\u2019s decision to connect much more deeply with the Jewish state.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese people, who were out there to protest Israel, all of a sudden wanted to pick a fight with me, which is just fine. I don\u2019t mind getting into verbal or physical confrontations with other people,\u201d Mast, 42, a fourth-term congressman representing Florida\u2019s 21st District, told JNS.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first time this fight had really ever been thrown at my feet in that way, where people were trying to drag me into what I was seeing in the news,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mast found their verbal assaults hypocritical. He told JNS that he had said of the attacks on Israel in one of his Harvard classes, \u201cIf it was Mexico or Canada or some Caribbean country firing rockets into America, then guys like me would go and kill them, and every American would be proud of us for doing so.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He came home after enduring the taunts one night and told his wife, \u201cI don\u2019t know what it\u2019s going to look like, but I\u2019m going to find a way, and I\u2019m going to go and show my support for Israel. I\u2019m going to go out there and find a way to fight against this hypocrisy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Complaining is not the same thing as helping\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The congressman is fairly active on social media, where he has often come to Israel\u2019s defense. \u201cI\u2019m proud to be the only member of Congress who has worn both the uniform of the United States Army and the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces, and I\u2019ll continue to stand for the strongest partnership possible between our two countries,\u201d he tweeted<\/a> earlier this month.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May 2021, after Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) accused Israel of terrorism for defending itself against Hamas, Mast read<\/a> dozens of examples of Hamas terrorist attacks into the Congressional Record. Two days later, he tweeted<\/a>: \u201cI served alongside the Israeli military after losing my legs, and so, it\u2019s personal to me when Hamas attacks Israel and House Dems actually defends the terrorists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cIn the military, we have a dark and morbid sense of humor.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

But that\u2019s getting ahead of the story. Back in Boston in 2014, when \u201cOperation Protective Edge\u201d was unfolding in Israel, Mast had a philosophy that recognized the vast gulf between social media and real life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to say I don\u2019t participate in Facebook and Twitter and things like that. Sure, I do. That world is a virtual, fake world of not real work. And I\u2019m not trying to take away from influencers, but it\u2019s not real,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cComplaining about what\u2019s going on with the attacks in Israel is not the same thing as going there and helping.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta get your hands dirty. You gotta get involved in real life,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n

With his wife\u2019s blessing, Mast contacted every advocacy group he could, including the Israeli consulate in Miami, to find a way to volunteer in uniform on an Israeli military base. He got his chance in January 2015, on a base outside Tel Aviv, \u201cto show support for the freedom Israel represents throughout the Middle East and the world,\u201d per his congressional website.<\/span><\/p>\n

He arrived back stateside just in time for his wife to give birth to their third child.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Get my hands dirty\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Masts have four children\u2014all named for references familiar to those who grew up in the 1980s\u2014Magnum (\u201cMagnum, P.I.\u201d), Maverick (\u201cTop Gun\u201d and the 1994 film \u201cMaverick\u201d), Madalyn (3-year-old Madeleine McCann, who was abducted in 2007) and Major (\u201cme being in the military and looking for an \u2018M\u2019 name\u201d).<\/span><\/p>\n

Volunteering on the base near Tel Aviv was his first time in Israel. \u201cI can\u2019t sit here and pretend that I had this longstanding dream of going and walking the footsteps of where David killed Goliath or be baptized in this river. It wasn\u2019t this longstanding dream for me,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen a fight is laid in front of me, I\u2019m going to fight it. And I\u2019m not going to fight it in a virtual way. I\u2019m going to find a way to get my hands dirty and make a real tangible difference.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOne of the most important things that I realized, as we were sitting there to have these Shabbat dinners, every family was waiting for a son or daughter or a grandson or a granddaughter to come home.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In Israel, word spread quickly that a legless U.S. Army veteran was on the base, and people flocked to meet the celebrity visitor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was working very hard, waking up very early every morning. Eating in the chow hall with the troops. Putting on my uniform. Going out there and working,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it became somewhat of a national event. I\u2019m not trying to oversell it. A lot of people read about it and knew there\u2019s this injured American service member over here serving in our military. What\u2019s this all about?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

An \u201cendless stream\u201d of \u201cpeople with access\u201d found its way to him. \u201cI had visits with Yitzhak Rabin\u2019s family,\u201d he said, referring to the former Israeli prime minister and defense minister who was assassinated in 1995. \u201cI had people coming from other bases.\u201d He visited Beit Halochem, House of the Warrior, \u201ctheir place for wounded warriors like myself.\u201d He played wheelchair basketball and shot pool with fellow injured soldiers. \u201cHad that exchange, that fellowship with them,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

He connected particularly with Israeli colleagues who had also been bomb techs (in Yahalom). \u201cThere\u2019s immediate kinship because bomb tech is a very small world of people,\u201d he said. \u201cWorking with some of these people and realizing that we had served with some of the same units throughout the years in different places.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And on weekends, he saw families host \u201clone soldiers,\u201d young people in the IDF who don\u2019t have family in Israel. They invited him to join them on visits to Yad Vashem and elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most important things that I realized, as we were sitting there to have these Shabbat dinners, every family was waiting for a son or daughter or a grandson or a granddaughter to come home for Shabbat,\u201d Mast said. \u201cThat was really one of the biggest ways that I realized how much service over there touches every single family\u2014unlike the way that it does here in America, where we have a very small percentage of people that serve.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That taught him the most important lesson that he took away from Israel. \u201cThey don\u2019t war. They don\u2019t want to have rockets fired at them. They don\u2019t want to go into shelters. They don\u2019t want to hear sirens,\u201d he said. \u201cThey want their kids to grow and have families and survive. As much as I hope all four of my kids serve in the military, I don\u2019t want to see them have to go to war.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mast credited former President Donald Trump (he supports him in the upcoming presidential election, although he said he remains friends with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis) with moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, \u201csomething so simple, but that so many politicians were so afraid of for so many years.\u201d He also praised the 2020 Abraham Accords and called the Iran nuclear deal, which the Trump administration nixed in May 2018, \u201cjust absolute garbage.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bringing military service to the Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asked how his service in the military\u2014for which he earned a Bronze Star Medal and a Purple Heart, among other commendations\u2014informs his work on the Hill, Mast told JNS: \u201cI guess it does in every way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t separate the person and their experiences in life from the way that they advocate for policy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One doesn\u2019t join the military if one worries about personal sacrifice or is motivated by personal gain.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re thinking about what you\u2019re going to get out of it\u2014how you\u2019re going to get rich or famous, a book deal or a movie or whatever, it doesn\u2019t work that way,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mast goes after things \u201ctenaciously,\u201d he told JNS, \u201cjust as hard as I would go after anything in combat.\u201d That doesn\u2019t always make him many friends, \u201cbut that\u2019s the way I do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The best way to tell the difference, generally, between colleagues who have and have not served is their sense of humor, according to Mast.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the military, we have a dark and morbid sense of humor. We can make fun of the fact that I don\u2019t have any legs or the ways that I lost them, or where I can tell someone to stick a prosthetic foot or a host of different things that it seems like everybody else in the world gets all bent out of shape for and doesn\u2019t realize how to take a joke,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe best jokes are the most inappropriate,\u201d he quipped.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Brian Mast: \u2018Proud\u2019 to be only congressman to have worn US Army and IDF uniforms MENACHEM WECKER Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) volunteering on a military base near Tel Aviv in January 2015. Credit: Courtesy. \u201cYou gotta get your hands dirty,\u201d he told JNS. \u201cComplaining about what\u2019s going on with the attacks in Israel is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104306"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104325,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104306\/revisions\/104325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}