Republican New York Rep. Tom Reynolds announced yesterday that he would not be seeking reelection in the fall. This comes amidst a wave of Republican retirements from the House in a year when things were already looking grim down ticket. The Democrats are putting up an antiwar vet, Jonathan Powers, for that seat, with the support of MoveOn.org and the antiwar VoteVets.org. Now for the good news, K-Lo reports, and we can confirm, that Army SSG David Bellavia (Ret.) "is strongly considering a run for the Reynolds' vacated congressional seat.'" I had the chance to speak to Bellavia a while back for a piece I was working on about Iraq war veterans who might become tomorrow's political leaders. Of all the folks I spoke with, Bellavia was by far the most impressive, even though at the time he seemed to entertain no real interest in running for political office. Here's what I wrote about him a while back on The Blog:
Bellavia served in Iraq in 2004 before returning to co-found Vets for Freedom. He saw the worst of Iraq during his tour, describing his time there as 12 months of "gruesome, house-to-house combat." He was in Fallujah in November 2004, participating in the battle to retake that insurgent stronghold, when his unit walked into an ambush. The house they were clearing was filled with insurgents, but that only became apparent after several bursts of gunfire forced his comrades back onto the street, leaving him trapped in the house. Bellavia said of that day, "they started coming at me on at a time . . . it ended up in a hand-to-hand struggle." There were six terrorists in the house, and Bellavia lived to write the book. As for the bad guys, "72 virgins across the board," Bellavia said. He now sees himself as an "instigator and equalizer countering the doom and gloom" message of the antiwar crowd. "I pacified the jihadists . . . we carried the water, we did the worst of the fighting, and we're back with a positive message."
Bellavia killed the last bad guy with a pocket knife and was nominated for the Medal of Honor for his conduct that day. You can get a copy of Bellavia's book, House to House, here, and you'll want to keep an eye on this race. Two Iraq war veterans battling it out on the most important issue of the day--that has to be good for everybody, and there isn't a single guy back from that war with a more impressive story to tell than Bellavia.