U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser is taking a break from the campaign trail in Colorado to report for duty in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.
Keyser, an intelligence officer who served two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaves for Florida on Saturday where he will assist Southern Command’s counterterrorism efforts.
Keyser resigned his seat in the Colorado state House of Representatives and his corporate lawyer position at the law firm Hogan Lovells for the chance to challenge Democratic incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet this November.
He has centered his campaign on national security issues, citing Bennet’s support for the Iran nuclear deal as the driving force behind his candidacy.
"Serving in uniform, other than being a father, has been the most fulfilling thing I’ve done with my life," Keyser told the Washington Free Beacon. "It’s been a big part of my life, obviously, because I joined the military when I was 18 and my entire adult life I’ve been either active or a member of the [U.S. Air Force] Reserves. I’ve had a top secret security clearance my entire adult life."
Keyser said he will be back on the campaign trail Thursday, where he is "all in" to defeat Bennet. But he said he does not take the opportunity to serve his country for granted.
"The fact that I’m still able to serve in the Reserves, it’s just very important to me and it’s important to my family," Keyser said. "Winning this race, and serving Colorado, serving our country in the U.S. Senate, will be an extension of that public service because I really think it’s important to have leaders in Washington, D.C., understand the threats that we face at home and abroad and are ready and willing to do what it takes to keep our nation and Colorado safe and secure and economically prosperous. And that’s what I will do."
Keyser will have two more weeks of Reserve duty before the election. His latest assignment will focus on issues surrounding Guantanamo Bay, terrorism financing, and fighting ISIS recruiting efforts.
"I’m assigned to Southern Command—that’s Central and South America," he said. "What we focus on in Southern Command is a couple of things. One is making sure that we understand the nature of the threats that we face. Part of the area of operations we work in includes Guantanamo Bay, people that are there. The people in the Caribbean, which has been a place where we’ve seen hotbeds of ISIS recruiting, even coming from places like Trinidad and Tobago."
"And there’s been a lot of issues of terrorism that have popped up to our south," Keyser said.
As a Captain in the Air Force, Keyser was awarded the Bronze Star after participating in 31 direct action and counter-terrorism missions, which resulted in the "capture or elimination of 107 high-value enemy individuals," in Baghdad in 2006 and 2007. "He was frequently subject to lethal direct and indirect enemy rocket, small arms and mortar fire," according to his medal citation.
"When I’m talking about immigration, when I’m talking about national security, these aren’t things that I’ve just read about in a book or in Foreign Policy magazine," he said. "These are issues that I’ve been working on my entire adult life."
Keyser carries his two tours of duty in the war on terror with him and said he hopes to change Congress from the inside out by having more veterans being elected to public service.
"The [stories] that stick out in my mind the most are from the friends that I’ve lost that have been killed," he said. "They are all people that raised their hand and volunteered to serve our country at a time of war, knowing full well that the thing that they were doing may cost them their life. And in many cases it did."
"I think about millennials now, they’ve never known anything different than war. We’ve been at war for the longest period in American history, and yet we have at the same time, the smallest percentage of elected leaders in Washington, D.C., that have served in combat. That’s really concerning to me."
Keyser blasted Bennet’s support for the Iran nuclear deal and his three votes against legislation that would have blocked terrorists in Guantanamo Bay from being moved to prisons in the United States.
"We have an administration right now, supported by Michael Bennet, that is making deals with our enemies and is making our friends no longer trust us," he said. "As somebody who has served in the Middle East...somebody who has seen this enemy up close and looked them in the eyes, they’ve killed my friends, I know that there is such a thing as good and evil in this world."
Keyser said Bennet has blindly supported President Obama’s foreign policy agenda, including the nuclear deal that gives up to $150 billion in sanctions relief to Iran. The administration recently admitted it has no way to track whether the $3 billion in unfrozen assists already delivered is being used for terrorist activities.
"Michael Bennet has shown his commitment again and again to do more for, frankly, the economy in Iran than he has to help the economy in Colorado," Keyser said.
Keyser would join fellow Republicans Tom Cotton (Ark.), a combat veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Joni Ernst, the first female combat veteran elected to the Senate, in the upper chamber with a win this fall. But first he has to survive a crowded primary of Republican candidates vying to challenge Bennet in the June primary.
Keyser hopes to capitalize on the outsider wave running through the electorate this cycle. He grew up on the Western Slope the son of a construction worker in a working-class family. After active service in the Air Force, Keyser paid his way through law school by working as a roughneck on an oil rig.
"When you compare a guy like Michael Bennet with a guy like me, he’s a guy that learned his life lessons on politically correct Ivy League campuses and prep schools," he said. "I learned the value of hard work at a very early age and I learned that nothing is given to you in life."
"I’ve had to work very hard to get to where I am and I’m continuing to work hard every single day," he said. "It’s really resonating well with voters because people are so tired of the status quo in Washington."