Double Amputee Army Veteran Now Serves in Washington DC

Army Veteran, Double-Amputee Finds New Battlefield in DC
ABC News
By LIZ ALESSE
Jan 27, 2017

Florida Congressman Brian Mast says he decided to run for office on a day seven years ago when he woke up in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The Army bomb technician had been serving in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as part of the Joint Special Operations Command. “We came to a place on the battlefield that I told my guys I was pretty sure that there was a bomb buried somewhere there,” Mast said. “I found it in a way I didn’t intend to.”

Mast stepped on an improvised explosive device and lost both of his legs and his left index finger in the blast. His injuries ended his 12-year military career, but not his commitment to service. “The most important lesson my father ever gave me was very shortly after I was injured,” Mast recalled.

“He said, 'Brian, you can't let this keep you down ... You cannot let your kids see you sitting on your butt regardless of what happened to you, because your kids will think it’s an OK way for them to go through their life. That's when I decided the most important fight of my life could be here in Washington, D.C. in another capacity.”
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