Tampa, Fla. — In case you missed it, Luke Wilhelm, a North Florida U.S. Navy Veteran published an op-ed in Bay County Coastal entitled, “I Took an Oath to Defend America – Sen. Ashley Moody is Honoring My Service in Washington.”
Read the op-ed by Luke Wilhelm HERE or below:
“I enlisted in the United States Navy when I was eighteen years old.
I did it because I believed in something. That freedom was worth fighting for. Worth sacrificing for and worth dying for, if it came to that.
I came home from my service with a different understanding of what this country means, not just to Americans, but to the world.
I have been to places where freedom does not exist. Where people disappear in the night for saying the wrong thing. Where children grow up never knowing what it feels like to live without fear.
Every time I came home and stepped foot on American soil, I got down on my knees and thanked God that I was an American.
That is why this election matters so much. And that is why I am voting for Senator Ashley Moody.
Veterans like me do not ask for much.
We ask for our country to keep its promises: the benefits we earned, the healthcare we deserve, and leaders in Washington who remember what sacrifice actually looks like.
For too long, Washington has taken veterans for granted – treating our benefits as a line item in their budget and our service as a photo opportunity.
I have watched friends, good men and women, people who have run toward the sound of gunfire without hesitating, spend years fighting their own government just to get the care they earned.
It makes me furious and I know I’m not alone.
So when I look at a candidate I care about one thing: does this person actually show up for the people who put their lives on the line?
Senator Ashley Moody does.
Senator Moody went to Washington and she got to work immediately.
She introduced the HELPER Act to provide mortgage assistance for law enforcement officers, firefighters, first responders, and teachers to ensure they have the opportunity to live in the communities they spend their lives serving.
She delivered No Tax on Social Security so we can keep more of the money we spent a lifetime earning.
She fought to pass the HALT Fentanyl Act to combat the epidemic ripping our communities apart and killing our children and she subsequently introduced the PRESS Act to stop the manufacturing of the drugs turning our neighborhoods into graveyards.
Senator Moody is getting things done.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are pushing a movement to defund law enforcement, weaken our military, and open our borders and that movement did not just come from anywhere.
It came from a political agenda that has never understood what service and sacrifice actually costs.
I have buried friends who paid that price and I will not stand by while politicians in Washington dishonor their very memory with policies that make this country weaker and less safe.
Senator Moody gets it.
As the wife of a career law enforcement officer, she understands what it means to send someone you love out of the door every morning not knowing if they’re coming home.
She’s fighting to make sure Washington never forgets that a strong America begins with safe communities, strong borders, and leaders who respect the men and women who have put on a uniform and walked toward danger to protect our freedoms.
That kind of understanding cannot be faked and it cannot be manufactured on a campaign trail.
As I watch my kids grow up in America, I think about the oath I took when I was a young man, ‘to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.’
Nobody told me that oath had an expiration date. Because it doesn’t.
Voting for Senator Ashley Moody this November is how I am honoring my oath.
She has spent her career standing alongside those of us who have served: as a prosecutor, a judge, Florida’s Attorney General, and now as our United States Senator.
She has earned the trust of Florida’s veterans. She has earned my vote. And she will not let us down.”
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