Retired intelligence officer says deficit of DC leadership led him to run for Congress
Salena Zito
Video Embed
STAFFORD, Virginia — For 14 generations, Jon Myers’s family has called Virginia home. In that time, it has also had a family tradition that responds to the call to service to this country that traces back to before the Revolutionary War.
Myers is no exception.
MASSACHUSETTS TEACHERS UNION WANTS TO END STANDARDIZED TEST REQUIREMENT FOR GRADUATION
The career military man and intelligence officer spent three decades at the heart of some of the most perilous times in modern military history. His last assignment before he retired in 2020 was as an intelligence officer under Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and he had been in the thick of the American response to the terrorist attacks in Benghazi and the rescue of Capt. Scott O’Grady from Bosnia.
Two years ago, ahead of the botched American drawdown from Afghanistan, Myers was living in Germany with his wife, who was stationed there. He conducted an exhaustive effort to get American citizens and green card holders connected with Marines in Afghanistan out of the country before the Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline.
Myers had been working with two other retired Marines, Katy Garroway of Maryland and Rico Reyes of Texas, to operate a mission to get as many U.S. citizens, green card holders, and journalists left stranded when the last military plane exited the airport in Kabul. He said that “gut wrenching” moment is what has ultimately led him to run for Congress from his home state.
“I know what happened in the final days in Afghanistan. I saw President Biden call it an “extraordinary success,’ and that is not what an extraordinary success looks like, and yet Democrats accepted that as leadership,” he said in an interview with the Washington Examiner.
“That is not leadership,” he said.
Now, Myers is seeking the Republican nomination in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District, where the incumbent is Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA).
In July, Politico reported that Spanberger has told multiple people she will run for governor in 2025 and not seek reelection next year for Congress, adding an announcement would not likely come until after the November election, where the legislative races in her state could determine who holds the majority in state government.
Last year, Spanberger narrowly won the Virginia 7th
District race when she faced Prince William County supervisor Yesli Vega. The district is considered one of the most important races for the House majority next year for each side to win; the Cook Report currently ranks the race as “leans Democrat.”
An open seat could give a Republican an opportunity in this swing district.
Myers said his fury with the system began when he was the officer in charge to go into Libya in 2012 to protect the U.S. Embassy and the consulate after the terrorist attacks.
“It is absolutely true that there was a force of U.S. Marines designated to go in to protect them, and I can say with absolute certainty that the Clinton State Department refused to allow us to send in a robust force; in truth, we were scaled back so much that the Marines went in on chartered buses, unarmed and weeks too late,” he explained.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Myers said that the State Department told him sending armed Marines in on tactical aircraft would “send the wrong message.”
Myers said that started him on his journey to run for office, “Because good men and women must step up, even if it wasn’t our plan to do so,” he said.