This year the race for the Virginia 7th District US House of Representatives seat being vacated by Abigail Spanberger pits two Army Veterans against each other in what is turning out to be a very competitive race. On the Republican side Derrick Anderson is currently a National Guard Special Forces Major who spent 8 years on active duty as an Infantry and Special Forces Officer. He was born and raised in the 7th District and has deep roots in the community with local Conservative Republican values. he graduated from Courtland High School in Spotsylvania Courthouse and Virginia Tech. Anderson is a lawyer having graduate from the prestigious Georgetown University Law Center.
His opponent on the Democrat side for the seat is Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, a retired Army Judge Advocate General Corps Lieutenant Colonel who spent his early years as an Infantry officer before going to Law School and transferring into the JAGC. He was born in the Ukraine and grew up in New York City with local Liberal Democrat values. He graduated from FDR High School in Brooklyn and the State University of New York at Binghamton. Vindman only moved into the 7th District in 2016 as a result of him being assigned to the Pentagon and then the White House. Vindman is a graduate of the University of Georgia Law School.
For a quick comparison of their background:
Anderson is still a serving National Guard Army Special Forces Major with 8 years of active duty and multiple Southwest Asia tours including a 15-Month “Surge” tour in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. He is an Airborne Ranger with a Combat Infantryman’s Badge (CIB) and Bronze Star among other awards. He is also a graduate of the elite Special Forces Qualification Course and has had multiple SF commands and deployments to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Jordan, Israel, and Lebaron. Between combat tours he served 2 years in the elite “Old Guard” at Arlington National Cemetery.
Although Vindman served as an Infantry Officer for almost 10 years, he never had an Infantry command nor went into combat as an Infantryman but after becoming a JAG he did manage to spend 5 months in Iraq as a Captain Law of War advisor in the relatively safe Baghdad Green Zone. While in Iraq he was never in combat nor fired his weapon although in his campaign literature he bragged about firing an assault weapon in combat. It should be noted that he received NO combat awards for his service and that almost all of his contemporaries served at least three (3) combat tours between Iraq and Afghanistan. As a JAGC Officer, Vindman served mostly in Stateside assignments although he did have one overseas tour in Germany.
Vindman was promoted to Colonel before retiring but was demoted to retire as a Lieutenant Colonel because he did not qualify to retire in that higher grade. He now refers to himself as “a former Army colonel” after being exposed to public ridicule for falsely referring to himself as: “Colonel Eugene Vindman, US Army Retired” and “Retired Army Colonel Vindman” on his campaign website and other and places. He is officially on the retired rolls as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Contrary to the misinformation being circulated by Liberal sources that LTC Vindman was somehow "forced to retire," the fact is NO one, not even Trump forced Vindman to retire and in fact, he retired in 2022 when Biden was president. Vindman submitted a waiver requesting to be allowed to retire in the grade of COL/06 but it was denied by the Biden administration. This was consistent with normal practice as there have only been two waivers approved for officer to retire in a higher grade without serving the required Time-in-Grade in the past 35 years and one was when President Obama allowed GEN Stanley McCrystal to retire as a 4 Star General.
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A good indication of how successful an officer’s career was is by looking at the Awards, Decorations and Badges they amassed over their time in service. Here is a quick comparison of the recognition for both their service:
