Incoming congressional members include 19 veterans

Tori Richards

December 31, 04:00 AM December 31, 04:00 AM

Veterans will have a big presence in the 118th Congress as 19 newly elected veteran members will join the ranks of high-profile military advocates like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Reps. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Brian Mast (R-FL).

The new slate includes the first black West Point graduates along with two women, which will bring the number of serving female veterans to seven.

Sixteen of the incoming veterans are Republican. They will all join the House except for J.D. Vance of Ohio, who was elected to the Senate.

"Working with somebody who you build that trust with, at West Point and at war, will be essential to move this nation forward," Rep. John James (R-MI) told Politico.

James flew 750 combat hours in Iraq while serving as an Army Ranger. He ran for the Senate in 2018 and 2020 before securing a victory in the House this year.

“Diversity in the Republican Party is not the best,” Rep.-elect Wesley Hunt (R-TX) said to the New York Times. “If you don’t have people like me, and women, stepping up and saying it’s actually OK to be a person of color, then we’re going to lose the next generation.”

Hunt’s service mirrors James's: They both graduated from West Point in 2004, and Hunt was an Apache pilot in Iraq with an additional deployment to Saudi Arabia.

The women who were elected are Jen Kiggans (VA) and Anna Paulina Luna (FL) — both Republicans.

Kiggans was a Navy pilot deployed to the Persian Gulf, and Luna served stateside as an airfield manager for the Air Force.

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Two other high-profile members joining Congress are retired Navy SEALs: Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, who attended the Jan. 6 Trump rally but left before the mob descended on the Capitol, and Ryan Zinke of Montana, who served in the Trump administration as interior secretary. Both are Republican representatives, Military.com reported.

Pew Research looked at the new Congress and found that 80 House members and 17 senators will be veterans. Only seven in the group will be women. They range in age from being in their 30s (9) to 80s (3) with the majority in their 40s (31).