BATON ROUGE, La. – An Afghan War veteran recently elected to Congress has received widespread publicity for his pledge to add new mosques and civil affairs projects to his district.
Adrian O'Connor (R) from southern Louisiana is one of the several dozen candidates newly-elected to Congress earlier this month. A former Major from the Army's 25th Infantry Division, he is also one of 22 veterans from Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom who will be seated in the upcoming 114th Congress.
However, unlike his peers, O'Connor brought all his deployment expertise home to the campaign trail.
"Counterinsurgency is basically just running for office while getting shot at, so it's kind of like representing the south side of Chicago," O'Connor joked as Duffel Blog spoke with him at his campaign headquarters, a heavily-fortified compound overlooking a strategic bridge and highway near Baton Rouge. Giant "O'Connor for Congress" signs still adorned the various crew-served weapons that provided overlapping fields of fire on all possible entrances.
