Rep. Matt Van Epps: From West Point to War Zones to Congress

But everybody kind of goes to the same spot so that was kind of funny to see.

I mean, made the new guy mistaken a couple of times.

“I think it's sitting in some folks that have been there for quite a while, and they were very kind about it.”

But I moved a few down as I was there. I've tried to circulate around and just meet as many people as possible. But that was surprising. You know, our freshman class, the 119th freshman class, is really outstanding. It's a great group.

And that has been a, you know, I think just very welcoming. They pulled me in. I'm not the newest guy, but one of the newest guys, and they pulled me in. And I've started to really strong relationships. And it has been, we've really worked to try to meet as many as many folks in colleagues as possible.

And one of the things that's helped with that is I played in the Congressional Baseball game with Love Baseball Road up. Americans are capable of achieving extraordinary things when they have the freedom and opportunity to do so. This is American Potential. Everyone, welcome to the American Potential Podcast. I'm your host, David from. You know, one of the great things about America is that you don't have to spend your entire life in one career just to a month thing.

You know, if you want to choose a new opportunity, change careers or, you know, answer different calling, you can. That's exactly what our guest today has done. He graduated from one of the toughest military academies in the country, flew helicopters for the Army, served in state government, and now represents Tennessee's seventh district in Congress. On top of all that, he's still serving the Tennessee Air National Guard.

Today, we'll hear about his journey, what inspired a life of service and why he continues to answer the call. I want to welcome to the podcast, Congressman Matt Van Epps. Congressman, welcome. Hey, David, so good to be with you. I really appreciate you and on here today. Thanks. Well, we appreciate you joining and I'm totally looking forward to our conversation.

So, you know, you ended up, you attended West Point, super prestigious.

“And in fact, I believe you were the class of 9/11, is that right?”

That's right.

That's a pretty amazing thing.

So, what made you want to join the Army, go to West Point? Absolutely. Well, it goes back to how I was raised. My mom was born very poor, where if she got an orange for Christmas, it was a really good year. My dad was drafted into Vietnam. He was a lower middle class. He got drafted into Vietnam and he served as an infantryman in Tunnel Rat in Vietnam with the fourth infantry division as a specialist.

And I had a really hard combat experience. And my mom and dad raised my brother and I have one younger brother who's still active duty Army. But they raised us truly on faith family and freedom. Neither of them went to college, but they really believed in education and those values in love of country. And my brother and I are both West Point graduates because of their dedication.

And that's where my dad got back from Vietnam. Like most Vietnam veterans got spent on a call names. And you know, fortunately America is better now. And when my brother and I got home from Iraq and Afghanistan, we were celebrated. And that's how it should have been.

But my dad never turned his back on his country.

And he loved the flag, loved this country. He literally had we had a flag in our front yard where I grew up. And he put in a bigger flag because it wasn't it wasn't large enough. And that was a true patriot. And like the Toby Key song, you know, he flew a flag in the yard until the day he died.

No, unfortunately. I was thinking that he said that. You know, one of, one of, one of, was one of both of our favorite songs. And that, that upbringing in his experience and that patriotism really planted the seed. Just for our love of country and wanting to serve and to help others.

And my brother, I both just worked really hard to do well in school. And as my dad would tell more stories to the older we got. We felt like West Point was right. And when I drove in in the gate at West Point, I just knew that was the place that I wanted to try to go to school.

And we, I was part of the class of 9/11 and can get into more that. There's a little story with that as well. You know, I, this is such a perfectly titled podcast as well. My dad would be would say grown up. You just work as hard as you can.

You don't have to be perfect. But exceed your work to your full potential. Just work to your full potential.

“And I think they're so, that's such an important lesson.”

Just keep working hard and learn from your lessons and fight for those to your left and right. Well, I definitely want to hear about West Point and the 9/11 class. But for that, I mean, it really strikes me from just listening to you. You know, we look back upon just family history. And sometimes there's just a generation that, that, that changes it all.

You know, they transform that family's trajectory in it.

I mean, you look at the difficult lives that they had. And what that inspired and you and your brother are now going forward. You know, guys, the limit. That's, that's truly inspiring. So I have to share that.

Absolutely. I mean, I think it's the American dream. You, you want what's better for your kids than the last generation. And that my parents worked really hard. And we grew up middle class and it's because of their hard work and effort.

And we didn't want from anything. And that's because they, they knew that they had to put in that work. And that, that hard work and just, and it teaches the right value. And that was about love of country and working hard to support those around us. And to be kind and courteous.

To learn from your mistakes and to get better.

“And that's, that's what I hope for, for my family as well.”

I hope I want my daughter to be, to be better off than, then I was. And for all, all young kids in, for this American experience to continue for the next 250 years. So you went to West Point and you're in a unique class at 9/11. What, what were some of the lessons you learned and then tell us about what it was like to be in that class at West Point? Absolutely.

So we, I, I showed up to West Point reported in on July 2nd, 2001, so before 9/11. And incidentally David, today is our day at West Point. So the brand new, the class of 2030 is, is showed up today. And, and what, what a incredible day.

One, a day you never forget.

It's very hard. And, but we, we showed up with about 1200 cadets, which was a normal class size for that time in 2001. And a few months later after we completed cadet basic training, we were in the first couple of weeks of the academic year. 9/11 happened. And I was in computer science class when a teacher came in.

And as we, anyway, that was alive at that time.

“No, you remember exactly where you were and that experience.”

And just how hard that was to anger the frustration, the fear, the wanting to get back after the terrorist to attack us on that day. And so as we went through the, our West Point experience, we, we knew we were preparing to go to war. We were, we knew we were going to fight the global war on terrorism. And as we got to May of 2005, our graduation month, that class of 1200. There's normal attrition that happens.

Folks will be for academic or other reasons. And we, in May of 2005, a couple of weeks before our graduation, time magazine put three of my classmates on the cover called us the class of 9/11. Well, we get the graduation day on May 28. And we find out that class is entered with 1200 was graduating with exactly 9/11, which is pretty, pretty incredible still gives me goosebumps still to this day. And we knew what we were doing. We knew we were going out the fight in this global war on terror and unfortunately lost a number of classmates in that fight.

But was so, so honored to do it. And I think it truly was an exceptional class at West Point. Well, any lessons in particular that you took away from being at such a storied place? Absolutely.

Leadership is something that you always have to work on. You never just meet your full potential, just kind of always working to exceed your potential.

“And you have to do that as a leader. You're always learning and growing and adapting. And I think that was core.”

It furthered my love of country and fighting truly that duty on our country, that West Point motto and that MacArthur so famously stated that those are the core ideals that we have to live up to. And we asked our sons and daughters, our young folks that are going to West Point that you're going to lead the most precious thing in American. That's American sons and daughters in the combat. And we're going to ask you to do the hard things to protect our country and to fight and win. And that core ethos has never left me. The army values are still present with me every single day.

And you know, there were also, I was very fortunate. I was a political science major, folks on international relations. I got to do an undergraduate fellowship called the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Congress, then was was pretty incredible. And I really really dove into social sciences. And I think a lot of those lessons are very relevant today as we launched our campaign a year ago and have been serving these past six months. So then you go and become a helicopter pilot and end up being deployed to combat.

That's right. Yeah. And it was that time of your life.

First sure. So fortunately, West Point was a great, a great lesson.

And a lot of so many lessons from the Global War on Terror is we were there in these classes. We're coming back, we're able to share so much of their experience. And so I go to Fort Rutger, Alabama and go through flight school, Ranger School, and have do a survival school. And then get to my first unit at Fort Texas.

Got about 10 months worth of training and then deployed to Iraq as a part of the surge in 2008. Was stationed at Camp Tasi just north of Baghdad. And so our area of responsibility was was Baghdad in the surrounding areas. And I did survival school and volunteered for that in Ranger School because I wanted to have those hard experiences to understand what my customer, the ground force soldier, was going through. Then better relate to them and be able to provide that support that we did, which was reconnaissance and direct fires and support of those U.S. forces.

And it was a very formative experience.

“We, I think there were moments of, again, of just uncertainty and anxiety and you lean into your training.”

And you work really hard to deliver on the mission that you're assigned.

And we would always have what we called an air weapons team to Apache's east of the Tiger's River to west of the river.

And we were out looking for those, the enemy that was replacing IEDs and they were launching rockets into the green zone. So we were out searching for them. We were supporting convoys on the ground. And I'll tell you David, I, one of the moments that was most impactful for me in the Iraq deployment with the attack helicopter unit was that despite all this chaos going on. And I was in the air on Christmas Eve as we were in the, on the night shift going into Christmas day.

And we sent one of our air weapons teams back to base because it was so peaceful that night. And I remember the sun coming up on Christmas morning. And this calm and peace that settled in. It was reassuring and reaffirming that our mission there to support US forces and our coalition ground forces was the right mission as we were there to to operate in the global war on terror. Wow, I want to call that pretty cool image.

Being a lot of stuff together there. So you end up doing your deployments and then you got involved in public service. And I suppose serving the military as a former public service for sure, maybe ultimate for them. But then you get involved in public service and politics. What made you want to move in that direction?

Yeah. Well, the after I flew a patchies to, I went on to the 160 especially operations aviation regiment. And I served as a Chinook pilot there to pulling a number of times to Afghanistan, which was another very formative experience working with special operations ground forces.

“And that together with the attack helicopter experience, I think coupled with my background.”

The time at West Point studying political science and social sciences. When I left active duty, I went to work for a veteran owned small business in Nashville and started to get a little bit of that experience. I came up here on the hill a decade ago in 2016 and I did an unpaid fellowship with Senator Grassley's office on health policy. And didn't have a health background, but was really eager and interested to learn more about congressional oversight in the work that that office was doing. And I think that combination of experiences really helped as I move forward.

And I ended up taking a job in the Tennessee Department of Veteran Services. My first job in the public sector outside of military service in Tennessee. And I was working, I covered the Western 30 counties in Tennessee for veteran services, the field offices, state veteran and cemeteries. Anything veteran related.

And it was, that was also an amazing experience where we got to work with people that were very near and dear to my heart.

Folks who were transitioning out of Fort Campbell veterans from every conflict, even back to Korea World War II. And I love that aspect of service. I love serving those folks as customers. And so went on after that and switched it went to the Tennessee Department of Transportation, served in the governor's office as deputy chief operating officer. And then went back to the private sector to a health care company.

And ultimately was commissioner of general services, led that 400 person agency.

“And that's what I was doing when we made the decision a year ago to launch the campaign.”

But all of those experiences I think, public sector, military, private sector, were very helpful to build the team and the network needed. And to have the experiences, the run a successful campaign for Congress.

And then ultimately to get into office and work to support our constituents and make the best decisions possible.

So as you've entered Congress, what is there anything that surprised you? And two, you know, one of the things that we've highlighted for most of this year is we call the one small step campaign, which is encouraging Americans to take that small step like any one in history has to make America better.

I imagine, you know, ultimately leading a Congress, I mean, that's a huge step, right? And so when you got there, when was there anything that surprised you?

And two, you know, is it a fulfillment of what you've wanted for your life? And are you feel like you can make the biggest difference that you could have were there other steps that you'd like to take that that would help. That you think will help you be more effective in your service. Absolutely. And this was, this was a very big step. But we, folks, I would encourage folks to get involved, get involved in public service, volunteer groups. Anyway, I think that is what it would have tremendous campaign, the one small step. I just, I think it's, it's remarkable and it's been so impactful and, you know, and just getting involved to help and doing your civic duty and responsibility and getting out to vote and ensuring you vote.

“And you're engaging the political process and you're, you're helping folks. I think is, is so important.”

And we, for us, that, one of the cornerstones to, to this, is our team. And that goes back to West Point, the time in special operations and in business and state government is that when you, when you build and form really strong cohesive teams and you lean into the culture, then you, you're able to see just incredible things happen. And that, that's what we did. We were, we were, we've literally been building this plane as we fly it. So in that special action, we, we won on December second last year, blue to DC on the third, got sworn in on the fourth.

And so we didn't have that normal time to, to prepare and build the team. Wow. And so we were, we were, we were building, we were hiring and interviewing all, all with an objective to get the team up and running to get our district offices back open as fast as possible to serve our constituents.

“And so we, we've hired just an incredible team. I'm so proud of them.”

And in the first quarter, we visited all 14 of our counties, which was a goal that we had.

And we, we spent the first quarter legislatively on a single bill. I made a campaign promise that the first bill that I would do would be for veterans, for gold star families. So we spent a, a good amount of time, white boarding, talking to groups, talking to the constituents and stakeholders. And we, we, we came up with the honor of gold star families act. And I'm proud to report that that is a bipartisan bill. 21 co-sponsors, it's supported by the gold star wives, gold star mothers, National Guard Association of the US, source America, a number of organizations.

“We went through the four country caucus that I stood on and got a hundred percent vote from Democrats and Republicans.”

And this bill increases the death gratuity that is, that's that money that's paid to a service member's family after their killed net first week.

Accessory from the current amount of a hundred thousand, the 200,000 provides a cost of living adjustment and then makes it retroactive to January 1st to cover operation epic fury. What we found in our research is that the death gratuity has not been updated in 20 years 2006 was the last time it was increased and it's never kept pace with inflation. We, we knew that no one else was was leading on it in Congress. We thought it was something that we could get done this year. I'm, I'm so thankful that we've had co-leads Republican and Democrat co-leads that have stepped up to lead on this language from our bill has been included in the National Defense Authorization Act in, in the house.

So we think that this is going to move forward, center she is introduced the bill in the Senate, so it's got a companion bill. And I'm just proud of the team because that was our effort in our first three months in office. To see the team come together and it worked really hard to get that done has been great for us. It's been a, it's been a small step in the, in the right direction. And we've got a whole lot more work to do. But that was the first thing that we wanted to do to build momentum and to fulfill a campaign promise. So very proud of the team for that.

We've introduced five bills total so far. So after the first three months, we've got four others. We've let out a bill. I'm on the homeland security and science-based and technology committees. We've let out bills out of both of those. So a lot more work to do to deliver results, but we're I'm very proud of the team for this, this strong start. That's so fabulous here. We've talked to a lot of veterans on this podcast, you know, different issues. And you know, unfortunately, a lot of times it's how our government seems to not honor the promises we've made to the mental women who have served.

And gosh, I mean, we try my gold star families. They made the ultimate sacrifice. And so I, I applaud you for that because it's great to hear about hopefully something working to help, you know, veterans and these families. So I hope that that's successful. That's pretty fabulous.

You know, other than him pulling down the class, I mean, how has the rest gone?

Yeah, so you asked to what was been most surprising. You know, one of the things David that's been surprising is I, you know, got here and people were helping me figure out Tim, Tim Berkshire pulled me up to the front head of show me this on day one, literally day one. This is how you, I didn't have my voter, my voting card. So I couldn't vote electronically. You had to show me this is how you vote like you pull the green card for yes. It's pretty simple. So I've been walked through all of that and, but you know, one of the things it is that being on the house floor, everybody kind of goes to their same seats.

We don't have a sign seeding as you know, but everybody kind of goes to the same spot. So that was, that was kind of funny to see. I mean, made the new guy mistake a couple of times.

“I think, in sitting in, in some folks that have been there for quite a while and I, they were very kind about it, but I moved moved a few down as I was there.”

I tried to circulate around and just meet as many people as possible, but that was that was surprising. You know, our freshman class, the one 19th freshman class is really outstanding. It's a great group and that has been a, you know, I think just very welcoming. They've pulled me in as, I'm not the newest guy, but one of the, one of the newest guys and they, they pulled me in and I've started to really strong relationships. And it has been, we've really worth to try to meet as many as many folks and colleagues as possible.

And one, one of the things that's helped with that is I, I played in the congressional baseball game with love baseball note. My, my dad was back in my dad. He was a big baseball fan and, and so I played since I was four years old and played in high school. And so that was a great experience to meet meet other members. I otherwise wouldn't have met and let me just tell you David, it was, you know, it was probably my happy place in the national's ballpark being able to run in the outfield with my young, my daughter's almost two.

And she loves to run right now and so be able to hold her hand and run right before the game in the outfield. And to be there with my wife and my full team are team from the district game and back to building strong teams. We wanted to use that as a team building experience. So everyone was there together. We had with team jerseys made.

And to be there and it's a, what a, what a great game. It been played for over a hundred years at raised $3.2 million. The most ever raised for charity.

Right. And we won. And we won. So we won 11 to two. I got, I got to score two runs. So that was really fun slid in the second base. And so what, what a, what a fun experience and something really positive bipartisan. There was. There was for charity. And so, you know, from my, from my view point, we Republicans have to have to continue to build up that momentum and win and we're going to keep winning through the midterms.

“We got a little bit of momentum. You know, I believe Mark Sashar is going to win from Texas. So former all stars.”

That's a good. That's a good recruit. And so this is six years in a row. And, and we've, we've got to keep that moving and mark. I met him a couple of weeks ago. What a nice guy. And I, I think that's a guaranteed home runner walk each plate of parents, probably. All right. Yeah. That's, that's a ringer if I ever heard one. But hey, so it goes. Well, that was, that's fabulous. What a cool event. And I couldn't, when I heard how much it raised for charity, I was really kind of blown away by that. So what, what a fun cool thing. So,

Well, I, I really appreciate the work that you're doing on behalf of your constituents. I also loved, you know, the reason we wanted to kind of talk to you is just like a lifetime of service that you've identified and like carry on. I mean, you're still a young guy who's just doing great things to help people. And,

“whether it's serving in the military, you know, serving in the state or serving in Congress,”

I would forward to watching all the great contributions that you make. So, thanks so much for being with us.

David, thank you. I mean, I'm, I'm just, I'm so blessed. I've had so many amazing mentors and teachers over the year and teams that have invested in me.

And, uh, and just, I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful for the Tennessee 7th congressional district. Just amazing people that have given me this opportunity to serve. And we're going to take the same work ethic that we had in the campaign in this first six months and we're going to, we're going to keep driving forward as, as hard as we can. I'm also very grateful for the partnership with AFB, all the work that you do. It's an amazing organization that is on the forefront of opportunity and freedom and pushing that.

And we want to, we want to be a part of that and help however we can. I'm very grateful for that and this, this awesome podcast as well. Well, thanks. You appreciate it. You know, I live in, uh, outside of Chicago in Illinois. And I can tell you that many of my friends and neighbors are moving into your congressional district because it's a great place. It really is a great place. Well, we appreciate that we want them all. Please give it, we can move, move in. We, we think it's a great area in Nashville and surrounding and strong conservative values and we're going to keep fighting hard to make that the case.

I appreciate that a lot.

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“Always remember, liberty and freedom are easily taken for granted. Don't take it for granted. Go out there and defend freedom.”

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