When I first met now-Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), the current chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, he had just left his last military service billet as the Chief of Emergency Medicine at Blanchfield Army Hospital. Prior to that, he had served as a Special Operations flight surgeon for the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne). At the time, in addition to running a very successful business, he was also a member of our Tennessee State Senate. We met to discuss an appointment to the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center’s Honorary Board with other distinguished Veterans. We are grateful to have his leadership on our Board.

Mark has a compelling life story.

He grew up “dirt road” poor just across the Mississippi line, south of Jackson, Tennessee. His future prospects were dim, but with the encouragement of his parents and others, there was no stopping his drive to success.

Of his early life, Mark told me: “I worked various jobs because I had to, helped my dad roof houses for extra money. I always had a job, even when I was on the baseball team or in the band playing saxophone. My dad lost his arm when I was in first grade, and the company he worked for told him he was half a man and was only gonna pay him half a salary. So literally, he roofed houses with his left arm, with me as his right arm, to barely make ends meet.”

Mark says, “The determination I learned from watching my dad roof houses with one arm has stayed with me all my life.”

Regarding his path to the U.S. Military Academy, “I did very well in high school and wanted to go to a good college but couldn’t afford it, so had to find a way to get it paid for. West Point seemed like a really good deal, but my parents were concerned that I would not get accepted and told me so — which only motivated me more. I made it in, and when I got to West Point, I fell in love with the Army!”

At West Point, he earned what he quantified as a “soft degree” in quantitative business, the Army’s lingo for economics. After graduating in 1986 and completing ranger school, he served as an infantry officer — rifle platoon leader, scout platoon leader, and battalion adjutant — with the 194th Armored Brigade at Fort Knox. While there, Mark earned a graduate certificate in systems management from USC. After the Infantry Officer’s Advance Course, then-CPT Green served as a battalion supply officer and rifle company commander with the 82nd Airborne Division.

While he was in command in the 82nd, inspired by the team of surgeons who had saved his father’s life many years earlier, Mark went to medical school, graduating in 1999 and completing his residency in emergency medicine at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2002. And it was then that he was selected as the flight surgeon for the 160th SOAR (A). He served a tour in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom and two in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In Iraq, Mark was the Special Operations flight surgeon for Operation Red Dawn, the mission that captured Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. On the night of his capture, Saddam was placed under Green’s supervision, and Mark spent six hours questioning him — the subject of his book, A Night With Saddam.

Shortly after retiring with a distinguished Army record, Mark founded and served as CEO of Align MD, a staffing company for hospital emergency departments. He also founded Two Rivers Medical Foundation, providing healthcare to underserved people worldwide through medical missions. TRMF also operated a free medical clinic in Memphis and one in Clarksville, Tennessee, Mark’s hometown.

With his military service behind him and having done well in the private sector, he paid it forward in 2012 by running for and being elected to a seat in the Tennessee Senate, where he served for six years. One of his most notable achievements was the successful legislative effort to repeal Tennessee’s income tax — only the second time in American history that a state has repealed its income tax. Tennessee is now rated as one of the most fiscally responsible states.

In April 2017, President Donald Trump nominated Mark for Secretary of the Army, but his nomination would be short-lived. During the vetting process, Green was criticized for his candid assessment regarding so-called “transgender” people, having correctly said years earlier, “If you polled the psychiatrists, they’re going to tell you that transgender is a disease.”

That comment did not comport with the gender-confusion orthodoxy of what I refer to as the “heterophobic gender deniers” in the Democrat Party and their Leftmedia public relations platforms. They mobilized to ensure Mark would not be appointed, but in the end, he fell on his own sword, withdrawing from consideration rather than becoming a distraction to Trump’s agenda.

A year later, he ran for and was elected to Congress from Tennessee’s 7th congressional district, including broad support from military families at Ft. Campbell. He was reelected in 2020 and 2022 in landslide votes despite the Democrats’ best efforts to unseat him. He now faces former Nashville Mayor Megan Barry this year. (You can support the Green campaign here.)

In January 2023, after only four years in the House, he became Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, where he has led the frontline challenge to the deadly Biden/Harris policies opening our southern border to mass illegal immigration Notably, that policy has been overseen by now-Demo presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who was Biden’s inept “border czar.”

In the current 118th Congress, there are 80 House Veterans and 17 Senate Veterans. About 75% of those Veterans are Republicans, and a large majority of them served deployments in combat zones. Their service stands in stark contrast to that of Harris’s stolen valor running mate, Tim Walz.

Among those combat Veterans, Mark Green’s service, sacrifice, and congressional leadership are outstanding. Regrettably, his service and sacrifice have come at great personal cost, and I would ask your prayers for his family.

MAJ Mark Green: Your example of valor — a humble American Patriot defending Liberty for all above and beyond the call of duty, and in disregard for the peril to your own life — is eternal.

(Read more Profiles of Valor here.)

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776

Follow Mark Alexander on X/Twitter.

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Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of American Liberty, honoring their oath “to support and defend” our Constitution. Pray for our Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please consider a designated gift to support the National Medal of Honor Sustaining Fund through Patriot Foundation Trust, or make a check payable to “NMoH Sustaining Fund” and mail it to:

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