INTERVIEW: Rep. Troy Downing's Veterans Day message: "Service is a noble act"
Rep. Troy Downing had an unusual path to military service, and he reflects on why it was all worth it ahead of Veterans Day.
Rep. Troy Downing’s (R., Mont.) path to military service was unconventional, to say the least. Downing, born as the “product of an unplanned pregnancy of an unwed teenage mom” went on to have an extraordinarily successful career in business — but the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, changed his life forever.
“When September 11th hit and this nation was under attack, it made me think: what have I ever done to deserve this country?” Downing asked during an interview with the Washington Reporter shortly before Veterans Day. “This country is one of the few places you can be the product of an unplanned pregnancy of an unwed teenage mom, without family money, without family connections, and be as successful as I was, and I needed to feel like I deserved it.”
Following the Islamic terrorist attacks, his “initial reaction was, I wasn’t sure how to serve, and after a couple of days of thinking about it, I came to conclusion that I needed to serve. I needed to be part of the solution of these terrorists attacking this country that had been so good to me. And so I walked into a recruiter’s office, and I was not prior military, and I had very little knowledge of how it worked or what I was getting into, and I told the recruiter, ‘I used to teach at New York University. I’ve got a pilot’s license. What can you do with me?’ And the recruiter looked me in the eye and said, ‘how old are you?’ And I said, ‘34,’ and he went, ‘good, 35 is the cutoff.’”
Downing, who had no prior military training, reported to boot camp as the “oldest man” there, but emerged as an honor grad, and then he “deployed every time they asked me: I deployed twice to Afghanistan, during Operation Enduring Freedom.”
One of his officers described the work he’d end up doing as “fly[ing] these 22,000 pound helicopters in formation, 50 feet off the deck in the middle of the night with night vision goggles on, and we find busted up kids out in the desert and bring them home.”
To Downing, that sounded just about perfect. Following years of military service, he reflected that “the folks that I served with, the operators, the people doing the missions, were some of the best people, best friends I’ve ever had.”
“It was an incredible honor for me when I was sworn into Congress last January, having a bunch of them come out to celebrate my success in getting into Congress, and it was because these continue to be good friends that still obviously care for me, and I still care for them,” he said. “I was very honored to have them come out to D.C.”
Both as a veteran and as a member of Congress, Downing appreciates what he’s seen from the Trump administration — and he told the Reporter that he’s confident in the administration’s drone strikes against suspected drug traffickers from Venezuela in particular.
“It’s important that we’re not merely being judge and executioner on [this], but I am very confident again, with those Article II powers, and with the intel that we’ve heard from Marco Rubio as well as from the president, that they had clear and convincing evidence that these were bad guys intending to inflict harm on Americans, and they’re essentially terrorists,” Downing said. “What the president is doing is making sure that he’s protecting American citizens and the American military and American interests using his Article II powers right now. And I really look forward to when I have a chance to get more detailed Intel briefings, because I have not had an opportunity to have those, but I have no reason to believe that Marco Rubio acted with anything other than convincing evidence than this was what was been portrayed to be.”
“President Trump, with his Article II authority, and his position as Commander in Chief, has not just a right and ability, but also a duty, to make sure that he’s protecting the nation and our troops in exigent circumstances,” Downing said. “People have argued about his authority, and clearly, he has Article Two authority to do this. That’s not to diminish the congressional powers of declaration of war and everything else that we can do and can get down those rabbit holes, but in terms of some of the things we’ve seen from this president, even going into Iran a few months ago to disable their nuclear capabilities, he has the authority.”
When it came to Iran, Downing explained, “there was very convincing evidence that Iran was a threat and was going to be a huge threat. There were exigent circumstances, and he was within his Article II, not just rights but duties, to make sure that he addressed that.”
Elsewhere on a global stage, the Montana lawmaker added that the part that “actually kind of makes me smile a little bit is that I grew up during the Cold War thinking that Russia was a much more efficient power than it is, that they had at least an equal ability to wage war that the United States does. And when we saw them move into Ukraine, it became really clear that they were not as well equipped and not as well trained as we thought.”
Contrast that with Trump’s success in Iran: “the United States of America went on a mission across the world, went into protected airspace, dropped bombs into pickle barrels to diminish the nuclear capabilities of what would have been a huge issue, not for this country, but for this planet, got out of that airspace, and the Ayatollah found out about it via a presidential tweet,” Downing added. “That’s a tell about the power of the American military, and I think that that’s a good message to have sent.”
All of Trump’s foreign policy wins are a marked contrast with what Downing say under President Joe Biden. Biden’s “Afghanistan withdrawal was, in my opinion, politically motivated by the Biden administration, because he wanted a headline to say, ‘on the 20 year anniversary of Operation Enduring Freedom, I pulled all the troops out,’ and that’s all he thought about was that politically motivated headline, without having any kind of plans, any kind of contingencies, any kind of rational way of doing that.”
“Was it worth it?” Downing asked. “I don’t think so. That’s going to be a tarnish on the American reputation for a long time, and I think that’s something we have to work hard to rebuild. His decision harmed and killed Americans. It was devastating. I think this was one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen in my lifetime in terms of military operation in the United States; there was no plan. It was all politically motivated, and we paid the consequences, not just in the lives, which are obviously horrible losses, but also in the reputation and the ability of us to have allies in future conflicts. If you are not going to do the right thing when pulling out of a country like that, who’s going to help us the next time we need interpreters? The next time we need the folks who helped us there knowing that they’re not going to be left in the cold by the United States in a future conflict, that if they try to put themselves, their families, at risk, to try to help us, that we won’t leave them, that’s going to be a problem. And I think that that damage is profound and is not going to be easily remedied.”
Now as a lawmaker, Downing is working to ensure that veterans and their loved ones are able to mourn those lost during Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal and in every other American conflict.
Downing’s latest legislation, obtained exclusively by the Reporter, is the National Cemetery Access Act, would require national cemeteries to remain during federal holidays. In Downing’s own district, for example, Custer National Cemetery at the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn was closed on Memorial Day.
He explained to the Reporter that this was an essential move, because “those of us who have served, we’ve lost colleagues, we’ve lost friends, we’ve lost family members. And I think it’s particularly interesting that when you want to remember somebody, especially on a holiday, you’re not able to go to certain cemeteries. We remember our loss all the time. We just have a particular holidays where we where we elevate that to a national level. And I’m thinking, on Memorial Day, you want to go to the grave of one of your friends, a family member, somebody that you’ve gone to war with, who unfortunately paid the ultimate sacrifice, you can’t lay a wreath because the federal government has shut that cemetery down. I think it’s silly and unreasonable to not allow people to remember and memorialize and celebrate these sacrifices, these losses, especially on these holidays that are meant to elevate that remembrance.”
While Downing explained that the electoral drubbing that Republicans took last week is not a “harbinger” for 2026, he added that no matter the problems facing America, he believes that “service is a noble act.”
“I’m embarrassed that it took something as profound as the September 11th attacks to make me join to protect this unique and incredible country that we have,” Downing said.
His message to future 34 year old Troy Downings and to 18 year olds who want to join the military alike is that America “is worth fighting for, that [service] is worth participating in, that [America] is worth that service, and I think that more folks should think about that opportunity to serve their country, because not only is it giving back for all of the opportunities that we’re given freely, but there’s so much personal reward in knowing that you’re part of the solution and not part of the problem.”
Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Troy Downing, lightly edited for clarity.
Washington Reporter:
Congressman Downing, you would have what I would say was an unconventional path to military service. We’ll start with the most relevant question for Veterans Day, 2025: tell us how September 11th, 2001 changed the course of your life.
Rep. Troy Downing:
Well, it was a it was an eye opener for me. I came from a family without means, and was very successful. And when September 11th hit and this nation was under attack, it made me think: what have I ever done to deserve this country? This country is one of the few places you can be the product of an unplanned pregnancy of an unwed teenage mom, without family money, without family connections, and be as successful as I was, and I needed to feel like I deserved it. And my initial reaction was, I wasn’t sure how to serve, and after a couple of days of thinking about it, I came to conclusion that I needed to serve. I needed to be part of the solution of these terrorists attacking this country that had been so good to me. And so I walked into a recruiter’s office, and I was not prior military, and I had very little knowledge of how it worked or what I was getting into, and I told the recruiter, ‘I used to teach at New York University. I’ve got a pilot’s license. What can you do with me?’ And the recruiter looked me in the eye and said, ‘how old are you?’ And I said, ‘34,’ and he went, ‘good, 35 is the cut off.’ I was not prior military, I had to go take the ASVAB. I went back, obviously succeeded there. Then I went off to basic training. I just turned 35, so I was the oldest man in boot camp, but I applied myself. I was an honor grad when I got out of basic training, went off to mission qual. I was a distinguished grad out of mission qual in Kirtland in Albuquerque, and then I deployed every time they asked me: I deployed twice to Afghanistan, during Operation Enduring Freedom. I did a lot of domestic work. We did some domestic search and rescue, domestic counter drug work, and I had a little bit of active duty, a whole lot of Air National Guard. But I felt that I showed up for this country that had been so good to me. And I feel that I haven’t completely paid back my debt to this country, but feel like I made a good start there, going and making sure in combat, search and rescue that I was getting folks off the battlefield and getting them home. When I was first recruited, I was talking to Chief Rhodes, and I’m asking about what his mission was. And he says, ‘well, here’s what we do. We fly these 22,000 pound helicopters in formation, 50 feet off the deck in the middle of the night with night vision goggles on, and we find busted up kids out in the desert and bring them home.’ And the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I’m going, ‘that’s me.’ And that started my military career, and it was the first time I had any kind of government job. And it was eye opening. The folks that I served with, the operators, the people doing the missions, were some of the best people, best friends I’ve ever had. And I’ll tell you, it was an incredible honor for me when I was sworn into Congress last January, having a bunch of them come out to celebrate my success in getting into Congress, and it was because these continue to be good friends that still obviously care for me, and I still care for them. So I was very honored to have them come out to D.C.
Washington Reporter:
It’s hard to listen to what you’re saying and not think about how New York City just elected a radical Jew hating Islamist as its Mayor this past week. And I’m curious if you feel like based on that, or based on anything else that you’ve seen in the past 24 years and two months since September 11th, 2001 that Americans have forgotten that day. I think about the song, Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning, and I’m young, but it obviously changed the world, and I’m inspired by stories like yours. Have we lost that?
Rep. Troy Downing:
There’s so much to talk about with what just happened. And I’m going to take it a different direction at first, and then I’ll get back to your question. Nothing in the history of humanity has done more to uplift and create opportunities and improve the human condition than free market capitalism. Nothing has done more to improve the human condition and pull people out of poverty and give them paths to success. And the fact that the seat of American capitalism, New York City, elected a full blown communist, is beyond me. And so that part right there, I’m still trying to understand how we get there, and how people don’t see how ironic that is. First of all, I want to push that out there. And then the second thing is that I want to push out is what you mentioned with the Islamist part. The other thing that amazes me is that New York City, which has probably the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, elected somebody who’s openly anti-Semitic. How does that happen? How does this country get to that point, and the only thing that I can think of is that we need to do a better job on education. We need to make sure that people understand and remember our history as a nation and what we have meant to the world, how we’ve been that shining example. We need to make sure that we don’t squander it. I don’t know how to answer the question on how that happened in New York City. I just don’t have an answer for you other than that folks either don’t remember or are not being educated to how we became that shining city on the hill, how we became that beacon of opportunity. And it’s very, very concerning to me.
Washington Reporter:
How are you thinking about Tuesday’s results in Montana? It was obviously a drubbing for Republicans across the board. How does this change how you’re thinking about 2026, if at all?
Rep. Troy Downing:
Well, I don’t think it’s affecting Montana as much as it will other places, but it does concern me if that starts to catch fire and grow and I’m hoping that it’s not a harbinger. And really, when folks ask me, ‘well, what do you think happened with these elections?’ I’m gonna say ‘first of all, Democrat states are gonna elect Democrats. And Democrat cities, they’re gonna elect Democrats.’ So, I don’t read too much into that part of it. I’ll say with some of the races that we saw, without casting too many stones, it’s really clear that candidates matter, and we have to have quality candidates that are really standing up for American ideals and American conservatism, that really are quality candidates. There was kind of a mix of those two issues out there. I don’t believe that this is a harbinger of this big pendulum swing. I think that it was just unique situations in the elections that we just had. But what we need to do on the Republican side of the aisle is we need to get out there. We need to continue to articulate to everyone who will listen what makes America great, and why this great experiment of ours has been so successful in creating opportunity and wealth and quality of life, and so much that we’ve created because of these ideals of capitalism and free markets, and the fact that there are people who don’t understand that history and think somehow socialism, communism, Marxism, somehow that this time It’s going to work, absolutely it’s not. It’s against human nature. It has not worked and it will not work. And I think a big part of that is getting that message out there that we need to stick to what has made this country great and continue building upon that, rather than allowing that pendulum to swing. I just don’t think that’s a harbinger of what we’re going to see in November. I think that there were specific issues there on the electorate of a lot of these areas and the quality of candidates in some of those races.
Washington Reporter:
One of the big differences between the two parties on a national and international level has been foreign policy, and I’m curious how you think Trump’s foreign policy is going. Obviously, we’ve seen an incredibly muscular posturing in the Western Hemisphere, the bombing of drug boats coming from Venezuela. I just interviewed Rick Crawford from House Intel, and he was talking about how these are incredibly important targets for us to be striking. Can you compare and contrast that, especially with your veteran’s hat on, about what you saw from President Biden and from President Trump on an international stage?
Rep. Troy Downing:
Well, first of all, I can say that President Trump, with his Article II authority, and his position as Commander in Chief, has not just a right and ability, but also a duty, to make sure that he’s protecting the nation and our troops in exigent circumstances. People have argued about his authority, and clearly, he has Article Two authority to do this. That’s not to diminish the congressional powers of declaration of war and everything else that we can do and can get down those rabbit holes, but in terms of some of the things we’ve seen from this president, even going into Iran a few months ago to disable their nuclear capabilities, he has the authority. With Iran, there was very convincing evidence that Iran was a threat and was going to be a huge threat. There were exigent circumstances, and he was within his Article II, not just rights but duties, to make sure that he addressed that. But the other part of that, that actually kind of makes me smile a little bit is that I grew up during the Cold War thinking that Russia was a much more efficient power than it is, that they had at least an equal ability to wage war that the United States does. And when we saw them move into Ukraine, it became really clear that they were not as well equipped and not as well trained as we thought. And I think that was a big tell, that this war that they thought was going to be two or three days is now going on for years, because they are not the power that the world thought they were and I thought that was a good tell. And then, on the other hand, the United States of America went on a mission across the world, went into protected airspace, dropped bombs into pickle barrels to diminish the nuclear capabilities of what would have been a huge issue, not for this country, but for this planet, got out of that airspace, and the Ayatollah found out about it via a presidential tweet. That’s a tell about the power of the American military, and I think that that’s a good message to have sent. Now, going to the other questions about taking out narco terrorists, I think it’s important, that we’re not merely being judge and executioner on something, but I am very confident again, with those Article II powers, and with the intel that we’ve heard from Marco Rubio as well as from the president, that they had clear and convincing evidence that these were bad guys intending to inflict harm on Americans, and they’re essentially terrorists. What the president is doing is making sure that he’s protecting American citizens and the American military and American interests using his Article II powers right now. And I really look forward to when I have a chance to get more detailed Intel briefings, because I have not had an opportunity to have those, but I have no reason to believe that Marco Rubio acted with anything other than convincing evidence than this was what was been portrayed to be.
Washington Reporter:
You were in Congress while Biden was president. What are your thoughts, as an Afghanistan veteran on August 2021, and the aftermath of that?
Rep. Troy Downing:
That is actually the most germane question, right there is how Afghanistan was handled under the Biden administration. The Afghanistan withdrawal was, in my opinion, politically motivated by the Biden administration, because he wanted a headline to say, ‘on the 20 year anniversary of Operation Enduring Freedom, I pulled all the troops out,’ and that’s all he thought about was that politically motivated headline, without having any kind of plans, any kind of contingencies, any kind of rational way of doing that. Was it worth it? I don’t think so. That’s going to be a tarnish on the American reputation for a long time, and I think that’s something we have to work hard to rebuild. His decision harmed and killed Americans. It was devastating. I think this was one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen in my lifetime in terms of military operation in the United States; there was no plan. It was all politically motivated, and we paid the consequences, not just in the lives, which are obviously horrible losses, but also in the reputation and the ability of us to have allies in future conflicts. If you are not going to do the right thing when pulling out of a country like that, who’s going to help us the next time we need interpreters? The next time we need the folks who helped us there knowing that they’re not going to be left in the cold by the United States in a future conflict, that if they try to put themselves, their families, at risk, to try to help us, that we won’t leave them, that’s going to be a problem. And I think that that damage is profound and is not going to be easily remedied.
Washington Reporter:
We’ve seen this in a lot of interviews we’ve done since the Schumer Shutdown started, is with the military and military families and how they are being harmed. You were one of these, and you hear from these communities in Montana. Can you talk about how this Schumer Shutdown has been harming these communities in your state?
Rep. Troy Downing:
It’s absolutely harming. These are folks who signed at the dotted line to fight for this country, and they don’t pick the wars, they don’t pick the conflicts, but they said, ‘hey, if my country calls me, I am going to do my duty and fight for this country in whatever capacity that they’ve signed up for.’ And a lot of these folks, they’re not highly compensated, and they depend on getting their paychecks, and when you start to go unpaid, it has huge effects on the morale, on the health and welfare, and it has huge effects on these veteran communities who have gone above and beyond. Such a small percentage of the overall population of American citizens actually signs up to fight for this country, and that percentage takes such a heavy burden on signing that blank check to the U.S. government, to their country, and they’re now essentially being left out in the cold and not being able to fend for themselves and their families. I think it’s a travesty. And the really difficult part of this is this shutdown is not about policy. This shutdown is about politics. It’s about Chuck Schumer being worried about his political future and making sure that he’s being seen with his base as putting up a fight, and the Democrats are now being very clear that this is their tool to get what they want. And they’ve been very clear that they know that this is hurting families, hurting federal workers, hurting our veterans, because they have a political end here, because they think this is the only lever they have to get those things done. And they’re holding the American people hostage. They’re harming Americans, and they’re particularly harming our military, especially those ones who are not getting those paychecks.
Washington Reporter:
You can name names here, or you cannot name names here. But in our interview with August Pfluger, who was another military family member himself in a prior career, he was talking about how he wants the Democratic lawmakers who served in the military, to put partisanship aside and work with you guys who passed this budget two months ago at this point. As you talk with your Democratic colleagues, especially those who served in the military, what do you hear in terms of how they justify the harm that they’re inflicting on these communities in particular that they used to be part of?
Rep. Troy Downing:
I’m not going to throw stones at anybody, because I have had productive conversations. And obviously on the House side, we passed the bill, and we don’t have anything really to be considering. We haven’t been given an amendment or a bill back, but I will tell you that there are good members on both sides of the aisle. There are military members who understand this pain, and I’m hoping that more of them can put the politics aside and focus on the policy. This was a clean, simple extension of current budget policy to keep the government open. There are no partisan poison pills in this and it is really frustrating. I know 100 percent that they’re feeling a pain. Their constituents are feeling pain. They know about that pain, and I’m just hoping that they see the absurdity of inflicting pain for a purely political motive.
Washington Reporter:
One of the other bills in the veteran space is the one about keeping national cemeteries open on federal holidays so veterans can visit them. How did this come across your transom as something that even needed legislation, and why was this an important priority for you?
Rep. Troy Downing:
Those of us who have served, we’ve lost colleagues, we’ve lost friends, we’ve lost family members. And I think it’s particularly interesting that when you want to remember somebody, especially on a holiday, you’re not able to go to certain cemeteries. We remember our loss all the time. We just have a particular holidays where we where we elevate that to a national level. And I’m thinking, on Memorial Day, you want to go to the grave of one of your friends, a family member, somebody that you’ve gone to war with, who unfortunately paid the ultimate sacrifice, you can’t lay a wreath because the federal government has shut that cemetery down. I think it’s silly and unreasonable to not allow people to remember and memorialize and celebrate these sacrifices, these losses, especially on these holidays that are meant to elevate that remembrance. This is going to be very helpful for veteran’s groups, for veteran families, for folks who have lost people they’ve served with to be able to remember them at these times when the nation is elevating that remembrance.
Washington Reporter:
Finally, what’s your message to anyone from the 34 year old Troy Downing to the 18 year old who’s looking at joining the military who might be discouraged about anything ranging from the election results of this week to how the government is obviously failing them during the Schumer Shutdown? Is this a career they should pursue?
Rep. Troy Downing:
Absolutely. Service is a noble act. I’m embarrassed that it took something as profound as the September 11th attacks to make me join to protect this unique and incredible country that we have. That is worth fighting for, that is worth participating in, that is worth that service, and I think that more folks should think about that opportunity to serve their country, because not only is it giving back for all of the opportunities that we’re given freely, but there’s so much personal reward in knowing that you’re part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Washington Reporter:
Congressman, you are part of the solution and and certainly not part of the problem.