Bert Mizusawa

Bert Mizusawa remembers wanting to be a cowboy as a child in Oklahoma.¹ One of six children of a military sergeant, he grew up moving among places including the Netherlands, Japan, Germany and Virginia as his father served in the Air Force.¹ He and his wife, Amy, have made repeated campaign visits to southwestern Virginia.²

Neither parent attended college, and Mizusawa graduated first in his West Point class before earning law and public policy degrees at Harvard.²³ His civilian career included private legal practice, federal contracting, work on the Senate Armed Services Committee staff and service as deputy undersecretary of the Army from 1998 to 2001.³

Mizusawa received a Silver Star for his role in a 1984 firefight protecting a Soviet defector at the Korean Demilitarized Zone.⁴ In 2014, the Army appointed him director of the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force in Afghanistan.⁵ He retired as a major general and later served as a CIA adviser.⁶

His current proposals include more domestic oil, natural gas and nuclear energy, alongside renewables, and eliminating capital gains tax on sales of primary homes.⁶ He says data center developers should pay their infrastructure costs and favors telemedicine for rural healthcare.⁶ He challenges Democratic Senator Mark Warner on November 3, offering voters a change in party representation after Warner's three terms.⁶