Biography

Brian Jeffrey Mast (born July 10, 1980) Grand Rapids, Michigan, is an American politician and U.S. military veteran who has served as the U.S. representative for Florida’s 21st congressional district since 2017. The district, numbered as the 18th district before the 2020 redistricting cycle, includes portions of the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast. Mast is a member of the Republican Party. Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida.

Congressman Mast served as an explosive ordnance disposal technician in Afghanistan and on September 19, 2010 was wounded by an IED which resulted in the amputation of both legs and the loss of one finger.

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Mast enlisted in the United States Army Reserve in May 2000

Became a combat engineer assigned to the 841st Combat Engineer Battalion. In 2006, he transitioned to the active U.S. Army and became an explosive ordnance disposal technician. Mast later joined the 28th Ordnance Company, a special operations explosive ordnance disposal unit that works alongside personnel of the 75th Ranger Regiment.

He served in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. On September 19, 2010, while clearing a path for United States Army Rangers in Kandahar, Mast stepped on an IED along the road. The explosion resulted in the amputation of both his legs and losing his left index finger.

After his honorable discharge from the Army, Mast was hired as an explosives specialist for the United States Department of Homeland Security. While recovering from his injuries at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Mast provided explosive and counter-terrorism expertise to the Office of Emergency Operations at the National Nuclear Security Administration from July 2011 to February 2012, and as an instructor of homemade explosives for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Life changed forever for Staff Sgt. Brian Mast in September 2010

The active soldier lost both legs, plus a portion of his left forearm and his left index finger. While serving as a bomb disposal expert with the elite Joint Special Operations Command in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

His team were closing in on their target when Mast spotted something suspicious among the terrain and stopped his men. He had stepped out to investigate when a roadside bomb ripped through his body.

‘I can remember it rattled my teeth,’ he told the New York Times. ‘I didn’t even know if I had teeth left in my mouth because the concussion of this explosion that took off both of my legs and nearly took off my arm.’

For Mast, who had spent most of his adult life in the Army, he was lost

‘I’m a soldier,’ Brian said in a release for the Harvard Extension School. ‘I define myself in service to our country. That was something that I lost, basically, as a result of injury.’
Rather than wallow in self-pity, Mast decided to see the injuries as the beginning of a new chapter in his life.

‘I have to find something new to do in life,’ Brian had said himself, ‘because jumping out of planes and roping out of helicopters and kicking in doors, it’s not in the future for somebody who doesn’t have any legs.’ If elected, Mast said he believes he brings three distinct characteristics to Congress, thanks to his time in the Army.

“The most important thing I learned from my leaders in the military is they never asked me to do something that they weren’t willing to do themselves,” he said. “That, unfortunately, is not what we see coming out of Washington, D.C. Across the board, there are policies that exist for those who call themselves leaders that are not guaranteed for everybody else”

Congressman Mast’s indomitable spirit displayed during his long and painful recovery have been an inspiration to thousands of people and in 2016 he was elected to Congress representing Florida’s 18th District.

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