I was Jon Ossoff’s guest at the Capitol, but here’s why I’m for Mike Collins
In March 2025, I sat in the U.S. House of Representatives’ chamber for President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress as the guest of Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff.
I was serving as national commander-in-chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the time, and I was grateful for the invitation. Senator Ossoff had spent his first term presenting himself as a friend to Georgia’s veterans, and I took him at his word.
I believed he was the kind of senator who would put the men and women who served ahead of his party when it counted.
I am a Vietnam veteran and a Purple Heart recipient. The Army taught me to judge people by what they do when it costs them something. Over the past year and a half, I have watched what Senator Ossoff did when it counted. That is why this November I am voting for Mike Collins.
Consider senator’s voting record on shutdown, ICE
Start with the job Georgians gave him. Ossoff is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In August 2025, he voted for the Senate’s version of that bill, and his office celebrated it as the most military construction funding for Georgia in 15 years. Then, in November, the package that turned that year’s veterans and military construction funding into law reached the Senate floor, and he voted no.
According to Fox News, that package carried $127.4 million to replace Dexter Elementary School at Fort Benning, where soldiers’ children go to school, and $8 million for Fort Stewart.
His campaign says the vote was a protest over health insurance subsidies. I understand the argument. But you do not get to claim credit for a bill and then vote against the version that becomes law.
That vote came at the end of a government shutdown he helped prolong by voting at least a dozen times against a House-passed bill to reopen the government. To his credit, he also voted for Republican measures to pay our troops during the shutdown. But military families do not want a senator who votes to soften the pain of a shutdown. They want one who votes to end it.
Then there is security here at home. Last June, the Senate passed roughly $70 billion over three years for ICE and Border Patrol. Ossoff voted no. He did vote for the Laken Riley Act in January 2025, and I give him credit for that. But a law that requires detention means little if you will not fund the people who carry it out. Veterans took an oath to defend this country. We notice when a senator treats enforcing our borders as optional.
Collins is keeping his promises to veterans
U.S. Rep. Mike Collins is not a polished politician, and he does not pretend to be. He ran a trucking company before he went to Congress, and he talks like it. But his record on veterans is consistent. He voted for the House military construction and VA funding bill.
He has introduced legislation requiring the VA to send a veteran’s opioid prescription history to community care doctors, closing a dangerous gap in care. He has pushed states to give veterans tax relief around Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day. And he has said plainly what too few in Washington will: our borders have been porous while veterans across this country are living under bridges.
When he spoke at VFW Post 5408 in Acworth recently, Collins told the room, “We owe you a debt of gratitude that there’s just no way we can repay it.”
Senator Ossoff was also invited to speak at this event, but he failed to respond. Mike followed that with a promise to ensure veterans receive the care and opportunities they earned. I have heard plenty of politicians say that. What changed my mind is that his votes match his words.
A further example is Congressman Collins cosponsoring the Major Richard Star Act, which would stop the government from docking the retirement pay of combat-injured veterans who also receive VA disability compensation. Georgia’s 750,000 veterans kept their word to this country and their oath to serve. Mike is committed to keeping our promises to them.
I did not come to this lightly. I have no personal quarrel with Senator Ossoff, who was gracious to me. The VFW is nonpartisan, and I write only for myself. But I spent my life around people judged by life-or-death results, and I hold senators to a high standard. On the votes that mattered most to the people I served alongside, Ossoff came up short.
Georgia is home to some of the largest military installations in the country and to hundreds of thousands of veterans. We deserve a senator who stands with us when it costs him something, not only when it makes for a good press release. Early voting in Georgia began Oct. 13, and Election Day is Nov. 3. I am voting for Mike Collins.
Alfred J. “Al” Lipphardt, a Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart recipient from Stone Mountain, previously served as national commander-in-chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). He chairs the Veterans for Mike Coalition. He writes in his personal capacity.
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