Navy Veteran’s Third-Party Congressional Bid Tackles VA Benefits, Mental Health

Brian Lambert traveled the nation with his family, visiting nearly two dozen national parks and firsthand seeing the challenges faced by Americans. It helped inspire the 20-year U.S. Navy veteran to help make his own change in Congress.

Lambert is running as a Libertarian candidate to win the seat representing Florida’s 14th Congressional District, currently held by Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor. There are more than 826,000 residents, according to 2024 U.S. Census data.

The Navy veteran said in his campaign announcement that he is running due to his oath to support and defend the Constitution, calling it “an oath that did not expire when I retired.” On the trail, he is emphasizing protecting veterans’ earned benefits, reducing VA bureaucracy, expanding access to community care, demanding accountability, and confronting the veteran suicide crisis.

“You see all the things that are going on—however you feel about them, you see them, right?” Lambert told Military.com in an exclusive interview. “And I came to the point where it just hit me one day that this doesn’t feel right, and our children deserve better. They deserve a better country than what we’re poised to hand them.”

He was reminded of a conversation he had years earlier, realizing that if he has an opportunity to help make a situation better, “there’s no reason to deny that opportunity.”

Lambert spoke exclusively with Military.com about why he is running, and how he sees a path forward.

Lambert’s Navy Career, Retirement Years

Lambert entered the Navy in 1998 out of Georgia, becoming an airframer (Aviation Structural Mechanic, or AM) on E-2s out in Point Mugu, Calif.

“I met some of the greatest people in my life out there, still friends with them to this day,” he said.

He reminisced how he was deployed when then-President George W. Bush came out on a carrier and delivered a speech on May 1, 2003, roughly six weeks after the Iraq invasion, with the “Mission Accomplished” banner waving in the background.

After that, he moved onto the Boeing E-6B Mercury in Oklahoma where he remained for 10 years and conducted 3,000 hours in an airplane. He later moved into intel, did imagery analysis at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., and he retired out of there.

His career included myriad roles, from an AM to a flight engineer and an intelligence specialist. He even was a motorcycle safety coach during his Navy tenure, helping new riders develop the skills and confidence to ride safely.

Lambert’s retirement involved more time towards his family, as well as giving back to his community. He coached Little League baseball, studied culinary arts at the Art Institute of Tampa, and is working toward an associate’s degree in Firearms Technology through Sonoran Desert Institute.

He retired as an E-6 and received his pension. He sold his house and his family has been RVing the country for the past five years, while currently building a new house to move into. Since leaving the military, the family has traversed 22 national parks.

“Our dream was to travel, and so we’ve done that extensively,” he said. “My wife is a registered nurse, does contracts and mobile IVs. So, that’s kind of where we go, where she takes us.”

Why Run as a Libertarian?

Lambert is running as a Libertarian as a nod to his own values, in addition to what was ingrained in him through the military.

“That’s one thing that the military does for you really well, is it helps you see that it doesn’t matter where you come from—your background, your ethnicity, your religion, wherever you come from,” he said. “You learn how to work with everybody, and you learn these different aspects of this culture and that culture, and you learn to appreciate it instead of tear it apart.

“It seems like they’re trying to do right and left. And I know the libertarian battle is an uphill battle, but it’s very aligned with how I feel coming out of the military that we are not as divided, and there’s a different way to do it than we’ve been doing it. I do believe that’s very much aligned with how I feel.”

While he believes the American people are “not as divided as the government wants us to believe,” he added that he doesn’t necessarily agree with those that say, “Pledge purple,” in reference to blending conservatives and liberals—or Republican and Democratic values—as part of a broader political ideology extended on Capitol Hill.

“I agree with a lot of that, but I don’t agree with all of that,” Lambert said. “I don’t think purple is the right answer because purple is the mix of red and blue, right? To pledge purple means that we have to come together, which I do agree with.

“But I also believe that a faction of it has to come up where you see a different mentality, a different take on how to proceed with the government and getting it back to a representative government rather than a cabal. I don’t even know the right word to describe Washington anymore, but it’s not the representative government that our forefathers laid out for us.

“My ultimate goal is to at least get people to recognize that we need to go back to that.”

Florida Issues, Rising Prices and the Iran War

Lambert has met more than just Floridians, finding that many Americans’ concerns mirror those from coast to coast.

Aside from issues like “affordability” and concerns about the intent and duration of the Iran War, the veteran said another has caused great concern in his district that includes western Hillsborough County and southeastern Pinellas County, including most of Tampa: over-development.

“Every acre seems to have 500 houses on it, and they’re trying to overdevelop it,” he said. “But we’re not doing anything for the infrastructure to go along with that. There’s a group trying to develop 190 acres; I think they want 650 houses on there or something, and they’re already in an area where 911 emergency dispatch is 6 minutes late on their target.

“So, we’re trying to put more people here, which, obviously, that’ll boost the economy. But we’re putting more people here to the detriment of our cost of safety to the residents that are already here.”

Another Florida statewide concern is the “skyrocketing” cost of homeowners insurance.

Costs for everyday Americans are front and center, though. Lambert noted how Iran concerns are conveyed to him due to higher oil prices negatively impacting gas and groceries.

“It’s something that I personally believe never should have happened,” he said regarding Iran. “[We] already had the agreement out there that Iran couldn’t have produced or couldn’t produce a nuclear weapon, and now we go in and we bomb them and do all that stuff and close the Strait of Hormuz. … [It’s] a total disaster. It continues to be.

“I think President Trump said we’ve won that war 20 or 30 times already, but we’re still going there. It’s a great frustration for everybody around here because this is a very high military population [area]. We’ve got two combatant commands here, and it’s just like, what are we doing?”

Lambert understands his uphill battle as a third-party candidate, hoping that door knocking and social media blitzes can perhaps lead to a major upset come November. Making the race essentially a one-on-one referendum could favor him, he said.

“We’re a grassroots campaign,” he said. “We recognize that we’re not going to be able to fight with those two parties dollar for dollar. That’s just not going to happen, right? So, we’re going out and we’re raising money the old-fashioned way, knocking on doors and asking for donations.

“When you’re content with knowing that you’re not gonna raise millions, there’s other ways you find it. I built my website by myself to save money, and you just find ways to do it. We’re not thriving right now, but we’re not dead in the water, either.”