Brian Mast

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.

Brian Jeffrey Mast (born July 10, 1980) 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.

Mast graduated from South Christian High School in 1999.

After graduating from high school, Mast enlisted in the United States Army Reserve in May 2000 and 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.

A veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom, Mast lost both his legs while serving as a U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal technician in Afghanistan in 2010.

Mast was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

He is the son of James Mast and Tixomena Trujillo.

His maternal grandparents were immigrants from Mexico.

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.

Mast and his family were awarded a custom ADA-compliant home by the nonprofit organization Helping a Hero.

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.

Mast first considered running for office while recovering from his injuries at Walter Reed Medical Center.

It was reported in May 2015 that he was considering a run for Congress.

On June 8, 2015, Mast announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for U.S. Representative in Florida's 18th congressional district.

During the 2015–16 election campaign, Mast's largest donors were Duty Free Americas, NextGen Management (a condo property firm), and Superior Foods (frozen foods).

Mast won the general election with 53% of the vote.

In 2016, he obtained a Bachelor of Liberal Arts from Harvard University Extension School with a concentration in economics and minors in government and environmental studies.

He defeated five opponents in the August 30, 2016, primary with 38% of the vote.

Mast faced Democratic businessman Randy Perkins in the November 8 general election.

In 2016, Mast was briefly linked with World Patent Marketing, a company the Federal Trade Commission shut down as an invention promotion scam.

World Patent Marketing donated money to Mast's campaign fund and said in a press release that he sat on their advisory board.

Mast claimed no knowledge of being given a position on the board and said he had only a couple encounters with members of the company.

During the 2017–18 election campaign, Mast's largest donors were Duty Free Americas and Amway/Alticor (run by the DeVos family).

In 2018, Anthony Bustamante, a campaign consultant who had worked on Mast's 2016 campaign, told The Wall Street Journal that he had used data hacked from the Democratic National Committee by Guccifer 2.0, a front for Russia's GRU military intelligence service, to adjust Mast's campaign strategy.

Guccifer 2.0 had leaked the hacked data to the HelloFLA blog.

On April 25, 2018, physician Mark Freeman announced a primary challenge to Mast, focusing on his promise to "defend the Second Amendment" and be an "unwavering partner" to President Donald Trump.

Freeman called Mast an "establishment candidate" and complained about Mast's shift on gun control issues after the Parkland school shooting.

Mast defeated Freeman in the Republican primary.

In the general election, he defeated Democratic nominee Lauren Baer, an attorney and foreign policy expert who served as an official in the Obama administration, with 54% of the vote.

Between March and June 2018, Mast's campaign received thousands of dollars from Soviet-born Igor Fruman, one of two business associates of Rudy Giuliani who later faced charges of violating federal campaign finance laws.

After this allegedly illegal contribution was discovered and reported by the press, Mast's spokesman said he would disburse the funds to the Treasury Department, but less than two weeks later, Mast said, "I think we donated it to charity."

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.

Mast ran for reelection in 2020 against Democratic nominee Pam Keith.

In August 2020 he apologized for what he called "disgusting and inappropriate jokes" that he made on Facebook in 2009 and 2011 responding to a friend and subsequent campaign manager about sex with 15-year-old girls in South Africa and an end-of-the-world pick-up line involving rape or murder.

Mast won re-election with 56.32% of the vote, against Keith's 41.5%.