If you’ve seen a video of a guy in a “VETERAN” tee shirt, butchering “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” in a Top Gun reenactment, floating around the internet in the past couple of days, there are two things you should know: 1. Maj. Dan Helmer is actually in the Army, and 2. He knows it’s bad, and it’s on purpose.
Helmer, 35, is a reserve intelligence officer who spent 11 years on active duty, with one deployment each in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he wants to be the Democratic congressman from Virginia’s 10th District.
“It‘s an iconic scene, one in which we could have a little fun and be in on the joke ourselves,” he told Army Times in a Tuesday phone interview. “I’m no fighter pilot and the last thing that anybody wants to do is fly on an airplane with me at the stick.”
And the jacket has an Army patch on it, he added.
The video is meant to call out current 10th District Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock, whom Helmer sees in a bar and serenades her with a ditty about “losing that centrist feeling.”
“We have a representative right now who refuses to meet constituents and answer their questions in an open forum,” Helmer said. “It’s a serious issue but one in which we thought a little levity could go a long way toward highlighting it.”