Andrew Campbell is a 6 year veteran of the Maine National Guard. He served in Mosul Iraq in 2004 and 2005 in a maintenance and logistics support role. Andrew is studying psychology at the University of Southern Maine.

I am one of the few individuals on the Northern leg of the Veterans for Clean American Energy tour fortunate enough to be on the trip from Montana all the way to Maine. It has afforded me the opportunity to travel to many states I have never been in before (aside from a few airports), and I have met a lot of awesome people along the way. All the while I have been able to spread awareness of a very important message: Climate change and our national addiction to oil is not only an environmental issue, but a grave national security threat as well.

And this is the message that we brought to Pittsburgh yesterday. Earlier in the day we were Youngstown, where we were given a generous amount of air time with a host that was more than abiding named Louie b. Free. Listen online. This is around the same time that we picked up a film crew from NBC Nightly News. That was an interesting experience, and apparently their take on Operation Free’s adventure will air in early December, which is exciting news.

NBC joined us to Pittsburgh, and I didn’t even notice when we had arrived at the job corps training site where we had a small press conference, because we were too busy talking with the crew. The enthusiastic crowd included a number of JROTC cadets, several people involved in the Pittsburgh Job Corps, members of the local press, and some local supporters. It was a solid event and it was nice to see so many people in the area that were happy to see us spread our message, after hearing about the negative attention PA state rep Daryl Metcalfe has tried to put forth (Read about it on the Huffington Post and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Robin Eckstein also spoke about her experiences as a truck driver in Iraq, and then I closed by talking about why I am a part of Operation Free.

The reason I became a member of Operation Free is simple: I want to spread the message about a problem that a lot of Americans might not think about when they fill their gas tanks up. I was in Iraq from early 2004 to 2005 as a logistics specialist with a Maine Army National Guard construction unit, and over the course of the year we were gone, we spent millions of dollars on maintenance and construction supplies, food, water, and oil.

Back here in the United States, we send over one billion dollars a day on oil, and a lot of that comes from unfriendly and unstable regimes. Some of the top importers of oil into the US today include Russia and Venezuela, countries that while not enemies outright of the US, are certainly not allies. The oil companies in countries like this are state owned, so when we buy a hundred thousand barrels of oil every day from Russia, that money goes directly into the Russian government’s revenue. What they choose to do with that money can not be traced. According to the Energy Information Administration, we bought over one million barrels of oil every single day in July alone of this year from the Saudis. Some US officials have said that the Saudis contribute more money to al Qaeda than any other single organization, and in that respect, to quote former CIA director James Woolsey, we are funding both sides of the war.

This is the message I have been spreading from Montana eastwards, and it was well received by the Pittsburgh audience last night. Talking to people after the press conference ended, it was rewarding to shake hands with people there and hear them say that they understand the connection between climate change, oil dependence, and national security.

To be honest, when I was first approached about Operation Free several months ago I was a bit reluctant to participate because I have a busy life back home and there were political issues that I held closer to my heart. But the more that I learned, and the more thought that I put into it, it has become an issue that I deeply care about. I have always been humble about my service, but there is no denying that veterans are looked up to by the majority of Americans. And if I can give a louder voice to this issue so that more of our nation’s citizens become aware of the urgent need for clean energy and climate change legislation, than I am proud to do so.

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