Why This Retired Fighter Pilot Wants to Be a U.S. Senator

My father was a blue collar worker. He was about to buy his first car: a Cadillac. Instead, he gave me the money to go to the school.

On March 15, Michael DeSantis sat down with U.S. Senate Candidate of Missouri Lieutenant Colonel Tony Monetti (Retired) to talk about his career and his campaign. Lt. Col. Monetti is a former Air Force pilot, who originally hails from Brooklyn, NY. Since serving with the military, Lt. Col. Monetti co-authored two books, worked with students at the University of Central Missouri’s school of aviation, and became a small business owner. Monetti is ready to face the Missouri Senate race head on as a very unconventional politician, and he officially filed for the Senate seat last month.

Colonel Monetti, good afternoon. I have spoken with some friends in Missouri, and they tell me you have a pretty inspiring background. Can you tell our readers about that?

I would be honored. My mother and father are legal Italian immigrants going back to the late 1950’s and 1960’s. They both came to America in search of the American dream. It was wonderful growing up in a family of immigrants because my first language was Italian. I learned English when I went to public school in Brooklyn, New York.

Ever since I was a little kid, I was always determined to do what I wanted to do and that was fly jets for the United States Air Force. That was my dream. I was able to go to a high school that would set me up for such a dream. I had to travel an hour and a half one way and an hour and a half back. It was called Aviation High School. Instead of a football field we had a hangar full of airplanes.