In a tweet advertising his new political action committee, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shared a rare clip of an interview he did before graduating from West Point as the academy’s outstanding cadet.
“I’ve always been willing to work hard towards a goal. And once I’ve known what needed to get done, I’d get after it. Right now, our freedoms are under attack and we need to defend them. Are you ready to get after it? If so, join @CAV_PAC!” Pompeo said in a June 30 tweet along with the video.
In the video, Pompeo is asked by an interviewer how he came to be the outstanding cadet of West Point’s 1986 graduating class.
“It’s not just academics, it’s not just any one thing. It’s a combination of many qualities that go to pick the top graduate,” the interviewer said. “What was it about you that perhaps set you apart from others?”
Pompeo, then 22-years-old, said he believed he was selected as the outstanding cadet because of “my willingness to work hard towards a goal and to put out a lot of effort when it was required, to know what it was that really needed to be done and really get after that and work hard in that direction.”
Pompeo shared the video on June 30, days after announcing the formation of his Champion American Values PAC, or CAVPAC, on June 15.
Pompeo said the name CAVPAC was “a nod to my time in the U.S. Army Cavalry – the CAV in the PAC.”
According to a White House biography, from 1986 to 1991, Pompeo “served as a cavalry officer patrolling the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He also served with the 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry in the US Army’s Fourth Infantry Division.”
“My cavalry service taught me that America needs warriors who lead and are willing to ride first into the fight without fear. CAV also stands for Champion American Values – the values that we know have made our country exceptional,” Pompeo said after announcing CAVPAC.
Pompeo started CAVPAC with the intent to travel the country campaigning, fundraising and donating to aspiring Republican lawmakers on federal, state and local levels.
“It is unambiguously clear to me that if we don’t get it right in the next 16 or 17 months, what will happen over these next four years will make it incredibly difficult for whoever is elected president in 2024. So that is my singular focus,” Pompeo told Politico in June.
