Mike Nitz is the Vice Chair of DA Vietnam, Chair of the DA Veterans Military Families Caucus and GDC Legislation Coordinator. He joined the Navy in 2011 as a shipboard nuclear power plant technician. In 2013, he was admitted to the United States Naval Academy where he studied comparative politics, Arabic, and the history of US-Iranian diplomatic relations. In 2015, he left the Naval Academy to return to active enlisted service in the field of underwater minefield detection and neutralization (not to be confused with explosive ordnance disposal) and served onboard a Minesweeper in Sasebo, Japan from 2016 - 2018. His health deteriorated while stationed in Japan, however, and he was ultimately medically retired from active service in January 2020. He now spends most of his time advocating for improvements to the systems that serve service members and veterans, advocating for disability rights and changes to the civilian disability system, and studying trends in election data throughout the United States.