Congress' Longest Serving WWII Vet Vows To Fight Nazis Again After Violent Protest

Former Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), 91, known on Twitter for his bristling and often comical political observations, had a clear message following Saturday’s deadly violence incited by a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in history, was also one of the final two World War II veterans to leave office in 2014. On Sunday, Dingell tweeted that he enlisted once to fight Nazis, and he’d do so again if necessary.

Dingell enlisted when he turned 18 in 1944. He told NPR that he did not see combat and cited the atomic bomb as the reason. If the bomb had not been dropped, Dingell said he would have been part of a ground attack on Japan.

The former congressman, who served in Congress from 1955 to 2014, is a vocal critic of President Donald Trump. He most recently used the anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation from office as an opportunity to show Trump how such a decision could be made.

“You could even fit it in a tweet,” he wrote to the president.