Military Service and Background
Soltz graduated from Washington & Jefferson College in 1999 where he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity and majored in Political Science and History. He has completed graduate-level work at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
He was commissioned in 1999 from the University of Pittsburgh Army ROTC and attended the Armor Officer Basic Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Following his graduation he was stationed in Germany from 1999-2003. Between June and December 2000, he served as a Tank Platoon Leader in the Kosovo War. Between May and September 2003, he served as a Captain during Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he worked deployed logistics convoys with the 1st Armored Division. In 2005, he trained soldiers for combat at Fort Dix in New Jersey. He took a leave of absence from VoteVets.org in Jan 2011, to deploy as part of Operation New Dawn (Iraq), but stated he expects to be back in 2012, to resume his position as Chairman. Until that time, Ashwin Madia, an Iraq War Veteran, and one time candidate for Congress has assumed the role of Interim Chairman. On December 12, 2011, Soltz returned as Chairman of VoteVets.org after completing his deployment to Iraq. Soltz was one of the last American troops to leave the country.
Soltz volunteered for the John Kerry presidential campaign in 2004. Regarding his personal political views, Soltz told The Washington Post in 2007 that "I'm a conservative" and that he opposed the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 because "I don't think 20,000 more troops is Democratic, I don't think 20,000 troops is Republican. I think it's stupid."
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