Alabama native Bryan Newell returned to his home state from Hawaii in 2018 after a 22-year Army career, moving to Moody to help take care of his aging parents.

Newell, 51, who was born in Anniston and raised by adoptive parents in Haleyville, worked as a service technician for Community Coffee.

The interaction with customers helped Newell break through what he said was a period of introversion after leaving the Army. Newell said he regained his faith in God and felt a call to run for political office, the renewal of an idea that first crossed his mind in the Army.

“Once you get back right with God, then you can hear the whisper,” Newell said. “And the whisper told me it was time for me to run. Because that was a dream He planted in my head years ago.”

Newell has qualified with the Alabama Republican Party to run for Congress in Alabama’s 3rd District, a seat held by U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, since 2003. Newell is the only challenger to Rogers so far. Qualifying started Oct. 16 and ends Nov. 10. The primary is in March.

No Democratic candidates have qualified in the east Alabama district.

Newell, who retired from the Army as a sergeant first-class, resigned from his job with Community Coffee in September to concentrate on the race.

“I have faith that I’m winning this election,” Newell said. “And all the people I talk to and all the evidence that’s out there, I’m going to end up winning this. But I’m also a person who can’t sit down and say, ‘Oh, here it is, I’m going to win this so I’m just going to sit back and relax.’ No, it requires work. Faith without works is dead.

“I’ve got to continue to work. He picked the right person for it so I’m going to continue to hit this and do everything that I need to do.”

Newell said reckless government spending, the federal deficit, illegal immigration, and other problems drew him into the race because he said they are the result of poor leadership in Washington.

Part of the spending problem, Newell said, is congressional earmarks. He talks about projects with bloated price tags and referred to news stories about things that should have cost a fraction of what Congress spent.

“You’ve got a Congress full of imbeciles,” Newell said. “Half of these guys come straight from high school into college, into law school, right into Congress. And I’m telling you, they have no leadership abilities. No teamwork abilities. And no life skills other than going to college.”

Newell said he was adopted out of poverty and into a Christian home at nine months old. He said he played football and baseball at Haleyville High School. After graduation he joined the Army and served on active duty for five years.

He studied auto collision repair at Northwest Shoals Community College and opened a body shop in Haleyville. He eventually rejoined the Army after a move to Hawaii. He served from 2003 to 2018, including deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Newell said he saw wasteful government spending first-hand during his Army career. He said he would change policies that he said cause government agencies to spend tax dollars unnecessarily just to justify their budget appropriations.

Newell said there are common sense solutions to illegal immigration. One is to close what he called the asylum loophole, a policy that he said allows aliens who make an initial claim for asylum to gain release into American communities before their claims are adjudicated, and wind up staying in the country illegally. Newell said that could be stopped by detaining asylum applicants until their cases are resolved. He said if that policy was publicized and posted prominently with signs at the border, it would be a deterrent for those hoping to use bogus asylum claims to slip into the country.

As for others who cross borders illegally, Newell said the military has the technology and expertise to stop that flow.

Newell said he would support term limits. He said he would support a limit of six terms in the House and two in the Senate, a total of 12 years in each.

Newell said many of those in Congress should not be there. He said it reminds him of his father cutting a board, then examining it for straightness.

“When my dad was looking at a dad gum board, he used to cut a lot of wood, and he’d be like, ‘That’s as crooked as a politician,’” Newell said. “Well guess what? That’s what he was talking about, is politicians like we’ve got right now.

“We have a handful of people that are really actually real good at their jobs. I have no doubt that there’s some of them that are great, passionate, and everything else. But a large majority of them are just in it for themselves.”

Newell said he has his flaws, too, but said he’s convinced he’s on the right track.

“I ain’t no saint,” Newell said. “And there’s a long ways before I become anything close to righteous.

“But I will continue to have faith. And I feel free to express that faith to anybody that wants to listen. That’s how I’m driven right now. And once you find what you are supposed to be doing in God’s eyes, and you’re listening to him and you’re running on faith, there is a whole renewal of energy that you have that nobody can shake.”