Santa Clarita Congressional candidate Mike Garcia released a campaign video titled “A Patriot’s Call to Serve Again” on Thursday.

The video is a biographical feature which details the inspiration for Garcia to run for Congress against incumbent Katie Hill, D-Agua Dulce, and outlines his vision for serving the district.

Garcia, a first-generation American citizen, is a decorated United States Naval officer who was one of the first F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighter pilots in the Navy. He flew over 30 combat missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom over Baghdad, Fallujah and Tikrit, according to officials.

“I’m a first-generation American whose family immigrated legally to this country because it’s the greatest nation on earth, full of hope, promise and opportunity,” Garcia said in a press release accompanying the video. “Seeing Katie Hill and her colleagues try to enact socialist policies that undo the very freedoms my brothers-in-arms and I fought to protect, I hear the call to serve again and would be honored to do so.”

Garcia is a native of Santa Clarita since the age of 6, when his mother and LAPD step-father moved to Saugus in 1982. Since a young age, Garcia reportedly yearned to serve his nation and had his sights set on becoming a Naval aviator.

“I knew I wanted to fly fighter jets off of aircraft carriers in defense of my country,” said Garcia. “My decision to run for Congress is a continuation of that desire to serve, and a sense of responsibility to serve my country and my district.”

A graduate of Saugus High School in 1994, Garcia was nominated by Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon to attend the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Garcia graduated in the top 3 percent of his class with a Bachelor’s degree, and later received an M.A. in National Security Studies from Georgetown University.

In May of 1998 he was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Navy with orders to attend flight school in Pensacola, Florida.

Two decades later, after an honorable discharge, Garcia moved back to the Santa Clarita Valley in 2009 and began to work for the Raytheon Company.

During his 10 years as an executive at Raytheon, Garcia has been responsible for the generation of billions of dollars of revenue and the creation of hundreds of jobs for his company and the district, according to officials.

“It’d be easy for me to spend the rest of my life working at a job that I love and spending every free moment with my family,” said Garcia. “But I took an oath to defend the Constitution, and that oath didn’t come off with the uniform.”

Since announcing his candidacy in April, Garcia has become the second highest fundraiser in the race besides incumbent Hill, and has received endorsements from former Governor Pete Wilson, former Congressmen Elton Gallegly and Howard “Buck” McKeon and 18 current and former elected officials.

Garcia believes in a strong national defense and states that he is pro-business and pro-taxpayer, and emphasizes that he is an outsider in the world of politics, according to campaign officials.

“I am running to ensure that our nation and our district don’t fall victim to the socialists and far-left Democrat policies that have devastated so much of our state,” said Garcia in the video. “I want to serve again to ensure that our values and our children’s futures are secure.”

Garcia lives in Santa Clarita with his wife and two sons, and was recently named to the National Republican Congressional Committee’s Young Guns program as one of the top 40 GOP candidates in the country.

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