A Purple Heart Vietnam veteran who was far-left Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) personal guest to President Donald Trump’s Joint Address to Congress in March 2025 is accusing the incumbent of abandoning veterans altogether in a new Georgia U.S. Senate race political ad.
The ad, first obtained by Breitbart News, features Stone Mountain, Georgia resident and veteran Al Lipphardt talking about how he used to believe Ossoff stood with veterans until the senator “voted against funding for veterans, and then he took credit anyway.” The campaign for Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), Ossoff’s GOP challenger, will release the ad digitally just days ahead of election day on Nov. 3.
“I’m a Vietnam veteran. Purple Heart recipient. That’s me, with Jon Ossoff. I was his guest at the capitol last year. When Ossoff said he’d stand with veterans, I believed him. Then he voted against funding for veterans, and then he took credit anyway,” Lipphardt says in the ad, called, “Didn’t Serve Us.”
“I thought I could trust him, then I found out I can’t. I served my country, but Ossoff didn’t serve us,” continued the decorated veteran, who now chairs the Veterans for Mike coalition.
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Lipphardt is referring to how Ossoff bragged about securing record-funding for new infrastructure for Fort Benning and Fort Stewart before ultimately voting against the provisions. The provision specifically included funding for new construction for an elementary school at Fort Benning, improved conditions at Fort Stewart, and pay raises for military personnel, and improvements to the Peach State’s foster care system.
While Ossoff was able to get the provision passed and voted for it as a standalone bill, he ended up flip-flopping and voting against its final passage when it was included in a larger appropriations bill last year. That appropriations bill was the one that led to the notorious record long government shutdown that finally ended when it passed on November 12 — without the support of Ossoff.
When Fox News Digital asked Ossoff’s campaign in July about the senator’s switch up, the campaign doubled down on Ossoff’s actions and still credited the senator for the budget increase.
“Let’s be clear: Georgia’s massive 2026 military construction budget, the highest in 15 years, is a direct and undeniable result of Senator Ossoff’s work as the senior Democrat on the Military Construction subcommittee,” an Ossoff campaign spokesperson told the outlet.
“Senator Ossoff makes no apology for having tried to stop Mike Collins from doubling premiums for more than a million Georgians and throwing 300,000 off their health insurance,” the spokesperson added, referring to the caps on federal health subsidies that Republicans had supported at the time of the bill’s passage.
Collins’s campaign told Breitbart News on Friday that Ossoff has “failed Georgia’s veterans.”
“Al Lipphardt answered his country’s call and served with honor. Jon Ossoff answered to the radical left and failed Georgia’s veterans,” Collins’s campaign spokesperson Meyer Siegfried said.
“Ossoff invited a Purple Heart veteran to the Capitol, promised to stand with him, then voted against them and took the credit. Mike Collins will stand with veterans when it counts,” Siegfried added.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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