One of my old Navy shipmates has just won the Republican nomination to be the U.S. Representative from North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, and his candidacy gives me great hope that America’s voters are waking up and paying attention to the overwhelming burden that big government is putting on Americans.

Bill Randall, his wife Wendy, and their three girls were close friends of ours when we were all stationed in Italy in the late 1980s. We worshipped together, played together, and came to know each other very well. He was a senior chief when I was selected for chief, and my respect for him was such that I asked him to sponsor me, and mentor me, into the chief petty officers’ community, and he honored me by pinning the coveted gold anchors on my uniform. I can still feel the pride we both felt in that ceremony.

After our tours with the U.S. Sixth Fleet, Bill was promoted to Master Chief Petty Officer and was chosen be the Command Master Chief aboard a cruiser, then hand-picked to be the senior enlisted leader at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, one of the highest, most respected enlisted leadership positions in the entire Navy.

Now, in running for Congress as a conservative Republican, Bill Randall joins the growing ranks of grass-roots leaders who want to take America back from the liberal biggovernment mindset, conservatives who focus on personal responsibility, individual rights, and the free market.

If elected, he says, “I will be working hard to create lasting job opportunities by fostering economic growth through a free-market economy. We need to end the redistribution of your hard-earned dollars. We can do this by eliminating unnecessary government spending, reducing the deficit, and lowering taxes.”

Interestingly, Bill is one of 32 black conservative Republican candidates for Congress who want to reverse the Obama administration’s liberal policies that want to put the federal government in the unconstitutional roles of mama, papa, and big brother.

Growing up in New Orleans’ lower 9th ward, he writes in his official biography, taught him the important connection between government integrity, personal industriousness, and the achievement of a better life.

His father and mother taught him to climb the ladders of military service and education to achieve that better life. He knows first-hand, he says, “about the devastating impact caused by government programs… and how this frustrated and pushed people down, forced a reliance on government food stamp and family assistance programs, and did not improve quality of life, pride, morale or genuine jobs.”

It gives me great hope that a man of Bill Randall’s strong moral convictions and steadfast leadership has a chance to take a seat in the U.S. Congress. He is one of many decent, hard-working Americans who feel the nation has fallen into the hands of people who want to rule America and squeeze taxpayers dry for their own purposes.

The majority of American people are properly furious at what their leaders are doing, and come November, are going to send scores of candidates like Bill Randall to Washington to clean house and attempt to restore the nation to the Constitutional republic it once was, but is no longer.