[Defeated in Republican primary.] Peter Meijer said he felt “called to serve” in Congress after his time in the Army, saying his experience as a soldier in Iraq and as a conflict analyst in Afghanistan shaped his foreign policy views. Meijer spent a year at West Point before transferring to Columbia University. While in college, he enlisted in the Army Reserves and was deployed to Iraq for a year. He graduated from Columbia in 2012, a year after returning from Iraq. He received an MBA from New York University in 2017. After college, Meijer worked for a veteran-based disaster response organization.