Douglas V. Mastriano

On March 17, 2020, Mastriano called for suspension of the HIPAA law to allow the Department of Health share more Covid-19 data, including publishing the names and addresses of those infected with the virus.

On March 28, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mastriano proposed legislation that would allow Pennsylvania businesses to reopen if they followed CDC mitigation guidelines, subject to health department and law enforcement inspections.

Mastriano spoke during an anti-lockdown protest held on April 20, 2020, in support of reopening Pennsylvania during the state's ongoing pandemic.

On May 11, 2020 Mastriano called for the resignation of Secretary of Health Rachel Levine stating that he believed she failed to adequately protect nursing home residents.

In May of 2020 Mastriano wrote a letter signed by other Republican state legislators and a county commissioner calling for his home county of Franklin County to move out of the "red" phase of Governor Tom Wolf's reopening plan. At the time Franklin County's seat Chambersburg had one of the highest average daily growth rates of COVID-19 cases in the country. Mastriano's initiative was opposed by the mayor of Chambersburg and two county commissioners.

On January 22, 2019, Mastriano announced that he intended to run for the State Senate seat being vacated by Rich Alloway in the 33rd District, saying he "can't, in good conscience, stand aside", wanting to "serve his country in a new way". Mastriano overwhelmingly won the Republican nomination for the May 21 election at a party conference held in Gettysburg on March 30, 2019.

On May 21, 2019, Mastriano defeated Democrat Sarah Hammond to win the special election in the 33rd District. Mastriano was sworn into the Pennsylvania Senate on June 10.

In May of 2019, during his campaign for state senate, Mastriano was accused of spreading Islamophobia after sharing several posts on his campaign Facebook page targeting Muslims. "Islam wants to kill gay rights, Judaism, Christianity and pacifism" read one of the posts, which critiqued the common "Coexist" bumper stickers. After the Notre Dame fire Mastriano had shared an image that was circulated in the wake of the fire suggesting that it had been an act by Muslim terrorists. In April 2018, his campaign Facebook page shared an article headlined, “A Dangerous Trend: Muslims running for office.”

On February 13, 2018, at the Otterbein Church in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, Mastriano announced his candidacy for U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania's 9th congressional district , a seat being vacated by the retiring congressman Bill Shuster. Less than a week after his announcement, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania redrew the congressional district map of Pennsylvania after ruling the previous map unconstitutional (due to gerrymandering by the majority Republican Party), and the area previously covered by the 9th district corresponds most closely to the new 13th district, so Mastriano became a candidate for Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district . Mastriano ultimately finished fourth of the eight candidates in the primary election, receiving a total of 10,509 votes.

Mastriano's book on York received the 2015 William E. Colby Award of the William E. Colby Military Writers' Symposium at Norwich University (an award for a first published work of a military topic author), the Army Historical Foundation Award, the US Army War College Madigan Award and the 2015 Crader Family Book Prize in American Values.

Mastriano was commissioned in the United States Army in 1986. He started his military career in Nuremberg, Germany, with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in the area of the West German borders with East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Mastriano also served four years at the NATO Land Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany. While serving along the East German and Czechoslovakian borders, in 1991 he witnessed the dissolution of the Soviet Union and deployed to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. His regiment led the attack against Saddam's elite Republican Guard forces. Mastriano then served in Washington, DC, the 3rd Infantry Division and US Army Europe. Mastriano was the lead planner for a planned invasion of Iraq via Turkey that was blocked by Turkey's refusal to use its territory for that purpose, causing the 2003 invasion of Iraq to be carried out by a different approach. He served four years with NATO and deployed three times to Afghanistan. Mastriano was the director of NATO's Joint Intelligence Center in Afghanistan, leading 80 people from 18 nations. Mastriano led seven relief operations to help Afghan orphans. He completed his career as a Professor of the U.S. Army War College (PAWC), Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and taught Strategic Studies at the Master Degree level to the next generation of senior leaders. He retired in 2017 at the rank of Colonel.

Douglas Vincent Mastriano, Ph.D. (born January 2, 1964), is an American military historian and politician. He is a retired Colonel of the United States Army and is the state senator for Pennsylvania's 33rd District. A Republican, he previously ran as a candidate for U.S. Representative in Pennsylvania's 13th congressional district before winning a special election in 2019 to replace the retiring Rich Alloway. He has written two books, one of which is a biography of the highly decorated World War I soldier Sergeant Alvin York. He has also led the development of research reports and strategy recommendations for the U.S. Army War College.

Mastriano's first book, Alvin York: A New Biography of the Hero of the Argonne (ISBN 978-0813145198), was published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2014. He conducted twelve years of research for the book. In all, Mastriano reportedly spent 2,000 hours doing research on Sergeant Alvin York, including 1,000 hours studying archives in the United States and various parts of Germany including Stuttgart, Freiburg, Potsdam, Rottweil, and Ulm, and another 1,000 hours of field research in the Argonne Forest of France to locate where York fought during the Meuse–Argonne offensive of World War I. Using terrain analysis, geo-spatial data, and field archaeology, his research team uncovered thousands of artifacts related to York's battle of October 8, 1918. He said that his interest in York began during his childhood when he saw the Academy Award-winning 1941 film about York starring Gary Cooper. After Mastriano joined the Army, his interest in York deepened. Along with research, the book incorporates forensic study and military terrain analysis.