Tysen Moy

Name: Tysen Moy
City/State: Durham, NC
Branch of Service: Army
Dates of Service: May 2014-August 2024
Last Rank Held: O3
Military Occupation: Civil Affairs Officer
Current Occupation: Law Student
X: https://x.com/TysenMoy
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tysen.moy/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Moybert71

Tysen outside of the military:

I am currently attending UNC School of Law. I plan to work as a prosecutor after graduation. I’m married and we have two boys (3 years and 18 months). My interests are football, crossfit, reading (mostly politics and history), and spending time with my family. We try to be very active with our children, so a lot of our free time is spent at children’s museums, parks, and in little league sports.

Tysen on joining the IAVA Cavalry:

I am interested in joining the IAVA Cavalry because I think we are in a critical moment for our country. Our democracy and people within it are under attack and I feel like I have a responsibility to step up and do what I can to rebuild and strengthen our county. I learned about IAVA at an event they hosted in March, and I was thankful to have found an organization that shared my values and was actually trying to do something. I signed up shortly after and knew I needed to apply for the Cavalry as soon as possible.

How the military experience affected Tysen’s personal growth:

The Army gave me the life I have today. I grew up quite poor, it was just my mom and I for a while growing up, and an ROTC scholarship is what allowed me to go to school. The military taught me the discipline that continues to define my work today. It took care of my family and set us up for the success we are currently enjoying. Maybe most importantly though, the Army showed me what it means to be part of something bigger than myself and what a determined group of people can do when they put their back into it.
I know that was very cliched, but it is how I feel about the Army. I loved it and it did so much for me.

IAVA’s policy priorities that are the most pressing:

Our democracy is the most pressing issue. If we stop having free and fair elections, the other issues become impossible to address, and I believe there would be further backsliding on all of them. I live in North Carolina, and we very nearly had an election to our State Supreme Court stolen this year. The losing candidate attempted to have tens of thousands of ballots, many of them overseas military votes, thrown out so he could win. This effort came close to succeeding and I am certain that anti-democratic efforts are not done yet. We need to strengthen our democracy so that we have a chance to work on the other priorities.

IAVA’s policy priorities with the strongest personal connection for Tysen:

I have close connections to the democracy, repealing of the GWOT AUMFs, and the Afghan ally support priorities. During the last election I did over 30 hours of pro bono work with the Election Protection Hotline and County election monitoring. I talked to dozens of voters attempting to navigate our byzantine election laws and hopefully did my part to ensure the election was free and fair in North Carolina. On the AUFM repeal, I remember looking a little bit sideways during my deployment to Iraq in 2017 at the fact we were there under the same AMFU that authorized the invasion. Congress needs to reassert its authority over war powers and help restore our constitutional balance. Finally, for our Afghan allies, I never deployed to Afghanistan, but as a law student seeing anyone’s due process rights and other legal protections taken away is unacceptable.