Jay Dietrich
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Jay Dietrich | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 49th Vice President of the United States | |
| Assumed office April 25, 2020 | |
| President | Rick Tawney |
| Preceded by | Rick Tawney |
| Dean of the United States House of Representatives | |
| In office January 3, 2017 – April 25, 2020 | |
| Preceded by | John Conyers |
| Succeeded by | NPC-Republican |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alaska's at-large district | |
| In office January 3, 1971 – April 25, 2020 | |
| Preceded by | Howard Pollock |
| Succeeded by | TBD |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jay Joseph Dietrich February 2, 1928 Anchorage, Alaska, United States |
| Citizenship | American |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse | Judith Dietrich |
| Parents |
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| Residence | Anchorage |
| Education | University of Alaska |
Jay Joseph "J.J." Dietrich (Born February 2, 1928) is the Dean of the United States House of Representatives, Representative for Alaska's At-Large Congressional District and on March 5, 2020 was nominated for Vice-President of the United States under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution by President Rick Tawney.
Early Life
He was born to Joseph and Marie Dietrich, in Anchorage, Alaska. His father was a worker at a fish processing plant and his mother was a half-Iñupiat teacher at an “Indian School” in a shanty town outside of the city. His family was one of relatively “old stock” Alaskans. His paternal grandfather Franz Dietrich was a Civil War veteran who moved to the territory from Pennsylvania after the war to seek his fortune in gold, bringing his wife over after establishing a homestead. His paternal grandfather was a Russian trap hunter seeking furs when he fell for a native woman and settled down. As the oldest son of 8 children, Dietrich had quite a few responsibilities in the home. With both of his parents working, and their home barely more than a dirt floored shack, his childhood was often a struggle. His teenaged years were filled with dreams that the Japanese would invade, so the restless youth would have a true adventure fighting off the foreign army. To fill this void, his free time was spent fishing, hunting, snowshoeing, and even dog sled racing. Often, he would run away from home for up to a month at a time to do so, making it a miracle when he graduated from high school.
Education and Military Service
At the age of 17, Dietrich enrolled in the University of Alaska at Fairbanks Technical College, where he earned a 3-year technical certificate in mechanics. He had a dream of being a tracked motor operator out on the North Slope, where he could hunt polar bears and romance native women, exploring the last American frontier. As a mechanic in a remote part of the country, he could have claimed exemption from military service. But he chose not to. In 1947, Dietrich enlisted in the Air Force. Due to the his technical training, he was sent to the short-lived Aviation Cadet Program with a commission, was trained to be a C-121 Constellation Pilot, then was assigned to the newly created Military Air Transport Service. He was tasked with transporting staff officers between bases. One year-long assignment was the private transportation of Dwight Eisenhower, Chief of Staff of the Army. The pair hit it off, taking meals together in the Officers Club on a few occasions. Otherwise, he found this incredibly boring, especially when the Korean War began in 1950, and his job was simply moving officers in and out of Korea. On multiple occasions he would transport General Douglas MacArthur.
Early Career
Following the expiration of his service in 1953 at the rank of First Lieutenant, Dietrich decided to re-enter civilian life. He moved back to Alaska to his parents’ old house, and used his Air Force salary to purchase a small bush plane. Being a bush pilot was better than being a tracked motor operator every would’ve been. Dietrich made a living flying supplies to the North Slope outposts, and to rural communities across the territory, from cities like Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. During this time Dietrich joked that he visited every bar in Alaska, slept with half the women in Alaska, and witnessed at least a quarter of the gunfights in Alaska. It was the highlight of his life. One job he had was as a subcontractor for the United States Postal Service. Once every fortnight, he would carry mail to the isolated and impoverished villages of the Wade Hampton Census Area along the Bering Sea. He bonded with the mostly native population of the area, and would spend his time off in the Kotlik village. During one summer he even accompanied a group of men on a whaling expedition. In 1955, he married an Inuit woman who went by the name of Eliza. (They went on to have two children before her death in 1958).
In 1956, elections began for delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Fairbanks. The people of Kotlik nominated Dietrich for the position simply because he was white, literate, and Alaskan, the three general requirements for the position. Dietrich was one of the youngest delegates in Fairbanks, and he joined territorial legislators, small scale homesteaders, cultural icons, and scientists as one of Alaska’s 55 founding fathers. Lacking a suit, he attended in his dress blues from his time in the Air Force. He joined the other delegates in ratifying the constitution, setting Alaska on the path to statehood. He returned shortly after to working as a bush pilot for a couple of years. However, at the tail end of the Eisenhower administration, a vacancy opened as the current director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the District of Alaska died. Remembering Dietrich as a young veteran and delegate to the constitutional convention, the governor included him on a list of individuals recommended to President Eisenhower as an interim replacement for the position. Under most circumstances, the bush pilot would have been passed over for a bureaucrat. But Eisenhower recognized the name of his former staff pilot and enthusiastically chose him. Dietrich accepted. He figured it would be best to settle down, given that he was a widower and had two children. In Juneau, Dietrich found his position incredibly boring. He hated being an administrator, cooped up in the office. He visited indigenous communities at every chance he could, and did his best to improve their lives through the provision of medicine, clean water, and synthetic insulation. During his time in the position he was able to find a new wife, Judith (They went on to have 3 children before their divorce in 1984).
Following the appointment of a permanent director by President Kennedy, Dietrich returned to his position as a bush pilot, leaving his wife and children behind. However, he had a new status from his post with the federal government. One of his first jobs was with the National Geographic Society. He accompanied a number of anthropologists on an expedition to gather information on the quixotic “mummy caves”’of the Aleutian Islands. This project lasted until 1963. After that, he took a job with a private team seeking to traverse the North Slope by dog sled. His job started as their resupply pilot, but he quickly turned into the expedition’s protector, making international headlines for killing a polar bear without a gun. The details are foggy and questioned by experts, but many believe the story. (It would later be debunked as a tall tale, as details surfaced of another member of the expedition shooting the animal during that occurrence). He carried out a number of similar journeys until 1968, when he was recruited to the British Trans-Arctic Expedition. He went on an almost 4,000 mile journey from Alaska to Svalbard, becoming one of the first men to reach the North Pole and traverse the Arctic Ocean by foot. He would survive the trip, but after the expedition, while stopping in Greenland en route to the United States, he would fall into the ocean while disembarking his ship. He was drunk, still celebrating the successful trek. Unfortunately, he failed to treat the cold properly, caught frost bite, and lost all of the toes on his right foot. He would never walk without a cane again. The year and a half following the expedition Dietrich (like the other explorers) would be an object of fascination in the international news and in academic circles. He accompanied the other explorers on an international lecture and interview circuit for a few months. Like the other members of the expedition, he won a number of civilian honors and accolades from geographic societies. Unfortunately, being a man of action and not a egghead academic, he grew bored with it. He returned to Alaska. His injury left him unable to embark on any other expeditions, at least in the short term. It was an election year, and the Democrats were poised to reclaim it Alaska’s sole House seat. The likely nominee was a businessman and state legislator who had only moved to the state 5 years prior from Seattle. Dietrich saw him as a “limp wristed continental carpetbagger.” A combination of this sentiment, inspiration from the Nixon Administration’s proposed Environmental Protection Agency, and the urging of supporters in Alaska led to Dietrich running for the seat as a Republican. The party was happy to have a candidate with name recognition in the massive district and ties to the Native communities as its nominee. After a hard fought campaign battle, the Republicans held the seat. He intended originally to only serve 3 terms, let his foot heal, then go back to the Arctic Circle. That did not pan out.
House of Representatives
Tenure
Dietrich has been elected to the U.S. House twenty-five times, and was expected to attain fifty-years consecutive service on January 3, 2021. He was however, nominated to be Vice-President of the United States via the twenty-fifth Amendment.