State lawmaker swaps one uniform for another
Twenty-four hours after flying back from Eastern Europe, state Rep. Hubert Delany III was in Hartford, voting on the state budget. He got one night at home.
“I gave my fiancee some flowers, splashed some water on my face, changed out of my camo uniform, put on my suit and tie uniform, drove immediately up into Hartford, stayed in my office for three days and just kept working,” he said.
Delany, elected to the state House last year to represent Stamford, is also an Army reservist with the 353rd Civil Affairs Command. His job is that of a journalist, documenting what the Army does, going where other soldiers go whether it be in combat or a board room.
“There’s an expression in military journalism: To tell a soldier’s story you’ve got to be able to fight by their side,” he said. “I qualify on weapons, and I have my camera.”
For this recent twoweek deployment, Delany was in the Balkans — “think Albania and North Macedonia, Kosovo area,” he said — where the mission was to “build up U.S.-led and NATO combat power in the region in Eastern Europe, through interoperability of government services.”
That means, as Delany explained, he was documenting the work of military diplomats attempting to connect and build alliances with local leaders.
“We would go to the areas that the military operations were affecting, and sit down with village leaders to talk with them about, how is this military operation affecting the roads here? Or hospital leaders for pop-up emergency medical stations that maybe support three or four villages at the same time,” he said.
As Russia has waged war in Ukraine, surrounding regions have been drawn into the conflict, and Balkan states are no different. Serbia has traditionally been an ally of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but has issued a statement in support of Ukraine.
“As already strained relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated further over the Ukraine war, tensions have also risen in the Balkans,” according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Delany said the reception he and his fellow soldiers received was “overwhelmingly positive.”
“Fear and division are real, but so is hope, opportunity and teamwork,” he said. “There are people who are afraid, there’s people who are angry and upset about the state of their economy, their own government or the state of their own military, but there’s also people that are hopeful and working hard and are, excuse me for saying it, kicking ass together.”
Much of what stuck with him was “the raw geography,” specifically the mountain range known as the Accursed Mountains.
“It was so incredible to experience it,” he said. “The tall mountains, the skinny mountain roads, driving up those steep inclines, marching through the woods. I mean, it was absolutely beautiful. The Accursed Mountains are an incredible region.”
But Delany also said he was struck by the level of cooperation between people from widely different backgrounds. His commander was a city planner from Buffalo. There were soldiers from Kosovo and North Macedonia and other places, all working together to achieve the same goal.
“Everyone coming together with their different backgrounds to sit down with the village leader to talk about how the military and NATO operations have been affecting their area and what we can do to be able to lift them up,” he said. “It’s really something to see. That’s what touched me. That’s the story. I’m going to tell.”
Delany said shifting from serving with the Army in a war-torn region to the state capital can be a jarring transition, but that he falls back on the phrase “Semper Gumby,” which he said means “just to be flexible.”
He’s new to the state legislature, and not yet 30 years old, but Delany said he’s managed to maintain a sense of positivity and flexibility.
“I’m a soldier. I don’t have expectations. I keep my head in the clouds, my feet on the ground and my body on a swivel,” he said. “But that said, it’s more rewarding than I ever thought it could be.”
“I’m not saying that there’s not problems,” Delany said. “A lot of the stereotypical issues that you would assume that are rough with this job are there. Same thing in the Army. But I am so proud of my position and the job I’ve been able to do and my community. I love my home. I grew up here. I enlisted to serve here and I plan to keep serving.”