Former Democratic U.S. Sen. Jim Webb has officially announced his bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the president.

The 69-year-old Missouri native announced he was throwing his hat in the ring on Thursday via his website, stating, "I understand the odds, particularly in today's political climate where fair debate is so often drowned out by huge sums of money."

Webb, who represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate from 2007 to 2012, is the fifth Democrat to seek the White House in 2016. Promising to fight the political influence of big-money interests, Webb said, "Our country needs a fresh approach to solving the problems that confront us and too often unnecessarily divide us."

Webb is a decorated war hero who served in the Vietnam War and as Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan.

Aside from his political work, Webb has also been involved in the literary world as well as the entertainment industry, having written 10 best-selling books and having acted as an executive producer on the 2000 Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones film "Rules of Engagement," which was based on his work.

The presidential hopeful was a war zone journalist as well. His 1983 reporting from Beirut on the Lebanese civil war, which aired on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, earned him an Emmy Award.

Judging from a recent Facebook post in which he called for an evenhanded look at the confederate flag, Webb is not afraid to take a controversial side.

“This is an emotional time and we all need to think through these issues with a care that recognizes the need for change but also respects the complicated history of the Civil War,” Webb wrote. “The Confederate Battle Flag has wrongly been used for racist and other purposes in recent decades. It should not be used in any way as a political symbol that divides us.”

Having said that Webb went on to write, “We should also remember that honorable Americans fought on both sides in the Civil War, including slave holders in the Union Army from states such as Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware, and that many non-slave holders fought for the South.”