In 2004, Tim Walz organized a protest outside a rally for President George W. Bush where he held up a sign that read “Operation Enduring Freedom Veteran 4 Kerry. The trouble is, in his 24 years in the Minnesota National Guard, Walz never deployed to combat zones in Afghanistan or Iraq. The closest he got was thousands of miles away in Italy. But it’s a label he used again and again — including in his official biography when he ran for Congress two years later in 2006.
Walz never deployed to combat zones in Afghanistan or Iraq.
That photo shows just one way that Walz, Kamala Harris’ VP pick, has repeatedly exaggerated and embellished his military record. Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, accused the second-term governor of Minnesota of “stolen valor garbage.
Kamala Harris’ VP pick.
At least one former member of Walz’s National Guard unit who was deployed to Iraq took a dim view of the haphazard way in which the VP candidate has spoken about his service.
former member of Walz’s National Guard unit.
It’s stolen valor,” said the former guardsman, speaking on condition of anonymity.
He used very specific phrases on his website that would suggest to a civilian that he had been to Afghanistan. He carried signs protesting at a rally for George W. Bush saying he was part of Operation Enduring Freedom, which would signal that he had seen combat in Afghanistan when he hadn’t.
The Harris-Walz campaign seemed to acknowledge the critics on Thursday when it scrubbed another contested claim about his service record from his official biography on its website — that Walz had retired as a command sergeant major.
In fact, Walz actually retired from the military with the rank of master sergeant because he hadn’t completed the required additional coursework, the military said.
That, too, was a claim he made repeatedly. A newly surfaced video from 2009 shows then-Congressman Walz delivering a televised farewell message to a group of soldiers deploying for Iraq in which he calls himself a “retired Command Sergeant Major.
While far from the worst elision, it demonstrates how the questions being asked are forcing the campaign to do some editorial damage control.
The most egregious — which CNN’s own fact check labeled “absolutely false” — came during a 2005 campaign event for Walz when he said, “I spent three years deployed … in combat with the First Cav… I know the smell of death….” However, according to official military records, Walz was stationed at Fort Hood during this time and never served in combat.
The Harris campaign and its supporters downplay these discrepancies as nitpicky, but Meijer said he believes, “it’s fair to hold him to a higher standard as a senior noncommissioned officer,” given Walz’ high-ranking status at the National Guard.
It’s] equivalent of Lieutenant-Colonel, that’s a position of great responsibility. That’s a senior position, and there are more expectations of the conduct within the service from somebody in that position,” he said.
The Harris campaign had no comment.
