Vance accused Walz of 'stolen valor.' What to know about Walz’s military record

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Late Tuesday afternoon, the Harris campaign released a video of Tim Walz talking about gun control. Walz, whom Kamala Harris recently announced as her running mate, talks about banning assault rifles as part of what he calls “common sense” proposals.

“We can make sure that those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is the only place where those weapons are at,” Walz said in the video.

That was all Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance needed.

“Well, I wonder, Tim Walz, when were you ever in war? When was this?” Vance said.

The vice presidential candidate is supposed to be an attack dog, sometimes landing the lower blows that might seem unpresidential. But Vance and Walz are also both veterans, with another thing in common: neither one of them saw combat. Their service shored up each ticket, adding a military credential beside two presidential candidates that never served. It didn’t seem like an issue. But in this compressed campaign season, Walz’s phrasing opened up a line of attack — and the Trump campaign took it, accusing the Minnesota governor of one of the most grievous charges possible in military circles.

War, combat and service – and a charge of “stolen valor”

Walz joined the National Guard at age 17 and served 24 years, first in Nebraska then Minnesota. During that time he got called up to national disasters and a deployment to the Arctic Circle in Norway. He completed his 20 years required for retirement in 2001, but then reenlisted after the attacks on Sept. 11. His only wartime deployment was to Italy in 2003, backfilling troops that were deploying to Afghanistan. So Vance, and many veterans on social media, took issue with Walz saying he’d carried weapons “in war.”

The Harris campaign said in a statement: “In his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times. Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American's service to this country -- in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It's the American way."

But Vance went a lot further, with an attack that the Trump campaign probably had prepared.

“What was this weapon that you carried into war, given that you abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq, and he has not spent a day in a combat zone? What bothers me about Tim Walz is the stolen valor garbage," Vance said.

Since Walz first ran for Congress and then governor, he’s faced attacks around the timing of his retirement. Vance’s accusation echoes one made by two fellow high-ranking sergeants from the Minnesota Guard who publicly attacked Walz in 2018, in a paid endorsement letter to the editor of the West Central Tribune. They slammed Walz for “conveniently retiring a year before his battalion was deployed to Iraq.”

According to the Minnesota National Guard, Walz retired in May 2005, two months before his unit, the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery received an alert order for mobilization to Iraq in July 2005. It’s likely that Walz put in for retirement months before that May. It’s also clear that guardsmen anticipated deployment to Iraq months before July.

According to several of his contemporaries in the guard Walz talked about it as a hard decision: that if he deployed he’d miss his best chance to run for Congress.

“He weighed that decision to run for Congress very, very heavy,” Allan Bonnifield, who served with Walz, told Minnesota Public Radio in 2018. “He loved the military, he loved the Guard, he loved the soldiers that he worked with, and making that decision was very tough for him. Especially knowing that we were going on another deployment to Iraq. He didn’t take that decision lightly at all.”

The unit didn’t go to Iraq until March 2006, 10 months after Walz retired, where it stayed for a grueling 22-month extended deployment. The charge has dogged Walz, and in his last run for governor in 2022, it was even leveled by a political opponent who never served at all.

Walz’s rank

The latest round of attacks on Walz stirred up another confusing point about his rank. Walz served as a command sergeant major, the highest enlisted rank. But his retirement papers put him one step lower – a master sergeant. The Minnesota National Guard told NPR that Walz retired before completing academic requirements to keep the higher rank.

“He held multiple positions within field artillery such as firing battery chief, operations sergeant, first sergeant and culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion. He retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” said Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s state public affairs officer.

So while Walz can say he served as a command sergeant major, which also made him the highest enlisted member serving in Congress, and he can even get away with saying he retired as a command sergeant major, he cannot say he is a “retired command sergeant major.” On Thursday the Harris campaign changed Walz’s official bio on their website to reflect that.

Charges of “swiftboating”

Attacking an opponent’s military service has a short history in presidential campaigns – the verb “swiftboat” dates back only 20 years, when George W. Bush’s campaign attacked combat-decorated John Kerry’s military service in Vietnam, which might have seemed risky since Bush avoided serving there. Donald Trump, who also avoided going to Vietnam, took the tactic to another level, attacking his GOP critic John McCain’s storied status as a POW. Now, Harris supporters are claiming that Vance is trying to “swiftboat” Walz, and even pointing to a member of the Bush-era campaign who is now working for Trump.

Veterans groups are generally keeping out of the fray; many veterans service organizations are on record praising the choice of two enlisted military veterans as vice-presidential nominees.

“This means that regardless of the outcome in November, the next vice president of the United States will be a former enlisted service member. I am pleased to see both major parties recognize that military service is once again a valued experience in choosing the candidate for the second highest position in the country,” Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander Al Lipphardt said in a statement.