Walz faces Republican criticism over timing of military retirement

The Minnesota Nationwide Guard final week confirmed that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, now the Democratic candidate for vice chairman, retired from his navy profession 59 days earlier than his unit obtained official orders they might deploy to Iraq, undermining current Republican assaults that Walz deserted his fellow troops as they headed right into a conflict zone.

The ultimate months of Walz’ service — and the timing of his retirement — got here beneath scrutiny this week when Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance, an Iraq Warfare veteran and Republican senator from Ohio, accused his opponent of dodging the deployment.

Nevertheless, info from the Minnesota Nationwide Guard and candidacy paperwork Walz filed with the Federal Election Fee when he ran for Congress forged doubt on these accusations, and there’s no proof that Walz timed his departure with the intent of avoiding deployment, The Related Press reported. The very fact-checking publication PolitiFact on Friday described Vance’s statements as “largely false.”

“When Tim Walz was requested by his nation to go to Iraq, are you aware what he did? He dropped out of the Military and allowed his unit to go with out him,” Vance mentioned at an Aug. 7 information convention in Michigan.

Different Republican elected officers joined in, together with Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a Navy veteran, who claimed on X that Walz “turned his again on troopers in his unit.”

The criticism about Walz’s navy service began quickly after he was named Tuesday because the working mate for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. Throughout his first marketing campaign rally with Harris, Walz talked concerning the affect the navy had on his life.

“The Nationwide Guard gave me goal. It gave me the energy of a shared dedication to one thing higher than ourselves,” Walz mentioned. “And simply because it did for my dad and hundreds of thousands of others, the GI Invoice gave me a shot at a school schooling.”

In line with a abstract of his service shared by the Minnesota Nationwide Guard, Walz joined the Nebraska Nationwide Guard in 1981, and he transferred in 1996 to the Minnesota Nationwide Guard, the place he served within the 1st Battalion, a hundred and twenty fifth Area Artillery.

On Aug. 3, 2003, Walz mobilized with the unit in assist of Operation Enduring Freedom. Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota Nationwide Guard’s state public affairs officer, mentioned the unit supported safety missions at varied areas in Europe and Turkey. Walz was stationed in Vicenza, Italy, throughout the deployment, and he returned to Minnesota in April 2004, Augé mentioned.

In February 2005, Walz filed paperwork with the Federal Election Fee and issued a public assertion indicating his intent to run for Congress.

The next month, the Nationwide Guard knowledgeable Walz’s battalion there can be a potential mobilization of two,000 Minnesota troops to Iraq someday throughout the subsequent two years, however no official orders had been introduced. In a press release on the time, Walz’s newly-formed marketing campaign mentioned he supposed to remain within the congressional race.

Within the assertion, Walz is quoted as saying, “As command sergeant main I’ve a accountability not solely to prepared my battalion for Iraq, but additionally to serve if referred to as on. I’m devoted to serving my nation to the most effective of my capacity, whether or not that’s in Washington, D.C., or in Iraq.”

Walz formally retired from the Nationwide Guard in Could 2005. Military Lt. Col. Ryan Rossman, the Minnesota Nationwide Guard’s director of operations, mentioned the first Battalion, a hundred and twenty fifth Area Artillery obtained its alert order for its Iraq deployment two months later, on July 14, 2005.

“The official Division of the Military mobilization order was obtained on August 14, 2005, and the unit mobilized on October 12, 2005,” Rossman mentioned.

Any communication concerning the deployment earlier than the official order can be thought of an unofficial discover, and can be topic to vary, Rossman defined.

In line with the unit’s documented historical past, the battalion skilled at Camp Shelby in Mississippi and deployed to Iraq in March 2006. The unit returned in October 2007, in accordance with a congressional decision.

Walz first confronted criticism concerning the timing of his retirement throughout his congressional marketing campaign in 2006, and once more when he ran within the Minnesota gubernatorial race in 2018.

Within the Winona Day by day Information in November 2006, Walz responded to such criticisms, writing: “After finishing 20 years of service in 2001, I re-enlisted to serve our nation for an extra 4 years following Sept. 11 and retired the yr earlier than my battalion was deployed to Iraq with a view to run for Congress. I’m happy with the 24 years I served our nation within the Military Nationwide Guard. There’s a code of honor amongst those that’ve served, and usually this kind of partisan political assault comes solely from one who’s by no means worn a uniform.”

Two retired CSMs from the Minnesota Nationwide Guard submitted a paid letter to the editor of a Minnesota newspaper in 2018, saying of Walz’s retirement: “When the nation referred to as, he give up.” The letter circulated on-line this week after Harris named Walz as her working mate.

Joseph Eustice, a veteran who served with Walz, informed the New York Occasions final week that the assaults in opposition to Walz have been unfounded.

“He was pretty much as good a soldier as you’d discover, and to have two former sergeant majors say that he wasn’t, it’s simply not true,” Eustice informed The New York Occasions. He added that he disagreed with Walz’s politics and sure wouldn’t vote for him.

Along with the timing of his retirement, Walz’s rank is now the topic of scrutiny, because it’s been earlier than.

Whereas serving in discipline artillery, Walz held a number of positions, together with firing battery chief, operations sergeant and first sergeant, and he “culminated his profession serving because the command sergeant main for the battalion,” mentioned Augé.

He held the rank of command sergeant main for seven months, however Walz ended his profession as a grasp sergeant as a result of “he didn’t full further coursework on the U.S. Military Sergeants Main Academy,” Augé mentioned.

Command sergeants main who don’t full the Sergeants Main Course revert again to their prior rank, she defined.

Walz’s preliminary biography on the Harris marketing campaign web site mentioned he was a “retired command sergeant main.” The marketing campaign later modified the biography to say he “served as a command sergeant main.”

When Walz ran for governor in 2018 and noticed related scrutiny, Capt. Holly Rockow, a public affairs officer for the Minnesota Nationwide Guard, informed Minnesota Public Radio that it’s correct for Walz to say he served as a command sergeant main, although he didn’t retire as one.

With Walz’s and Vance’s nominations, the presidential election in November will mark the primary through which the poll contains post-9/11 veterans. Vance served a four-year enlistment as a fight correspondent and deployed to Iraq with the 2nd Marine Plane Wing from August 2005 to February 2006.

Neither Vance nor Walz skilled fight. In line with information shared by the Marine Corps and Nationwide Guard, Vance didn’t earn a Fight Motion Ribbon from the Marine Corps, and Walz didn’t get a fight badge from the Military — each of that are indicators of direct contact with the enemy.

In his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, Vance wrote that he was “fortunate to flee any actual preventing.” Walz was additionally cautious in his congressional biography to explain his 2003 deployment as being “in assist of Operation Enduring Freedom,” moderately than describing himself as a veteran of the Afghanistan or Iraq wars.

The Harris-Walz marketing campaign mentioned over the weekend that Walz “misspoke” in a 2018 video clip circulated by the marketing campaign, through which he mentioned gun restrictions and mentioned, “We are able to guarantee that these weapons of conflict, that I carried in conflict, is the one place the place these weapons are at.”

Whereas Walz did deal with weapons of conflict, he didn’t carry them in a fight zone, the marketing campaign mentioned. The Harris marketing campaign pushed in opposition to the GOP’s characterizations of Walz’s service.

“Governor Walz would by no means insult or undermine any American’s service to this nation — in actual fact, he thanks Senator Vance for placing his life on the road for our nation. It’s the American manner,” a marketing campaign assertion reads.

This story was produced in partnership with Navy Veterans in Journalism. Please ship tricks to MVJ-Ideas@militarytimes.com.