The Minnesota National Guard has disputed Governor Tim Walz's military biography, saying that his claims of retiring at the rank of command sergeant major is untrue.
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Minnesota National Guard spox Army Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Augé told Just the News that Walz, Kamala Harris' vice presidential running mate, was demoted and did not retire as a command sergeant major as he has claimed for years - including on his official gubernatorial biography - as he failed to complete a 750-hour course in the Army's Sergeants Major Academy, a mandatory course for E-9s, the Army's highest enlisted rank.
While Walz temporarily held the title of command sergeant major 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," Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, told Just the News.
The statement reignited a controversy that began during his 2018 election for governor in which National Guardsman claimed on social media and in a paid ad that Walz declined to deploy to Iraq for combat duty in 2005 and forfeited his title of command sergeant major.
Walz chose to run for Congress that year. -Just the News
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It looks like he will fit in with the current White House cabal
The governor's biography, however, says that "Command Sergeant Major Walz" retired from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005. At the time he was serving as one of the highest ranking members of the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion.
Actually, 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 Augé.
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That said, an unnamed Guard spokesperson told Task & Purpose, in direct contradiction to Augé, that Walz's demotion was a technicality.
"Soldiers who do not finish the course revert back to their prior rank," they told the outlet. "This is what we refer to as an administrative reduction and not punitive in nature."
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The outlet also claims that the Guard 'confirmed' that Walz was properly promoted and served in the E-9 role, and "retired as" an E-9, despite the later reduction.
That said, Task & Purpose also framed the entire stolen valor controversy as "The 'Swift Boating' of Tim Walz" - as if his on-record lies about 'weapon of war, that I carried in war' (he never saw war), are the same as disputed allegations over John Kerry's (D) Vietnam war record.
But Kerry is not now running for Vice President.
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On Wednesday we noted that Walz straight up lied about having been deployed in a combat zone.
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The lies were so egregious that even CNN acknowledged they were less than ideal.
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"Walz did make a comment speaking to a group, he’s done it a couple of times, where he has used language that has suggested that he carried weapons in a fighting situation," said CNN correspondent Tom Foreman in a fact check.
"As you know, with your contact with the military, I know from coming from a military family, there is a difference between being in a combat area, being involved at a time of war and actually being in a position where people are shooting at you.
There is no evidence that at any time Governor Walz was in a position of being shot at, and some of his language could easily be seen to suggest that he was."
"So that is absolutely false when he said that about gun rights out there.
The campaign has essentially come forward to say, ‘Look, he had a long career, he would never want to purposely mislead people about this.’ It’s what campaigns tend to say," Foreman continued.
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Meanwhile, in a 2006 press release issued by his campaign, Walz is described as a "veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom," the US military operation in Afghanistan.
As modernity.news notes, some have charged that this is misleading given that Walz was stationed in Italy at the time, with his battalion providing base security in Europe.
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Walz has also come under fire from the men he served with, who described him in a 2019 letter as 'Traitorous, fraudulent and shameful.'
Meanwhile, the Free Beacon reports that Walz knew his National Guard battalion was being eyed for a likely redeployment to Iraq when he decided to retire.
"As TEMPORARY Command Sergeant Major, I have a responsibility not only to ready my battalion for Iraq, but also to serve if called on," Walz said in a campaign statement on March 20, 2005.
THAT IS TOTAL BS, BECAUSE HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR BASE SECURITY
Just three days prior, the National Guard Public Affairs Office announced that at least part of his battalion could be shipped overseas to the Middle East in the next two years.
Walz left the National Guard that May.
Two months later, his battalion was put on notice that they would be deploying to Iraq.
When questioned about all of it, Walz decided to duck, cover, and run from a journalist before an explanation could be 'deployed.'
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” — referencing the US fight against terrorists in Afghanistan.
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.
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.”
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Tim Walz (far right) held up a “Operation Enduring Freedom Veteran 4 Kerry” sign at a protest against President George Bush in Minnesota in 2004 — despite the fact that he was never deployed during his service in the National Guard.
Michael Brodkorb /X
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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.
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.)
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Some veteran critics said they felt Walz had been “fast and loose” with his word choices at times in describing his service.
Courtesy of Tim Walz
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.
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Here is the latest on VP pick Tim Walz’s time in the military
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The most egregious — which CNN’s own fact check labeled “absolutely false” — came during a 2018 campaign appearance when Walz was running for governor.
While trying to burnish his pro-gun control bona fides before a small crowd at a campaign event, Walz said, “We can research the impacts of gun violence. We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war.”
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Walz served 24 years in the National Guard until his retirement in 2005. After being named as Kamala Harris’ running mate, claims he’s made about his service have come under new light.
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Vice presidential candidat Sen. JD Vance accused Walz of “stolen valor garbage.”
Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images
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When pressed, Walz conceded later that year that he did not “carry weapons of war” in the field of battle.
Iraq vet and former Republican congressman from Michigan Peter Meijer also criticized Walz’s choice of words, but stopped short of agreeing fully with Vance’s assessment that he was guilty of “stolen valor” — lying about military service or achievements to get ahead in civilian life.
“I think Walz played fast and loose with his military bio to stay above water as his congressional district drifted right,” Meijer wrote in a thread on X addressing the accusations against Walz.
Tim Walz a ‘coward’ and ‘traitor’ for retiring from military before Iraq, says Guardsman who replaced VP pick
“He let audiences paint in their minds a deceptive picture. It was shady, but not stolen valor.”
Alex Plintsas, a decorated Iraq War army veteran and Atlantic Council fellow, called Walz’s choice of words about being a veteran of “Operation Enduring Freedom” “true but misleading” — indicating they deliberately lack context in an attempt to make people believe he fought in Afghanistan.
“Why misleading? When you ask a fellow veteran where they deployed or if they offer first, it’s ‘Iraq,’ ‘Afghanistan,’ ‘Syria’ etc. No one says ‘Operation Enduring Freedom Veteran.’ That goes on the hats you wear to the VA for doctors appointments. I don’t make the rules,” he wrote on X.
In 2009, David Thul, a National Guard veteran and constituent of Walz, marched the protest photo into his campaign office to confront a staffer about the “Operation Enduring Freedom” claim.
“Is there any question in your mind what Enduring Freedom is?” the veteran asks in a viral video of the encounter.
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Walz made exaggerated statements about his service in the Minnesota National Guard, critics say.
Facebook / Governor Tim Walz
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“No,” the staffer said.
“Ok, so I guess most people, yourself included, associate Enduring Freedom with Afghanistan?” he pressed.
“Right, I think his audience understands it encompasses a great deal,” the staffer offered.
The veteran then asked, “My concern, other than this picture, is that the congressman’s website, his official biography, says simply that he [was a veteran] in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Without any other details, don’t you think it’s reasonable people might assume he served in Afghanistan?”
The staffer muttered in reluctant response, “perhaps, I guess.”
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The vet than said the photograph “could get the congressman probably thrown in jail for a violation of the [2005] Stolen Valor Act,” which made it “a federal misdemeanor to falsely represent oneself as having received any U.S. military decoration or medal.”
In fact, Walz has also been criticized for putting in for retirement from the Minnesota National Guard before his unit deployed to Iraq for the first time in 2005. Two men in his unit — Sgt. Kyle Miller, 19, and Sgt. 1st Class David Berry, 37, — were killed by IEDs.
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.
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The Harris campaign had no comment.
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“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.”
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Lt. Col. Shaffer, Brig. Gen. Holt to Newsmax: Walz 'Not Viable for Any Future Office'
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/tony-shaffer-blaine-holt-tim-wal...
By James Morley III
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Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer told Newsmax on Friday that the past words and actions of Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., have made him "not viable for any future office."
Since being named Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate on Tuesday, Walz has come under intense scrutiny, accused of implying that he had seen time in a war zone even though he retired prior to his battalion's deployment to Iraq.
While making a pitch to ban assault weapons during his 2018 campaign for governor, he told a crowd: "We can research the impacts of gun violence. We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war."
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During an appearance on "
The Chris Salcedo Show," Shaffer said Walz "has damaged himself by his own actions," adding that "if he doesn't win this, he's done."
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Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt joined the conversation and said that Walz's past actions "get to the character" of the Democrat vice presidential nominee.
"It's not just him skipping out on a deployment before his unit goes to war and sustains combat losses, it's him dragging around some imaginary war story, in a campaign format, where he took a gun to war. Or he wears a special operations ball cap.
"This is offensive. It's repugnant. But it gets to a bigger issue. The bigger issue is one of character," he said.
"And if we look at his track record about burning down Minneapolis, tampons in kid's bathrooms, a cozy relationship with the Chinese, having the imams over who are praising the destruction of Israel, that gets to his character," Holt added.
Harris is a good judge of character?
A former battalion commander in the same Minnesota Army National Guard unit as Gov. Tim Walz took to social media on Monday to blast the vice presidential nominee for stolen valor, calling it an "affront" that Walz continues to "glom onto the title" of command sergeant major despite not completing the requisite steps to earn it.
Further, John Kolb wrote in his post to Facebook that Walz's decision to retire early from the outfit was a blessing in disguise, because it led to better leadership — retired command sergeant major Thomas Behrends, who skewered Walz in an appearance on Newsmax earlier Monday.
But Walz's taking credit for rising to E9, a rank he "did not earn," was an affront.
The Harris-Walz campaign has walked back Walz's assertion, saying the governor "mis-spoke" about retiring as a command sergeant major.
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Kolb wrote that he has "no criticism of [Walz's] service as an E7 or E8."
However, "I cannot say the same thing of his service sitting, all-dressed-up, in the CSM [command sergeant major] chair.
He did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E9.
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"It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title," Kolb wrote. "I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot."
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Kolb wrote that when Walz retired shortly before a deployment to Iraq was close to happening, Walz "unwittingly got out of the way for better leadership" — Behrends.
Behrends, Kolb wrote, "ran toward and not away from guns."
Behrends told Newsmax on Monday that Walz is a "liar and a fraud."
Behrends said there are "seven Army values and [Walz is] the opposite of every one of them," adding that, "we do not want that as a person that is one step away from being commander in chief."
In addition to his rank, Walz also invited criticism when a video from 2018 surfaced of him talking about handling weapons that he used "in war."
Walz retired before he ever saw any combat in Iraq or Afghanistan.
He was in a support role, base security, while stationed in Italy.
"When someone says he mis-spoke on something as serious as this, that means they are a liar," Behrends said.
