Establishment media outlet POLITICO admits Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), Kamala Harris‘s running mate, is refusing to disclose when he asked to leave the National Guard. Walz took early retirement shortly before his unit deployed to Iraq, and unearthed press releases from the time suggest his claims he did not know about the looming deployment are untrue.
“Walz has not publicly provided one key detail about his retirement—namely the specific date that he officially requested to leave the service,” reports Ben Kesling, himself a Marine veteran. “That information would allow the public to know if his unit was aware of a forthcoming deployment at the time he submitted paperwork to leave the military. Walz’s staff did not provide that date when asked for it by POLITICO,” he confirms.
In an article comparing the service records of Walz and former President Donald J. Trump‘s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, Kesling acknowledges Vance, who deployed to Iraq as a U.S. Marine, has been forthright about his service.
On the other hand, he reluctantly concedes that Walz has misrepresented his service. He notes that the Minnesota Democrat, who deployed to Europe in support of operations in Afghanistan but never to a combat zone, has “nodded along” when others have inaccurately described him as having deployed to Afghanistan.
STOLEN VALOR.
Kesling also acknowledges “both sides of the political spectrum seem to agree” that Walz “claim[ed] too much” when he referred to “weapons of war, that I carried in war” during an anti-gun rights speech, having never been deployed to a war zone.
Walz also now admits to being “imprecise” when he claimed to be a “retired command sergeant major,” as he never earned the rank before retiring.
Lieutenant Colonel John Kolb, a former commander of Walz‘s battalion, has said Walz’s attempts to “glom onto the title” of command sergeant major are an “affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps” and that Walz’s early retirement made way for better leadership in his unit.
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