Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz’s military record has been under scrutiny since he was announced as Kamala Harris’s running mate. Historic accusations made by some veterans have been revived by his opposite number, Republican JD Vance, who himself served in the military.
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Vance accused Walz
Mr Vance says that Mr Walz intentionally avoided combat in Iraq by resigning shortly before his unit was deployed there, and that he has been dishonest about his role in the military.
We’ve looked into his record and the military service of Mr Vance.
Why did Walz retire from the military?
Mr Vance claimed: “When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him.” Several former National Guard colleagues have previously publicly voiced frustrations at Mr Walz’s decision to leave their unit before deployment to Iraq – but others have rejected assertions that he retired to avoid combat duty. Mr Walz served for 24 years in the Army National Guard, a military force which is usually deployed within the US to respond to events such as natural disasters, but is also part of the US Army’s reserve.
In February 2005, while he was still in the National Guard, Mr Walz filed an application to run to be elected as a member of Congress from Minnesota. The following month it was announced that there would be “a possible partial mobilisation of roughly 2,000 troops from the Minnesota National Guard” to Iraq within the next two years, according to a 2005 press release from Mr Walz’s congressional campaign. In the statement, Mr Walz said: “I do not yet know if my artillery unit will be part of this mobilisation.”
He added: “I don’t want to speculate on what shape my campaign will take if I am deployed, but I have no plans to drop out of the race.” Mr Walz then retired from the National Guard in May 2005, which he later said was so he could focus fully on running for Congress. It’s unclear exactly when he submitted his resignation notice. We’ve asked both the National Guard and the Harris campaign when this was. His National Guard unit received orders to mobilise for Iraq in July 2005, and was sent there in March 2006, according to the battalion’s history page.
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.
Did Walz ever experience combat?
Mr Vance also says Mr Walz made “dishonest” claims about serving in combat.
He referred to a video promoted by the Harris campaign of Mr Walz talking about gun control.
In the clip, from 2018, he said that he “carried weapons in war”. On 9 August, the Harris campaign issued a statement saying that “in making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke”.
Mr Walz went to Italy with the National Guard in 2003 as part of support for the US war in Afghanistan – but he was never deployed to an active war zone. Responding to this claim about Mr Walz, a Harris campaign spokesperson said: “In his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times.”
Did he mislead about his rank?
The Trump campaign says Mr Walz “continues telling the lie that he retired as a Command Sergeant Major”. His official biography on the Minnesota state website says “Command Sergeant Major Walz retired from the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005.”He did reach the rank of command sergeant major near the end of his service, but he officially retired one rank below as a master sergeant. A national guard spokesperson told the BBC that “his rank reverted to master sergeant on May 15th, 2005, for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the US Army Sergeants Major Academy. He retired the following day.”
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.
What’s Vance’s military record?
Mr Vance served for four years in the US Marine Corps. He was deployed to Iraq for about six months in 2005 as a military journalist, although he didn’t experience combat. “I.“I was lucky to escape any real fighting,” he said in his 2016 memoir. He left the Marine Corps in 2007 as a corporal to attend Ohio State University. This article, first published on 8 August, was updated to reflect a statement on 9 August from the Harris campaign on Mr Walz’s comment that he carried weapons “in war”.
Charges of “swift boating”
Attacking an opponent’s military service has a short history in presidential campaigns – the verb “swiftboating” 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 “swiftboating” 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
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