Tim Walz’s military record is beyond reproach

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Remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth group that besmirched Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s military record during the 2004 election? The architect of that discredited group was Chris LaCivita, who is now one of Donald Trump’s two campaign managers. It’s no accident that Republicans now are using many of that group’s same tactics to tarnish Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s excellent military service.

Walz is among the highest-ranking retired enlisted service members to have ever run on a major presidential ticket. Only three vice presidents have ever had military service in the enlisted ranks, and only one president has.

Let me explain what all that means.

There are two kinds of leaders in the military: the officer track (lieutenants, majors, colonels, generals), and the enlisted track. Leaders in the enlisted ranks are called noncommissioned officers (NCO), which are the sergeants of various stripes (literally). Officers set the strategy and tactics, and sergeants execute those orders. They are two different tracks. To become an officer, it requires a college degree, whereas that’s not the case with the enlisted. I was enlisted, working up from private when I was in basic training, to specialist when I finished my service. The next rank up would’ve been sergeant. My son is a specialist today, and he will no doubt become an NCO before he finishes his service.

Walz, who reached the rank of command sergeant major before he retired, is being accused of retiring when his unit was called up, instead of deploying. This accusation can be traced to this paid letter to the editor published in 2018 by two retired (and clearly conservative) high-ranking Minnesota National Guard members. The letter coincided with Walz’s first run for governor of the state. “When the nation called, he quit,” the two men wrote.

To be very clear, when you see conservatives like Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance claim “stolen valor,” that is just false. Heck, even the notoriously conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board said the claim is bogus. Walz never pretended to have served in war; he never made up accolades. The original accusation is simply that when Walz’s unit deployed to Iraq, he quit.

So what exactly happened?

Walz joined the National Guard at 17, serving first in Nebraska and later in Minnesota. The National Guard is a reserve component of the U.S. Army, with dual state and federal duties. So under state command, they’ll do things like riot duty, state disaster support, counter-narcotics efforts, patrol the southern border if they have Republican governors looking to score political points, etc. They can also be federalized. That happened with my son’s California unit, where he spent the past year in the Middle East. There are National Guard units in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.

Walz rose up the ranks over 24 years of service until he reached the highest rank possible at the state level, command sergeant major. It’s a big, big deal to reach this level.

When promoted to command sergeant major, that person must do two things, according to this letter:


  1. They must graduate from sergeant major school, which is two years online and two weeks in person.


  2. They must serve two years after graduation.

Walz’s timeline, according to the authors of that 2018 hit-piece:


  • On Sept. 17, 2004, Walz was conditionally promoted to command sergeant major.


  • “In early 2005,” his unit was notified of a potential future deployment to Iraq.


  • On May 16, 2005, he retired.

Additionally, they wrote that because Walz didn’t meet every requirement of his conditional promotion (i.e., serving for two years at that rank), his rank was lowered to master sergeant in September 2005, which was his retirement rank. And if it isn’t clear, the lowering of his rank is relevant only for retirement purposes. Walz served at the rank of command sergeant major; he just didn’t get his 20-year retirement pension at that higher pay grade. It was a bureaucratic issue, not some sort of reprimand.

However, the authors are deliberately vague about the timeline of Walz’s service. By writing that he was notified of a potential deployment “n early 2005,” it allows them to insinuate that Walz retired because he was afraid to deploy to Iraq. But this phrasing allows them to largely sidestep the fact that he filed to run for Congress over a month before his unit was notified.

The full timeline looks like this:


  • On Sept. 17, 2004, Walz was conditionally promoted to command sergeant major.


  • On Feb. 10, 2005, he filed paperwork with the FEC to run for Congress.


  • On March 17, his unit was notified of a potential deployment “within the next two years,” according to a contemporaneous statement on his campaign website.


  • On May 16, he retired from the National Guard.


  • On Aug. 14, his unit received deployment orders.


  • On Nov. 7, 2006, Walz defeated six-term Republican incumbent Gil Gutknecht in Minnesota’s rural 1st Congressional District, “becoming the highest-ranking retired enlisted soldier to serve in Congress,” according to Military.com.

That’s it.

Walz didn’t quit his service to his nation. Far from it. He served 24 years in uniform, and he’s continued serving his state and his nation ever since—in Congress, in Minnesota as governor, and, next year, in Washington as the vice president of the United States.

Republicans pretend to honor military service, but it’s all an act. I would never deign to insult Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s military service. It is an honor to serve, and those who do it should be treated with the proper respect. Anyone who mocks someone who has honorably served is mocking all my brothers and sisters in arms, including my son.

Even worse, Republicans are currently rallying around a presidential candidate who famously used a claim of bone spurs and four education deferments to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War. Donald Trump didn’t avoid service because of his conscience, which would in itself be honorable. He did so because he was too hoity-toity to serve. To Trump, dying was for the plebes. And even those who died in service, he disrespected by calling them “losers” and “suckers.”

I like, & am inspired by, Tim Walz, Kamala Harris's VP pick. He has military experience, as a SGT/NCO. Those of us who served know that it's the NCOs that make it all work. He was a HS social studies teacher & football coach. He's direct, plain-spoken, & an honest, honorable man. pic.twitter.com/sdLe0dUFjq

— Glenn Kirschner (@glennkirschner2) August 6, 2024


(Further reading: Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling answers the question “what’s the big deal about a command sergeant major?” here.)

There is no scandal with Walz’s military service. There is nothing unseemly about it, except for the now-typical conservative efforts to besmirch the service of those they don’t like.


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