Veterans are increasingly publicly criticizing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over his military record following Vice President Kamala Harris naming him as her 2024 running mate.
"When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle – not the other way," retired Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Behrends told the New York Post last week, when Walz was named Harris’ running mate. "He ran away. It’s sad.
"He had the opportunity to serve his country, and said ‘Screw you’ to the United States. That’s not who I would pick to run for vice president."
Behrends’ comments were shortly followed by a deluge of news coverage surrounding Walz’s 24 years in the Army National Guard as questions mounted surrounding his service record and claims of "stolen valor" gained traction.
Walz served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery after transferring from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996. He retired as a master sergeant in 2005.
Criticisms have mounted that Walz retired just months before his battalion deployed to Iraq as war raged in the Middle East following the 9/11 attacks. Walz put in his papers for retirement at least five months before his battalion received deployment orders, according to the Minnesota National Guard.
"He subverted the chain of command, and he went around the chain of command. The brigade [sergeant] major had no clue. These are all important facts, and he did it to continually feather his own bed… That was the shameful part of it," retired Command Sgt. Maj. Paul Herr told Fox News last week.
While former Minnesota National Guard Command Sgt. Maj. Doug Julin appeared to bolster criticism that Walz retired as the unit prepared to deploy during an interview with CNN. Julin said the battalion – "including my boss, commander, and the command team" – had multiple meetings to discuss deployment months before Walz sought retirement.
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The grieving mom of Sgt. Kyle Miller, who died at the age of 19 in 2006, also issued a scathing response regarding Walz’s retirement just before the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery unit deployed to Iraq.
"My son wasn’t even 21 years old. He couldn’t even buy alcohol. Yet he took the step to serve our country while Walz found the best way to run away," Miller’s mother, Kathy Miller, told the Daily Mail last week. Kyle Miller was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq while he was deployed by Walz’s former battalion.
"It was the coward’s way out."
After retiring, Walz launched a successful congressional campaign, and served as a member of the U.S. House representing Minnesota from 2007 until 2019, when he was then sworn in as the Gopher State’s governor. Harris announced last Tuesday that she selected Walz to join her on the 2024 ticket, after speculation that she would choose Walz, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro or Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly as her running mate.
Walz has subsequently been slammed by a number of veterans for allegedly misrepresenting his service in the military, including identifying himself to the public as a retired "Command Sergeant Major."
Walz was promoted to the command sergeant major rank following a deployment to Italy in 2004, but did not complete coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy to retain the rank in retirement. Walz instead retired as a master sergeant, one pay grade below command sergeant major.
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The battalion commander of Walz’s former Minnesota Army National Guard unit issued a scathing message on Facebook over the weekend, saying it’s "an affront" to the military if Walz continues using a rank he did not retain upon retirement.
"By all accounts and on the record, he was a competent Chief of Firing Battery/Gunnery Sergeant and First Sergeant. I cannot say the same of his service sitting, frocked, in the [command sergeant major] chair. He did not earn the rank or successfully complete any assignment as an E9," John Kolb, retired lieutenant colonel of the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, wrote on Facebook, according to the Daily Mail.
"It is an affront to the Noncommissioned Officer Corps that he continues to glom onto the title. I can sit in the cockpit of an airplane, it does not make me a pilot. Similarly, when the demands of service and leadership at the highest level got real, he chose another path," Kolb wrote in the reported social media post.
Fox News Digital reached out to both the Harris campaign and Walz’s gubernatorial office earlier this week asking why Walz did not complete coursework with the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy before retiring from the Minnesota National Guard in 2005, but did not receive comment explaining the decision.
Instead, the Harris campaign directed Fox Digital to a Minnesota Public Radio article from 2018, when a public affairs officer for the Minnesota National Guard told the outlet "it is legitimate for Walz to say he served as a command sergeant major."
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"[The public affairs officer] said the rank changed because Walz retired before completing coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy along with other requirements associated with his promotion," the article explained.
Last week, the Harris campaign updated its biography for Walz to omit a reference that he is a "retired Command Sergeant Major," updating the bio to show Walz "served as a command sergeant major."
Walz has also come under fire from veterans who say he misrepresented serving in a combat zone. Walz was deployed to Italy in 2003 to assist U.S. operations in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, but has never served in a combat zone.
In one video shared by the Harris campaign last week, Walz declared he wants to ban guns like the ones he "carried in war."
"I spent 25 years in the Army, and I hunt. I’ve been voting for commonsense legislation that protects the Second Amendment, but we can do background checks. 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," Walz said in a video posted by the Harris campaign last week.
The Harris campaign said last week that Walz "misspoke" when he claimed he carried firearms "in war."
"In making the case for why weapons of war should never be on our streets or in our classrooms, the Governor misspoke," Hitt added. "He did handle weapons of war and believes strongly that only military members trained to carry those deadly weapons should have access to them, unlike Donald Trump and JD Vance who prioritize the gun lobby over our children," campaign spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told the media.
Republican Virginia Senate candidate Hung Cao slammed Walz for suggesting he served in a combat zone.
"For 20 years, they let this guy go by with a lie that he deployed to Iraq, which he didn’t, and that he retired as a Command Sergeant Major which he did not. I mean, that’s just blatant lies," Cao, a retired Navy captain, told The New York Post last week.
Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who joined former President Trump on the 2024 Republican ticket last month, has also criticized Walz for his military record.
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"As a Marine who served his country in uniform when the United States Marine Corps, when the United States of America asked me to go to Iraq to serve my country, I did it. I did what they asked me to do, and I did it honorably," Vance said. "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, a fact that he's been criticized for aggressively by a lot of the people that he served with."
When asked about the mounting criticisms from veterans, the campaign directed Fox Digital to a handful of favorable comments from veterans about Walz's decades-long service.
"This is the insane thing. Every month thousands of people retire. The fact that Walz did 25 years, 5 OVER retirement eligibility, and 4 years after 9/11, is honorable. Many people at 25 years today would get out even if there was a deployment possibility because they DID THEIR DUTY," former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard, posted to X last week.
"He was there every single time we needed him for over a decade and Republicans will tell you this too. Everybody who’s worked on the Hill knows that Tim Walz delivered for veterans, on mental health, on the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention Act, he was the lead sponsor, on the GI bill, on VA reform… When the rubber meets the road for veterans especially, Tim Walz has been there," veteran Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said of Walz on MSNBC.
"He was as good a soldier as you’ll find," Joe Eustice, a 32-year veteran of the National Guard who led the same battalion as Walz, told CNN, noting that he is not voting for Walz.
Criticisms from veterans on Walz’s military career, however, stretch back years, only surfacing at the national level after Harris named him as her running mate.
"Tim Walz has embellished and selectively omitted facts and circumstances of his military career for years," Behrends and Herr wrote in a letter published by the West Central Tribune in 2018.
"When the nation called, he quit. He failed to complete the United States Army Sergeants Major Academy. He failed to serve for two years following completion of the academy, which he dropped out of. He failed to serve two years after the conditional promotion to Command Sergeant Major. He failed to fulfill the full six years of the enlistment he signed on September 18th, 2001. He failed his country. He failed his state. He failed the Minnesota Army National Guard, the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion, and his fellow Soldiers. And he failed to lead by example. Shameful," the pair continued.
Walz is anticipated to join Harris in Chicago next week, where the Democratic National Convention will be held ahead of the final stretch before Election Day.
Fox News Digital's Gabriel Hays contributed to this report.
