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August 8, 2024

Veterans on X take a stand against Tim Walz’s abandoning his unit

By Andrea Widburg

Since the Vietnam era, the Democrat posture has been to oppose war. Indeed, the only war Democrats have been enthusiastic about since then is the Ukraine War, which is a bloodbath that will have no direct discernable effect on America’s national security (although it is draining our weapons supply). This reality does not mean that Democrats have not served in the military and used that service to advance their political careers. Minnesota governor Tim Walz traded on his service in the National Guard for decades. Now that he’s playing in the big leagues, though, we’ve learned that he lied about his service and ran from his men when battle neared.

John Kerry, Richard Blumenthal, Pete Buttigieg, Tim Walz...these are just a few hard-left Democrats who enlisted and then used that enlistment for political advancement. While Kerry and Buttigieg really did serve in combat zones, Blumenthal lied outright, implying that his time in the Marine Reserves in D.C. was, instead, active duty in Vietnam. Now, it turns out that Tim Walz is a liar in the Blumenthal mode.

The Tim Walz narrative is that he served overseas in combat zones while in the National Guard, retiring as a command sergeant major. The only problem is that this narrative contains a series of lies by omission.

First, Walz implied he’d served in Afghanistan when he never got further east than a luxury gig in Italy. That means that his whole shtick about being a gun-toting combat vet to justify his dream of destroying the Second Amendment is farcical.

Second, he only had a conditional promotion to command sergeant major, after which he was demoted to master sergeant because he did not complete his obligation to serve for a minimal amount of time. It’s that decision to leave before the promotion became permanent that highlights Walz’s real problem.

Third, and most seriously, when Walz’s unit was going to be sent to Iraq at the height of the war, he abruptly retired. That not only jettisoned his promotion, but it left his unit high and dry.

So, Walz really was a longstanding member of the National Guard, having first enlisted in Nebraska in 1981 before transferring to the Minnesota National Guard. In 2001, when he’d accrued his 20 years of service, he reenlisted for another six years after 9/11. All of that is commendable. It’s his apparent running away and then lying about his rank and the nature of his service that’s a problem. Incidentally, Walz had multiple opportunities to correct any misconceptions about his service but never did.

What really galls veterans is the “running away before being deployed” part. That’s why they responded enthusiastically when Kurt Schlichter, who served during the Gulf War and retired from the National Guard with the rank of colonel, invited vets to submit photos of them not being Tim Walz:

The response to Kurt’s request was overwhelming and, in the case of posts honoring men who served and never made it home or came home terribly injured, deeply moving. Many posts ended up on Kurt’s timeline, while others can be located by searching for the #NotTimWalsh hashtag or just “not being Tim Walz.” Here’s just a small sampling of the hundreds of posts from and about men and women who served:

In 2004, a lie about military service derailed John Kerry’s candidacy. The big question is whether, 20 years later, these types of lies still matter.

Image: X screen grab.

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