Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was picked by Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday to be her running mate, has already drawn a heap of criticism for several false claims he has made, including one regarding an argument for banning so-called “assault weapons.” Walz claimed to have carried such weapons “in war” during his tenure in the Army National Guard, as shown in a video released by the Kamala Harris campaign on Tuesday. However, there’s a glaring issue with his statement.
Walz served 24 years in the Army National Guard but did not see combat, according to his résumé. He primarily responded to natural disasters in Minnesota and Nebraska, as he mentioned in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio. Although Walz had some overseas assignments, such as supporting the European security force in Italy during the war in Afghanistan and participating in joint training exercises with NATO forces in Norway, he was stationed away from active conflict zones.
According to Minnesota Public Radio, Walz affirmed that he reenlisted in the National Guard in response to the 9/11 attacks, but he did not engage in combat before retiring in 2005. “I know that there are certainly folks that did far more than I did. I know that,” Walz told the outlet in 2018. But Walz gave a much different impression of his military service at a town hall event, which the Harris campaign highlighted shortly after his selection as VP.
“I spent 25 years in the Army, and I hunt,” Walz says at the beginning of the clip. He said he supports “common sense legislation” that “protects the Second Amendment,” but said he favors extensive background checks. “We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, is [sic] the only place that those weapons are at,” he said.
During his time in the National Guard, Walz worked with firearms and heavy artillery and earned proficiency awards in sharpshooting and hand grenades, according to Minnesota Public Radio. He experienced hearing loss from working with heavy artillery, which he cited following a DUI arrest in 1995, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
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Walz’s military background was reportedly a significant factor in Vice President Kamala Harris’s decision to select him as her running mate. A campaign spokesman shared a photo of Walz in uniform shortly after his addition to the ticket, and Walz has emphasized his career as a “citizen soldier” as a key element of his political appeal. But Walz has been accused of overstating his military career before.
Walz, who served in the Nebraska National Guard from 1981 to 1986 and the Minnesota National Guard from 1996 to 2005, has repeatedly asserted that he achieved the rank of Command Sergeant Major. However, in 2022, retired Command Sergeant Majors Thomas Behrends and Paul Herr alleged that Walz did not meet the qualifications required to hold that rank before his retirement in 2005. They claimed he retired upon learning he would be deployed to Iraq.
On Wednesday, the Minnesota National Guard revealed that the governor, who has long claimed to have retired as a command sergeant major, was actually demoted from that rank. This disclosure contradicts years of statements made by Walz and his official gubernatorial biography.
According to Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota Army National Guard’s State Public Affairs Officer, Walz briefly held the title of command sergeant major but “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,” as reported by Just The News.
“I needed to hit the ground running and take care of the troops — and tell them we were going to war,” Behrends, who would take charge of 500 troops after being tapped to go in Walz’s place, told the New York Post. “For a guy in that position, to quit is cowardice.” He added: “When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle — not the other way. 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.”
