When, in the heat of a campaign, a politician puffs up his resume claims or exaggerates exploits that are not true, that's par for the course. However, when exaggeration or false claims involve service to one's country, that's different. For a politician to tell an audience his military record is something it is not, even to just give that impression, crosses the line from puffery to approaching stolen valor. Just a couple of days after being chosen to run alongside Kamala Harris, Tim Walz now faces this question: Can he avoid the stolen valor label?
Veterans and Current Service Members are Sensitive to Stolen Valor
Veterans, active duty service members, and reservists, having put their lives on the line in defense of America, are often particularly sensitive to false claims of service. Those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan might be exceptionally touchy about a politician who would give the impression he had engaged in combat when he hadn't. For Walz, the kerfuffle about whether he had been in combat began when a video clip surfaced of him during a campaign speech in which he talked about his stand on gun control. He asserted: "We can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war."
For a campaign, that's a nice turn of phrase. But there’s one problem: He didn't carry a weapon in war. Walz was not in combat, and his detractors claim the closest he came to the fight in Iraq was a deployment to Vicenza, Italy. Furthermore, when his unit, the 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery of the Minnesota National Guard, was issued a warning order stating it would be deployed to Iraq in 2005, Walz, as his unit's command sergeant major, put in his retirement papers to run for Congress. Serving in the National Guard and being a member of Congress are not mutually exclusive. Some in his unit found Walz's retirement an act of betrayal of his outfit.
"When Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz chose to leave the military on the eve of his deployment to Iraq, Thomas Behrends went in his place. 'I needed to hit the ground running and take care of the troops — and tell them we were going to war,' Behrends said of the 500 soldiers under his command. 'For a guy in that position, to quit is cowardice,'" the New York Post reported. When faced with the demands of combat and the terrible realities of war, emotions understandably run high. To be fair, Tim Walz spent 24 years in the Minnesota National Guard, achieving the rank of command sergeant major. As the late former Secretary of Defense, Don Rumsfeld, was fond of saying, "That's not nothing."
However, there are problems with Walz's portrayal of his service rank following retirement. On the Office of the Governor of Minnesota webpage, "After 24 years in the Army National Guard, Command Sergeant Major Walz retired from the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005," his official biography reads. Although it looks good as a campaign talking point, it would be more accurate to say Walz retired as a master sergeant. "Behrends said Walz had been promoted to command sergeant major in 2004 but claimed he was required to serve two additional years, or the promotion would be void. His early retirement terminated the promotion, reducing his rank to master sergeant," Fox reported. An inquiry to the Minnesota National Guard confirmed Walz's rank at retirement was master sergeant. Whether this deception rises to the level of “Stolen Valor," however, is debatable.
The Harris-Walz campaign must have realized it was a growing problem for the Democrat duo because “Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign quietly edited Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s biography on Thursday to remove a reference to him as a ‘retired command sergeant major,’” the Daily Caller reported. There is a definition of stolen valor, about falsely claiming awards and decorations, in the applicable 2013 legislation passed by Congress, but Walz's transgressions probably don't make the cut.
Other Politicians Have Made False Claims of Military Service
Other politicians have had glancing blows with claiming military service or accomplishments that were questionable. One notable example is Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who asserted while running for the US Senate that he had served in Vietnam. "There was one problem: Mr. Blumenthal, a Democrat now running for the United States Senate, never served in Vietnam. He obtained at least five military deferments from 1965 to 1970 and took repeated steps that enabled him to avoid going to war, according to records," The New York Times reported at the time. Blumenthal won his election anyway.
Another example was John Kerry. When running for president of the United States, he ran afoul of former Swift Boat (Fast Patrol Craft) colleagues who mounted a successful campaign to discredit his awards during his time as a US Navy officer and swift boat commander. The attacks on Kerry's service were effective, and the rounds were put below the water line, sinking the would-be president's campaign. Regardless of whether the allegations of inflated service were accurate, Kerry's anti-war behavior while Americans were fighting and dying in Vietnam was unseemly enough to make the charges of Kerry's inflated commendations have the ring of truth.
So, Governor Tim Walz does have a bit of a credibility problem. He has moved into the crosshairs of his opponent, Republican and vice-presidential nominee Senator JD Vance, who does have a military record that includes service in the Iraq combat zone. "As he campaigned in Michigan on Wednesday, Vance questioned whether Walz's departure from service months ahead of his unit's deployment to Iraq, calling it 'stolen valor garbage,'" the Associated Press reported.
Presidential campaigns are highly charged affairs – but candidates don’t do themselves any favors by providing obvious fodder for their opponents to seize on during the rhetorical hand-to-hand combat. Governor Walz leaving his unit before its deployment to run for political office does not mark him as a villain. Leaving his audience during a campaign stop with the impression he saw combat, well, that's shoddy behavior – but it can be chalked up to misplaced metaphorical exuberant bravado. It does, however, call into question Walz's character as a potential holder of the second-highest office in the land. And for the governor to claim he retired as a command sergeant major when it was his choice to retire as the lower rank of master sergeant – well, that is something else.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
