ROCHESTER, Minn. – Opposition researchers at the Trump presidential campaign either intentionally distorted information on the military record of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, now a vice presidential candidate, or didn’t fully check it out. They claimed Walz, a top-level National Guard sergeant, chose to retire early avoid call-up for the Iraq war. It wasn’t so, according to Army and Federal Election Commission documents. The sequence:
> February 2005. Walz filed papers to run for Congress from southern Minnesota’s MN-1 Congressional District.
> May 2005. Walz retired from the Guard to run for Congress. At age 41 Walz had topped-out his part-time Guard career as an E-9 command sergeant major. This was after 24 years of Guard duty.
> July 2005. Walz’s combat team was alerted to await possible deployment.
> March 2006. The unit was deployed for training.
> November 2006. Walz won election to Congress. His House committee work was mostly for veterans benefits.
The Gulf war had dated to 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The possibility of U.S. military involvement had been on every American’s mind for 15 years. Even so, the current Republican vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, relying on flawed Trump oppo research, has accused Walz of skipping out to avoid combat: “You abandoned your unit right before they went to Iraq,” Vance said campaigning th week in Detroit and Eau Claire. Although untrue, Vance’s accusation wasn’t new. In 2018, when Walz as running for governor after 12 years in Congress, two former Guard members, still carrying a grudge, asserted on Facebook that Walz quit and left his soldiers “hanging.” The suggestion, of a dissertion of some sort, never took never gained traction and had been largely dormant until resurrected by Vance.
Walz at 17. Joined Nebraska National Guard in high school. When teaching later at Mankato West High School, he transferred to Minnesota Guard.
“Swiftboating” on Kerry
In the 2004 presidential election a Republican-backed group of Vietnam veterans accused the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, a swift boat officer in-the war, of faking his war record and not deserving of his war medals. The attack was untrue, and Kerry saw it unworthy of a response. He lost the election. Political analysists have come since to agree that candidates should quickly counter “swiftboating,” as the tactic of false war accusations has come to be called.
Verbatim
Vance: “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 a great by a lot of the people to be served with.” (Fact check: Overstated at the least and conveniently misleading.)