OAN Staff Brooke Mallory
2:58 PM – Wednesday, August 7, 2024
Minnesota’s National Guard is contesting Gov. Tim Walz’s military biography, maintaining that the Democrat nominee for vice president did not hold the rank of command sergeant major at the time of his retirement like he has claimed, Newsweek reported.
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According to the state of Minnesota’s official website, Walz’s official biography as governor reads, “Command Sergeant Major Walz retired from the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion in 2005.” However, the governor retired as a Master Sergeant “because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy,” according to Army Lt. Col. Army Kristen Augé, the state public affairs officer for the Minnesota National Guard, who made the announcement on Wednesday.
A soldier who fails to finish the requisite coursework required will be demoted automatically, according to Army standards.
The controversy surrounding Walz’s military service, which began during his first run for governor in 2018, has been highlighted once again, but this time, by detractors of Vice President Kamala Harris, who named him her vice presidential pick as the Democrat nominee in the November election earlier this week.
The widely recognized notion of stolen valor entails lying about the extent of one’s military experience. Command Sgt. Maj. Tom Behrends, who succeeded Walz and ultimately deployed to Iraq in his place, asserted that it is a true reflection of his morality and character, saying, “The public needs to know how pathetic his leadership was as a National Guardsman.”
Another retired command sergeant major in the Minnesota National Guard, Paul Herr, similarly criticized Walz for abandoning his battalion right before their deployment to Iraq.
Walz was chosen in 2004 to lead the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion as command sergeant major. By September of the same year, he was given a conditional promotion to the rank, according to the letter Behrends and Herr shared on Facebook.
However, Walz’s unit received orders to prepare for an active-duty deployment to Iraq at the beginning of 2005. Walz then abruptly “quit, leaving the 1-125th Field Artillery Battalion and its Soldiers hanging; without its senior non-commissioned Officer, as the battalion prepared for war,” the letter reads.
“When your country calls, you are supposed to run into battle—not the other way,” Behrends told the New York Post on Tuesday. “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.”
“He abandoned us. What the hell kind of leader does that? As soon as the shots were fired in Iraq, he turned and ran the other way and hung his hat up and quit,” Behrends added.
Representative Jack Bergman, a Republican from Michigan who was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, told reporters on Wednesday that he intends to investigate further into Walz’s time served with the National Guard. Bergman is a member of the Military Personnel Subcommittee and the House Armed Services Committee.
“I’m a Marine, and you either go to the sound of the guns or you run from the sound of the guns,” Bergman said. “My staff is doing a deep dive into all the details of Walz’s service to make sure that the portrait that’s being presented of his service is accurate. And the point is, if you sign up in the military to not go to the sound of the guns, you probably shouldn’t have signed up in the first place.”
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