No One Denigrated Tim Walz’s Military Service More Than He Did Himself

Governor Tim Walz’s (D-MN) military career has been the subject of much scrutiny over the past few days, ever since Vice President Kamala Harris tapped him to round out the Democratic Party’s 2024 ticket.

Accusations of “stolen valor” and claims that he lied about his service quickly began to circulate along with the receipts, and while Democrats rally to defend him — and accuse Republicans of “denigrating” his service — it has become blindingly apparent that no one has done more to diminish Walz’s military accomplishments than he has.

That’s not to discount the 24 years Walz served: the Minnesota governor enlisted in the Nebraska National Guard when he was just 17 years old, serving there from 1981-1996. He then transferred to the Minnesota National Guard, where he served from 1996-2005 — bringing his total time in service to just over 24 years. In that time, he earned the rank of master sergeant (E-8).

But Walz, according to numerous reports, has repeatedly “embellished” his military service. His official Capitol Hill biography — which he made no move to correct — stated that he retired at the rank of command sergeant major. However, the Minnesota National Guard disputes that and says that Walz, though conditionally promoted to CSM just prior to his retirement, failed to meet the conditions and was returned to his previous rank. In the Army, such a move might earn him the nickname “PX Ranger” — someone who bought his rank rather than earning it.

Other reports — some from the Minnesota National Guard soldiers who ultimately deployed without him — state that Walz backed out of those conditions and forfeited his promotion only after learning that his unit was set to deploy to Iraq. A move like that, leaving his men high and dry, would earn him the slightly less attractive code name Blue Falcon — translated: “Buddy f***er.”

Despite all that, in the time since, Walz has often referenced his service in more generous terms than perhaps it warrants. He’s said on a number of occasions that he “deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)” without offering any sort of clarification unless he was directly asked. When most people hear OEF referenced that way, they would likely assume Walz had deployed to Afghanistan — and Walz was undoubtedly aware of that.

In his efforts to promote stricter gun control, Walz has claimed that he just wants to make sure that “weapons of war, that I carried in war” cannot be owned and carried by civilians outside of combat. The obvious problem with that statement is that Walz never carried such weapons in combat because he never served in a combat zone.

Over the last 48 hours, since Harris named Walz as her running mate, the stories have come spilling out — and Democrats have scrambled to protect Walz and attack anyone who dares to suggest that he’s done anything less than honorable.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, also an Army veteran, jabbed at the Republican vice presidential nominee — Ohio Senator and Marine Corps veteran JD Vance — in a post on X, saying, “Come to think of it, denigrating the worth of a soldier’s service based on whether he deployed to a war zone is… kind of like denigrating the worth of a woman’s citizenship based on whether she happens to have children.”

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) used the opportunity to denigrate Vance’s service, saying, “Ok. JD served honorably, but he wasn’t kicking down doors. He was in public affairs. Which again, is fine and honorable. Tim, after he was eligible for retirement, retired. People do that. If it was a real problem he would have been ‘stop lossed’ and prevented from retiring.”

But the reality is that no one has denigrated Walz’s service more than he did himself. He was the one who decided that 24 years and one month was not enough (he often claims he served 25 years). He was the one who decided that a deployment to Italy — in support of troops on the ground in Afghanistan (OEF) — was not as glamorous as letting people assume that he’d been in combat himself. He was the one who decided there was no real need to correct the record when his official congressional biography reflected a higher rank than his retirement records. And he is the one who, to sell gun control, continues to insinuate that he served in a combat zone.

What’s truly insulting to his service is that, in most cases, he has stopped just short of telling the actual lie himself. He simply left the statements open to interpretation — “I deployed in support of OEF” — knowing how the statements were likely to be interpreted and letting others do the real heavy lifting when it came to inflating his resume.

The Army has a list of core values that are taught in the form of an acronym: LDRSHIP. Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. Walz’s carefully cultivated statements — and equally cultivated omissions — fly in the face of nearly all of them.

***Virginia Kruta is a 10-year Army veteran, and although she did not deploy herself, she is also the daughter of an OEF veteran who served near Kandahar and the granddaughter of two World War II veterans.